News gathered 2024-08-11
(date: 2024-08-11 10:13:49)
2025 BMW Z4 shifts onto the scene
date: 2024-08-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
The 2025 BMW Z4 M40i is a driver’s delight. With its new optional six-speed manual transmission installed, the rear-wheel-drive, two-seat roadster is keen for daily transportation. But it’s at its best on a winding country road, top down. It’s an automotive stress deflator.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/08/11/2025-bmw-z4-shifts-onto-the-scene/
The 2024 Toyota Tacoma Double Cab 4×4 TRD Off Road Pickup Truck
date: 2024-08-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
What is a Tacoma? A Tacoma is a midsize pickup truck built in the Guanajuato, Mexico assembly plant and sold worldwide by Toyota. Pickup trucks have a very long shelf life and the design and platform can easily last 15 to 20 years.
49ers’ Kyle Shanahan surrenders play-calling duties for a night — and probably won’t again
date: 2024-08-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
For the first time in 16 years, Kyle Shanahan isn’t the play-caller when his offense is on the field.
Review: Sabrina Carpenter wows in festival headliner debut at Outside Lands
date: 2024-08-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
Sabrina Carpenter, one of pop music’s rising stars, prepped for upcoming concert tour with a winning set at Outside Lands festival.
Making the Strofara
date: 2024-08-11, from: Stavros Stuff
This is going to be pretty specific to a Greek audience, as it’s all based on a Greek meme video, but I’ll try to explain. Watch the video first so you know what I’m talking about while I describe it:
Two guys are driving on a road near a remote village
https://www.stavros.io/posts/making-the-strofara/
Wall St Week Ahead — Rollercoaster week in US stocks leaves investors braced for bumps ahead
date: 2024-08-11, from: VOA News USA
New York — A week of wild market swings has investors looking ahead to inflation data, corporate earnings and presidential polls for signals that could soothe a recent outbreak of turbulence in U.S. stocks.
Following months of placid trading, U.S. stock volatility has surged this month as a run of alarming data coincided with the unwinding of a massive, yen-fueled carry trade to deal equities their worst selloff of the year. The S&P 500 .SPX is still down around 6% from a record high set last month, even after making up ground in a series of rallies after Monday’s crushing selloff.
At issue for many investors is the trajectory of the U.S. economy. After months of betting on an economic soft landing, investors rushed to price in the risk of a more severe downturn, following weaker-than-expected manufacturing and employment data last week.
“Everybody is now worried about the economy,” said Bob Kalman, a portfolio manager at Miramar Capital. “We are moving away from the greed portion of the program and now the market is facing the fear of significant geopolitical risks, a hotly contested election and volatility that is not going away.”
Though stocks have rallied in recent days, traders believe it will be a while before calm returns to markets. Indeed, the historical behavior of the Cboe Volatility Index .VIX - which saw its biggest one-day jump ever on Monday - shows that surges of volatility usually take months to dissipate.
Known as Wall Street’s fear gauge, the index measures demand for options protection from market swings. When it closes above 35 - an elevated level that it topped on Monday - the index has taken 170 sessions on average to return to 17.6, its long-term median and a level associated with far less extreme investor anxiety, a Reuters analysis showed.
One potential flashpoint will be when the U.S. reports consumer price data on Wednesday. Signs that inflation is dropping too steeply could bolster fears that the Federal Reserve has sent the economy into a tailspin by leaving interest rates elevated for too long, contributing to market turbulence.
For now, futures markets are pricing in a 55% chance the central bank will bring down benchmark interest rates by 50 basis points in September, at its next policy meeting, compared with a roughly 5% chance seen a month ago.
“Slower payroll growth reinforces that U.S. economic risks are becoming more two-sided as inflation cools and activity slows,” said Oscar Munoz, chief U.S. macro strategist at TD Securities, in a recent note.
Corporate earnings, meanwhile, have been neither strong enough nor weak enough to give the market direction, said Charles Lemonides, head of hedge fund ValueWorks LLC.
Overall, companies in the S&P 500 have reported second-quarter results that are 4.1% above expectations, in line with the long-term average of 4.2% above expectations, according to LSEG data.
Walmart WMT.N and Home Depot HD.N are among companies reporting earnings next week, with their results seen as offering a snapshot on how U.S. consumers are holding up after months of elevated interest rates.
The end of the month brings earnings from chip giant Nvidia NVDA.O, whose shares are up around 110% this year even after a recent selloff. The Fed’s annual Jackson Hole gathering, set for Aug. 22-24, will give policymakers another chance to fine tune their monetary policy message before their September meeting.
Lemonides believes the recent volatility is a healthy correction during an otherwise strong bull market, and he initiated a position in Amazon.com AMZN.O to take advantage of its weakness.
The U.S. presidential race is also likely to ramp up uncertainty.
Democrat Kamala Harris leads Republican Donald Trump 42% to 37% in the race for the Nov. 5 presidential election, according to an Ipsos poll published on Thursday. Harris, the vice president, entered the race on July 21 when President Joe Biden folded his campaign following a disastrous debate performance on June 27 against Trump.
With nearly three months until the Nov. 5 vote, investors are braced for plenty of additional twists and turns in an election year that has already been one of the most dramatic in recent memory.
“While early events suggested a clearer picture of US Presidential and Congressional outcomes, more recent events have again thrown the outcome into doubt,” analysts at JPMorgan wrote.
Chris Marangi, co-chief investment officer of value at Gabelli Funds, believes the election will add to market volatility. At the same time, expected rate cuts in September could boost a rotation into areas of the market that have lagged in a year that has been dominated by Big Tech, he said.
“We expect increased volatility into the election but the underlying rotation to continue as lower rates offset economic weakness,” he said.
A’ja Wilson, US women hold off France to win eighth straight Olympic basketball gold medal
date: 2024-08-11, from: VOA News USA
Paris — A’ja Wilson scored 21 points and the U.S. women’s basketball team survived the biggest challenge of its unprecedented run to eight straight Olympic gold medals with a 67-66 win over France at the Paris Games on Sunday.
No team had been able to push the Americans during this impressive streak of 61 consecutive wins. Only two of those victories had been by single digits before the game against France.
The eight straight golds broke a tie with the American men’s program that won seven in a row from 1936-68. The women’s victory came less than 24 hours after the U.S. men’s team also beat France in the title game. This was the first time in Olympic history that both gold medal games featured the same two teams.
Unlike the men’s game this one came down to the final minute and one last shot by France that was just inside the 3-point line.
The Americans were up 67-64 with 3.9 seconds left after Kahleah Copper hit two free throws. Marine Johannes brought the ball up the court to Gabby Williams who caught the ball just inside the 3-point line and banked in over the outstreched arms of Breanna Srewart for the final margin.
There was a brief delay before the officials signaled that it was a two-point shot, which led to the beginning of a celebration and a lot of happy hugs for the Americans and left the French players standing in disbelief as they fell just short.
Williams, who finished with 19 points, had hit a deep 3 a few seconds earlier to get France within one before Copper’s free throws.
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-11, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
At some point ChatGPT will imho be programmed to compile C apps to JavaScript, for example, even large ones with bugs.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/11.html#a160013
Fifty shades of people and their blogs
date: 2024-08-11, from: Manu - I write blog
<p>This past Friday the 50th interview of the People and Blogs series went live and we’re also about to close the first year for this series. As always, milestones are arbitrary but I thought it would be fun to take a moment to look back at the first 50 interviews.</p>First thing first, a big, big thank you to all the wonderful guests who took the time to answer my questions. I am technically the creator of this series but what matters are the people—and their blogs. So thank you 50x to all you wonderful folks, but also thank you to the people who have answered my questions already but whose interviews aren’t live yet. As I think I wrote before, I try to keep a buffer and so I always have a few interviews that are ready to go.
I’m sure the numbers are not actually correct because I did this very quickly but collectively, we wrote 91.141 words, 504.217 characters. The most used word is, unsurprisingly, I. Aside from the other usual suspects—a, the, to, etc—the most common word is, quite fittingly, blog.
The average interview is 1822 words with Derek Sivers and Matthew Graybosch at the two ends of the spectrum with 487 and 5666 words respectively. In terms of distribution, 5 guests wrote less than 1000 words, 30 are between 1000 and 2000, 9 are in the 2000 to 3000 range, 4 in the 3000 to 4000, 1—Riccardo Mori—is in the 4000 to 5000 bracket and as mentioned Matthew is so far the only guest over 5000 words. I don’t have rules when it comes to length and it’s always interesting to see how much people end up writing.
Also interesting how the overwhelming majority of guests spend a similar amount of money to run their blogs. I didn’t double-check this but I think almost everyone is in the 50$ to 150$ a year. I might do a deeper dive at some point and plot costs and techs used by the people interviewed. Maybe when we get to 100. That could be fun.
Since we’re talking numbers, how about the audience of the series? Crunching numbers is a bit hard since the interviews are delivered via newsletter, RSS, and can also be read on the blog and only the newsletter has some actual numbers. If I had to guess, probably a few thousand people are reading these interviews. But that’s just an educated guess. We’ll never know for sure.
What we do know for sure is that 74 people are currently very kindly supporting it on Ko-Fi and I have to give a shout-out to Jamie Thingelstad who decided to become a supporter even before the first interview went live. I appreciate the trust Jamie. I’m also particularly happy with the fact that a bunch of the supporters have been featured on the series. There are a couple of things I have planned and their feasibility is strictly tied to how many people support the series so if you do enjoy it, please consider becoming a supporter for as little as 1$ a month.
50 interviews, 50 people, and 50 blogs. I renewed the other day the domain name for another year so we’ll for sure get to 100 at least. Will we ever get to 500? How about 1000? Can I run this series for the next 20 years? Will people blog in 20 years? If you’re a time traveler get in touch because I’d love to know.
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https://manuelmoreale.com/@/page/bQcH9XzluIY1Z2Cs
‘He was screaming’…then it stopped: Witnesses detail Union City homicide by the railroad tracks
date: 2024-08-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
Witnesses testified that 49-year-old Brandon Kong used a frying pan to beat his victim, before strangling the man as he cried for help.
US women edge France in a thriller to win eighth straight Olympic basketball gold medal
date: 2024-08-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
Paris Olympics: A’ja Wilson leads United States as Americans overcome 10-point second-half deficit to beat France.
US commits to freeing Americans held by Taliban in Afghanistan
date: 2024-08-11, from: VOA News USA
Islamabad — The United States has promised to make every effort to secure the release of three Americans whom it says are being held “unjustly” by Taliban authorities in Afghanistan.
The detainees, Ryan Corbett, Mahmood Habibi, and George Glezmann, were taken captive in separate incidents in Kabul in 2022, roughly a year after the Taliban stormed back to power in the Afghan capital.
“My thoughts and prayers are with Ryan Corbett, Mahmood Habibi, and their families today,” Thomas West, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, said on X, formerly Twitter, marking the two-year anniversary of the capture of the two men.
“We will and we must continue every effort to bring them and George Glezmann home to their families,” he wrote Sunday.
Roger Carstens, the U.S. special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, in separate remarks posted on X, said that Ryan, Mahmood, and Glezmann “have been held for far too long and their families have endured unimaginable pain.”
Corbett, a humanitarian worker, was taken into custody in August 2022. He had lived, along with his family, and worked in Afghanistan for years before being evacuated during the August 2021 Taliban takeover following the withdrawal of U.S.-led Western troops.
Corbett returned to Afghanistan in 2022 and was detained by the Taliban but has not been charged with any crimes, according to his family.
Glezmann was visiting Kabul as a tourist lawfully traveling in Afghanistan when he was seized by the Taliban’s intelligence services on December 5, 2022, “without just cause or formal charge,” according to the Foley Foundation, working to secure freedom for Americans held unjustly captive abroad.
Separately on Saturday, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, released a statement seeking information into the disappearance of Habibi, saying he was taken from his vehicle near his home in the Afghan capital, along with his driver, on August 10, 2022.
The FBI stated that the Afghan-American businessman worked as a contractor for Asia Consultancy Group, a Kabul-based telecommunications company. “It is believed that Mr. Habibi was taken by Taliban military or security forces and has not been heard from since his disappearance,” the agency noted.
Habibi was detained by the Taliban reportedly on suspicion that his company was involved in a July 31 U.S. drone strike in Kabul that killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, the fugitive al-Qaida network chief. The FBI said that de facto Afghan authorities had also briefly detained 29 other employees of the Asia Consultancy Group.
The Taliban have not responded to the latest U.S. calls for releasing the three Americans.
While de facto Afghan authorities have publicly disclosed that Corbett and Glezmann are among “several foreign nationals” imprisoned in Afghanistan for allegedly violating local immigration and other laws, they refuse to acknowledge holding Habibi.
The Taliban announced last month they had discussed a possible prisoner exchange in direct talks with U.S. officials on the sidelines of an international conference in Doha, Qatar, hosted by the United Nations.
“During our meetings, we talked about the two American citizens who are in prison in Afghanistan,” Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s chief spokesperson, told reporters after the meeting.
“But they must accept Afghanistan’s conditions. We also have prisoners in America, prisoners in Guantanamo. We should free our prisoners in exchange for them,” he said without elaborating further.
Last week, the U.S. State Department spokesperson told reporters in Washington that U.S. officials have raised the detainees’ fate in every meeting with the Taliban.
Mathew Miller stated that Corbett and Glezmann “are wrongfully detained” according to the U.S. legal determination. “That’s not a determination we have yet made with respect to Mahmood Habibi, which is not to say we’re not working to try and secure his release,” he explained.
“Oftentimes, we can’t make a wrongful detention determination because we don’t have access to certain types of information or because the situation is unclear. There can be other factors as well,” Miller explained.
History Happy Hour in downtown Campbell looks at Joaquín Murrieta
date: 2024-08-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
Ainsley House hosts discussion of the 1850s bandido, folk hero.
Incumbents to run unopposed for two Saratoga City Council seats
date: 2024-08-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
Fitzsimmons, Walia to run for re-election in November.
Oasis Makers Fair returns to Sunnyvale hotel
date: 2024-08-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
Aug. 21 event to focus on health and beauty products.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/08/11/oasis-makers-fair-returns-to-sunnyvale-hotel-2/
San Jose neighborhood celebrates centennial Aug. 24
date: 2024-08-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
Burrell Park was originally developed as affordable housing.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/08/11/san-jose-neighborhood-celebrates-centennial-aug-24/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-11, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
VP Kamala Harris & Gov. Tim Walz Campaign in Las Vegas.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?537545-1/vp-kamala-harris-gov-tim-walz-campaign-las-vegas=undefined
Verso: a browser using Servo
date: 2024-08-11, from: OS News
I regularly report on the progress made by the Servo project, the Rust-based browser engine that was spun out of Mozilla into its own project. Servo has its own reference browser implementation, too, but did you know there’s already other browsers using Servo, too? Sure, it’s clearly a work-in-progress thing, and it’s missing just about every feature we’ve come to expect from a browser, but it’s cool nonetheless. Verso is a web browser built on top of Servo web engine. It’s still under development. We dont’ accept any feature request at the moment. But if you are interested, feel free to help test it. ↫ Verso GitHub page It runs on Linux, Windows, and macOS.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140462/verso-a-browser-using-servo/
Wayland merges new screen capture protocols
date: 2024-08-11, from: OS News
Nearly three years in the making, the ext-image-capture-source-v1 and ext-image-copy-capture-v1 protocols have been merged into the Wayland Protocols repository for vastly improving screen capture support on the Wayland desktop. The ext-image-capture-source-v1 and ext-image-copy-capture-v1 screen copy protocols build upon wlroots’ wlr-screencopy-unstable-v1 with various improvements for better screen capture support under Wayland. These new protocols should allow for better performance and window capturing support for use-cases around RDP/VNC remote desktop, screen sharing, and more. ↫ Michael Larabel A very big addition to Wayland, as this has been a sore spot for many people wishing to move to Wayland from X. One of the developers behind the effort has penned a blog post with more details about these new protocols.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140459/wayland-merges-new-screen-capture-protocols/
Debby finally moves out of the US, some flooding risk and power outages remain
date: 2024-08-11, from: VOA News USA
World Elephant Day
date: 2024-08-11, from: National Archives, Pieces of History blog
Today’s post comes from Thomas Richardson, an expert archives technician at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis, Missouri. They’re the largest land animals, have the longest gestation period for land animals, are hard workers, are the core of many religious beliefs, and have done everything from going to war to protecting the … Continue reading World Elephant Day
https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2024/08/11/world-elephant-day/
@Hans Otten’s, Pascal for small machines (date: 2024-08-11, from: Hans Otten’s, Pascal for small machines)
Additions to the Jim Welsh pages, Queen’s University Belfast and Emerate Professor at The University of Queensland Brisbane, School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering – 1900 Pascal User’s Guide,- Sources of 1900 Pascal Compiler MK 2. As explained in the next Summary, the CDC compiler was ported in a number of steps to the […]
http://pascal.hansotten.com/2024/08/11/2643/
USOPC says it will appeal decision forcing US gymnast Jordan Chiles to return her bronze medal
date: 2024-08-11, from: VOA News USA
Paris — U.S. Olympic officials say they will appeal a court ruling that resulted in American gymnast Jordan Chiles being asked to return the bronze medal she won in the Paris Olympics floor exercise.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) voided an on-floor appeal by Chiles’ coach that vaulted her to third, saying the appeal came 4 seconds beyond the 1-minute time limit for scoring inquiries.
The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) said Saturday night it would respect the court’s decision and elevate Barbosu to third. The International Olympic Committee confirmed the ruling Sunday, announcing that it was reallocating the bronze from last Monday’s women’s floor final to Romanian Ana Barbosu.
“We firmly believe that Jordan rightfully earned the bronze medal, and there were critical errors in both the initial scoring by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) and the subsequent CAS appeal process that need to be addressed,” the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee statement said.
CAS ruled Saturday that Team USA coach Cecile Landi’s appeal to have 0.1 added to Chiles’ score came outside the 1-minute window allowed by the FIG. The ad hoc committee wrote that Landi’s inquiry came 1 minute, 4 seconds after Chiles’ initial score was posted.
The IOC said in a statement it will be in touch with the USOPC regarding the return of Chiles’ bronze and will work with the Romanian Olympic Committee to discuss a reallocation ceremony honoring Barbosu.
“The initial error occurred in the scoring by FIG, and the second error was during the CAS appeal process, where the USOPC was not given adequate time or notice to effectively challenge the decision,” said the USOPC statement, which was released Sunday.
It was unclear the exact process the appeal would take first. The two potential places the USOPC could take the appeal would be to Switzerland’s highest court, the Swiss Tribunal or the European Court of Human Rights.
CAS wrote Saturday that the initial finishing order should be restored, with Barbosu third, Romanian Sabrina Maneca-Voinea fourth and Chiles fifth. The organization added the FIG should determine the final ranking “in accordance with the above decision,” but left it up to the federation to decide who would get the medal behind gold winner Rebeca Andrade of Brazil and silver medalist Simone Biles of the U.S.
The FIG said it was the IOC’s call on whether to reallocate the medal. The IOC confirmed Sunday it would respect FIG’s decision and seek to have Chiles’ medal returned.
The rapid turn of events adds another layer to what has been a difficult few days for all three athletes.
Romanian gymnastics legend and 1976 Olympic champion Nadia Comaneci feared for Barbosu’s mental health because of the wrenching sequence in which she went from bronze medalist to fourth-place finisher.
“I can’t believe we play with athletes mental health and emotions like this… let’s protect them,” Comaneci posted on X earlier in the week.
Comaneci, at the same time, criticized the judges for the way they scored Maneca-Voinea’s routine — the gymnast was docked 0.1 points for stepping out of bounds, but viral replays showed she narrowly stayed inbounds. Comaneci urged the Romanian Olympic Committee to protest, which it did, but CAS denied that appeal.
Chiles hinted at the decision in an Instagram story on Saturday, indicating she is heartbroken and is “taking this time and removing myself from social media for my mental health, thank you.”
Jazmin Chiles, Jordan’s sister, said on Instagram that Chiles was stripped of a medal “not because she wasn’t good enough. But because the judges failed to give her difficulty and forced an inquiry to be made.”
U.S. teammates offered support to Chiles, a two-time Olympian.
“Sending you so much love Jordan,” American star Simone Biles posted on Instagram. “Keep your chin up ‘Olympic champ’ we love you.”
“All this talk about the athlete, what about the judges?” six-time Olympic medalist Sunisa Lee added on Instagram. “Completely unacceptable, this is awful and I’m gutted for jordan.”
USA Gymnastics said in a statement on Saturday it is “devastated” by the ruling.
“The inquiry into the Difficulty Value of Jordan Chiles’ floor exercise routine was filed in good faith and, we believed, in accordance with FIG rules to ensure accurate scoring,” the organization wrote.
Barbosu and Maneca-Voinea were left outside the medals in the floor final after finishing with matching scores of 13.700. Barbosu thought she had won bronze over Maneca-Voinea via a tiebreaker — a higher execution score — and began celebrating with a Romanian flag.
Chiles was the last athlete to compete and initially given a score of 13.666 that placed her fifth, right behind Maneca-Voinea. Landi called for an inquiry on Chiles’ score was announced.
“At this point, we had nothing to lose, so I was like ‘We’re just going to try,’” Landi said after the awards ceremony. “I honestly didn’t think it was going to happen, but when I heard her scream, I turned around and was like ‘What?’”
Judges awarded the appeal, leapfrogging Chiles past Barbosu and Maneca-Voinea.
Barbosu made it a point after returning home to Romania that she had no problem with Chiles.
“I only want for everybody to be fair, we don’t want to start picking on other athletes of any nationality,” Barbosu told reporters. “We as athletes don’t deserve something like that, we only want to perform as best as we can and to be rewarded based on our performance. The problems lie with the judges, with their calculations and decisions.”
Chiles’ mother, Gina Chiles, called out the critics in a post, writing she was “tired” of the derogatory comments being leveled at Jordan.
“My daughter is a highly decorated Olympian with the biggest heart and a level of sportsmanship that is unmatched,” Gina Chiles posted. “And she’s being called disgusting things.”
The uncertainty also tinges what had been a beautiful moment on the medal stand, when Chiles and Biles knelt to honor Andrade after the Brazilian star won her fourth medal in Paris.
“It was just the right thing to do,” Biles said about a moment that soon went viral, with even the Louvre itself suggesting it might be worthy enough for a spot somewhere in the vicinity of the Mona Lisa.
That memory now carries a complicated and emotional postscript.
https://www.voanews.com/a/american-gymnast-chiles-must-return-bronze-medal-ioc-says/7738025.html
Today in SCV History (Aug. 11)
date: 2024-08-11, from: SCV New (TV Station)
2018 – Big Oaks Lodge in Bouquet Canyon burns down [video
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-aug-11/
US abortion numbers rise since Roe was overturned, study finds
date: 2024-08-11, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-abortion-numbers-rise-since-roe-was-overturned-study-finds/7733298.html
Farmers honor ‘Peanuts’ creator with corn mazes in US, Canada
date: 2024-08-11, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — Visitors to corn mazes across the country are finding a familiar and joyous figure in the winding labyrinth of tall stalks. Snoopy.
More than 80 farms in the U.S. and Canada have teamed up with Peanuts Worldwide to create “Peanuts”-themed mazes to celebrate the beloved strip’s 75th birthday this summer and fall.
A massive Snoopy rests on top of his doghouse in a maze at Dull’s Tree Farm in Thorntown, Indiana, and he’s depicted gleefully atop a pumpkin at Downey’s Farm in Caledon, Ontario.
“All of these events helps keep my dad’s legacy alive,” says Jill Schulz, an actor and daughter of “Peanuts” creator Charles M. Schulz.
“As someone who can’t even keep houseplants alive, the fact that they can do that with a corn maze and get the artwork right and create a fun experience for all ages is pretty incredible,” she adds, laughing.
The mazes — which span 35 states and provinces, from California to New York, Ontario to Texas — are expected to attract more than 2 million visitors. Farmers are signing up for the free service because the mazes are part of the customer lure, in addition to things like hay rides, fresh produce and pumpkin carvings.
Each maze is designed for the size of the farm — from 1.5 acres to 20 acres — and are mostly corn but also sunflowers. They’re custom created by the world’s largest corn maze consulting company, The MAiZE Inc.
The Utah-based Brett Herbst, who leads the company and who launched his first corn maze in 1996, says technology has only somewhat changed the way corn mazes are made.
“The first year we did it, we just used a weed whacker with a saw blade on it when the corn was fully grown,” he says. “Now we do it when it’s short and we go in and either mow it or rototill it. We design it all on a computer, but most of it we actually just go draw it out on the ground by hand.”
He and his team have over the years designed mazes with everything from the faces of presidential candidates, Oprah Winfrey, zombies, John Wayne and Chris LeDoux. Charlie Brown and Co. just work well, he says.
“It’s very nostalgic and just seemed like a very natural fit from the get-go to embrace that with ‘Peanuts,’” he says. “It’s harvest time. It’s kind of become this iconic thing.”
There’s an art and a science to maze building, a balance between maintaining the integrity of the image, but also making it a true maze where people can actually get lost in. “That’s definitely a challenge there,” says Herbst. “You want to accomplish both as much as possible.”
“Peanuts” made its debut Oct. 2, 1950. The travails of the “little round-headed kid” Charlie Brown and his pals eventually ran in more than 2,600 newspapers, reaching millions of readers in 75 countries.
The strip offers enduring images of kites in trees, Charlie Brown trying to kick a football, tart-tongued Lucy handing out advice for a nickel and Snoopy taking the occasional flight of fancy to the skies. Phrases such as “security blanket” and “good grief” are a part of the global vernacular. Schulz died in 2000.
There’s something timeless about corn mazes, and that’s what excites Jill Schulz so much. They offer kids a chance to disconnect from their online life and celebrate something their parents did.
“It’s great to have an opportunity to just bring kids to events that are old school, because it’s also important for parents and grandparents to introduce something they loved to do as a child,” she says.
“I think we all need a little innocence for our children right now with all the technology out there. We need a little ‘put down your phone and go out and have some good old fashioned, old school family time.’ I think that’s important.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/farmers-honor-peanuts-creator-with-corn-mazes-in-us-canada/7734366.html
Here’s what to know about NASA astronauts’ delayed return to Earth
date: 2024-08-11, from: VOA News USA
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — NASA is wrestling over how and when to bring two astronauts back from the International Space Station, after repeatedly delaying their return aboard Boeing’s troubled capsule.
Do they take a chance and send them home soon in Boeing’s Starliner? Or wait and bring them back next year with SpaceX?
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have been up there since early June, their planned eight-day mission at the two-month mark and possibly surpassing eight months.
Testing continues, with Boeing expressing confidence in its spacecraft but NASA divided. A decision is expected next week.
What’s wrong with Boeing’s Starliner?
This is Boeing’s first time launching astronauts, after flying a pair of empty Starliners that suffered software and other issues. Even before Wilmore and Williams blasted off June 5, their capsule sprang a leak in propulsion-related plumbing. Boeing and NASA judged the small helium leak to be stable and isolated, and proceeded with the test flight. But as Starliner approached the space station the next day, four more leaks erupted. Five thrusters also failed.
The capsule managed to dock safely, and four of the thrusters ultimately worked. But engineers scrambled, conducting thruster test-firings on the ground and in space. After two months, there’s still no root cause for the thruster malfunctions. All but one of the 28 thrusters seem OK, but the fear is that if too many conk out again, the crew’s safety could be jeopardized. The thrusters are needed at flight’s end to keep the capsule in the right position for the critical deorbit burn.
Are the two astronauts stranded?
NASA bristles at suggestions that Wilmore and Williams are stranded or stuck. NASA has stressed from the get-go that in an emergency at the space station — like a fire or decompression — Starliner could still be used by the pair as a lifeboat to leave. A former NASA executive said Thursday the astronauts are “kind of stuck,” although certainly not stranded. They’re safe aboard the space station with plenty of supplies and work to do, said Scott Hubbard.
If NASA decides to go with a SpaceX return, Starliner would be be cut loose first to open up one of two parking spots for U.S. capsules. Before that happens Wilmore and Williams would fashion seats for themselves in the SpaceX Dragon capsule currently docked at the space station. That’s because every station occupant needs a lifeboat at all times. Once Starliner’s docking port is empty, then SpaceX could launch another Dragon to fill that slot — the one that Wilmore and Williams would ride.
Why might they have to wait until next year?
Like Boeing’s Starliner, SpaceX’s Dragon is meant to carry four astronauts. To make room for Wilmore and Williams, NASA said Wednesday it could bump two of the four astronauts due to launch to the space station next month with SpaceX. The empty seats would be reserved for Wilmore and Williams, but they would have to remain up there until February. That’s because station missions are supposed to last at least six months. Some have lasted a year. Two Russians up there right now will close out a yearlong stint when they return in a three-seat Soyuz capsule in September alongside a NASA crewmate. There’s no thought given to ordering up a special SpaceX express, and the Dragon at the station now is the ride home next month for four residents.
This isn’t the first time a U.S. astronaut has had their stay extended. NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and his two Russian crewmates ended up spending just over a year in space after their docked Soyuz capsule was hit by space junk and leaked all its coolant. An empty Russian capsule was sent up to bring them back last September.
What do the astronauts think about all this?
Wilmore and Williams are both retired Navy captains and longtime NASA astronauts who already have long space station missions behind them. Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, said going into this test flight that they expected to learn a lot about Starliner and how it operates. At their only news conference from space in July, they assured reporters they were keeping busy, helping with repairs and research, and expressed confidence in all the Starliner testing going on behind the scenes. There’s been no public word from them yet on the prospects of an eight-month stay.
Is there enough food, water and air?
Wilmore and Williams’ suitcases were removed from Starliner before liftoff to make room for equipment urgently needed for the space station’s urine-into-drinking-water recycling system. So they made do with spare clothes already up there. A supply ship finally arrived this week with their clothes, along with extra food and science experiments for the entire nine-person crew. More supplies are due in a few more months. As for air, the space station has its own oxygen-generating systems. Despite the fat reserves, NASA would like to get back to normal as soon as possible. Besides Wilmore and Williams, there are four other Americans and three Russians on board.
Why is NASA sticking with Starliner?
NASA deliberately hired two companies to get its crews to and from the space station, just as it did for delivering cargo. The space agency considered it an insurance policy of sorts: If one crew or cargo provider was grounded, the other could carry the load. ’You want to have another alternative both for cost reasons and for safety reasons and options. So NASA needs Boeing to be successful,” said Hubbard, who served on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in 2003.
Even with the latest setbacks, NASA insists it wants to keep using Boeing Starliners for astronaut rides. The goal is to send up one Dragon and one Starliner every year with crews, six months apart, until the station is retired in 2030. SpaceX has been at it since 2020.
What does Boeing say?
Boeing insists its capsule could still safely bring the astronauts home. But the company said Wednesday it would take the steps necessary to bring the capsule back empty if that’s NASA’s decision. Last week, the company posted a list of all the tests that have been done on the thrusters since liftoff.
“We still believe in Starliner’s capability and its flight rationale.” the company said.
A longtime space contractor, Boeing has had to overcome multiple Starliner problems over the years. The company had to launch an empty Starliner twice before committing to a crew, repeating the initial flight test because of bad software and other issues. The delays have cost the company more than $1 billion.
Hubbard questions whether NASA and Boeing should have launched the crew with the original helium leak, which cascaded into more.
“Whatever happens with the Starliner, they need to find out what the problem was and fix it,” he said, “And give everybody confidence they are still in the aerospace business in a major way.”
AP-NORC poll finds extreme heat is impacting most Americans’ electricity bills
date: 2024-08-11, from: VOA News USA
Washington — During the summer, Levena Lindahl closes off entire rooms, covers windows with blackout curtains and budgets to manage the monthly cost of electricity for air conditioning. But even then, the heat finds its way in.
“Going upstairs, it’s like walking into soup. It is so hot,” Lindahl said. “If I walk past my attic upstairs, you can feel the heat radiating through a closed door.”
Lindahl, 37, who lives in North Carolina, said her monthly electricity bills in the summer used to be around $100 years ago, but they’ve since doubled. She blames a gradual warming trend caused by climate change.
Around 7 in 10 Americans say in the last year extreme heat has had an impact on their electricity bills, ranging from minor to major, and most have seen at least a minor impact on their outdoor activities, according new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
As tens of millions of Americans swelter through another summer of historic heat waves, the survey’s findings reveal how extreme heat is changing people’s lives in big and small ways. The poll found that about 7 in 10 Americans have been personally affected by extremely hot weather or extreme heat waves over the past five years. That makes extreme heat a more common experience than other weather events or natural disasters like wildfires, major droughts and hurricanes, which up to one-third of U.S. adults said they’ve been personally affected by.
Sizable shares of Americans – around 4 in 10 – report that extreme heat has had at least a minor impact on their sleep, pets or exercise routine.
Jim Graham, 54, lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and worries about the safety of his dog’s paws when going on walks outside, especially when it gets above 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius). To protect her feet, they head out for walks at 5:30 a.m. “This year it seems hotter than usual,” said Graham. His single-level home has central air conditioning and even setting the thermostat to 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius) runs him over $350 a month in electricity bills, a big jump from what he used to pay about a decade ago.
He’s not the only one watching the dollars add up: About 4 in 10 Americans say they’ve had unexpectedly expensive utility bills in the past year because of storms, flood, heat, or wildfires, including nearly half of homeowners.
Like Lindahl, many see a link to climate change. About 7 in 10 U.S. adults who have experienced some type of severe weather events or weather disasters in the last five years say they believe climate change was a contributing factor. Three in 10 think climate change was not a cause.
Last year Earth was 2.66 degrees Fahrenheit (1.48 degrees Celsius) warmer than it was before pre-industrial times, according to the European climate agency Copernicus. Some might perceive that increase as insignificant, but temperatures are unevenly fluctuating across the planet and can be dangerous to human health. Several regions of the U.S. set all-time temperature records this summer, and Las Vegas reached a scorching 120 degrees Fahrenheit (48.9 degrees Celsius) on July 7.
According to the poll, about 1 in 10 Americans say that extreme heat has had a major impact on their sleep in the past year, while about 3 in 10 say it’s had a minor impact and 55% say it’s had no impact. Hispanic Americans are more likely than white Americans to say their sleep has been affected, and lower-income Americans are also more likely than higher-income Americans to report an effect on their sleep.
The effects of extreme heat are more widely reported in the West and South. About half of people living in the West say their sleep has been impacted at least in a minor way by extreme heat, while about 4 in 10 people living in the South say their sleep has been impacted, compared to about 3 in 10 people living in the Midwest and Northeast. People living in the West and South are also more likely than those in the Northeast to say their exercise routines have been affected.
Other aspects of daily life – like jobs and commutes, the timing of events like weddings and reunions, and travel and vacation plans – have been less broadly disrupted, but their impact is disproportionately felt among specific groups of Americans. About one-quarter of Americans say that their travel or vacation plans have been impacted by extreme heat, with Hispanic and Black Americans more likely than white Americans to say this.
Even simply enjoying time outside has become more difficult for some. The poll found that about 6 in 10 Americans say extreme heat has impacted outdoor activities for themselves or their family.
In general, people who don’t believe climate change is happening are less likely to report being affected by various aspects of extreme heat compared to people who do. For instance, about 8 in 10 Americans who believe that climate change is happening say extreme heat has had at least a minor impact on their electricity bills, compared to half of Americans who aren’t sure climate change is happening or don’t think it’s happening.
Mario Cianchetti, 70, is a retired engineer who now lives in Sedona, Arizona. His home has solar panels and heat pumps, which he installed because he was interested in lowering his electricity bills to save money. “When you retire, you’re on a single fixed income. I didn’t want to have to deal with rising energy costs,” said Cianchetti, who identified himself as a political independent.
Cianchetti noted that temperatures feel unusually warm but said installing sustainable technologies in his house was a matter of finance. “It’s not that I don’t believe in climate change, yeah I believe we’re going into a hot cycle here, but I don’t believe that it’s man-caused.”
When it comes to general views of climate change, 70% of U.S. adults say climate change is happening. About 6 in 10 of those who believe climate change is happening say that it’s caused entirely or mostly by human activities, while another 3 in 10 say it’s caused equally by human activities and natural changes to the environment and 12% believe it’s primarily caused by natural environmental change. Nine in 10 Democrats, 7 in 10 independents and about half of Republicans say climate change is happening.
Those numbers are essentially unchanged from when the question was last asked in April and have been steady in recent years, although about half of Americans say they have become more concerned about climate change over the past year.
(The poll of 1,143 adults was conducted July 25-29, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.)
Snake hunters will wrangle invasive pythons during Florida’s 10-day challenge
date: 2024-08-11, from: VOA News USA
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — Friday marked the start of the annual Florida Python Challenge, where hunters head into the Everglades to track down invasive Burmese pythons in hopes of grabbing a share of $30,000 in prizes.
The annual 10-day hunt, which started more than a decade ago, promotes public awareness of issues with invasive species in Florida while engaging the public in Everglades conversation, said Sarah Funck, the wildlife impact management section leader with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“They are a well-established invasive species across much of South Florida, unfortunately, in our natural areas,” Funck said of Burmese pythons. “A huge part of this challenge is to make sure that people understand about this issue and understand that in general, when you have a non-native species present in the state for whatever purpose, don’t let it loose, that can be really detrimental to our environment.”
Over the past decade, the python challenge has grabbed headlines for its incentive-based, only-in-Florida style of hunting as well as celebrity participation. This year, more than 600 people registered for the event, with two coming from Canada and 108 from other states.
During the challenge, hunters will linger around designated areas spanning through western Broward County to the Tamiami Trail in the Big Cypress Wildlife Management Area, including other management areas like Southern Glades, Holey Land and Rotenberger.
The goal for the competition is to bring an incentive for hunters to remove Burmese pythons from the environment, especially in the late summer when python eggs hatch. The competition is also meant to educate the public about pythons and their danger to Florida’s ecosystem, because they affect native snakes, can spread diseases among native animals and have high mercury levels that could be dangerous for native animals and for human consumption, said Zachary Chejanovski, an interagency python management coordinator with the Florida Wildlife Commission.
“The python problem, it’s a big problem,” Chejanovski said. “We want to make sure to get the word out as much as possible, because we can’t do this alone.”
Each category has its own prizes, with $2,500 going to the person or team that kills the most pythons, $1,500 going to the runner-up for most kills and $1,000 going to whoever kills the longest python. The grand prize for the most kills in all categories gets a $10,000 prize.
Each person can only win one prize, so if someone is tops in two categories, they will end up with the highest-valued prize and the next qualifying hunter gets the remaining prize.
During the competition, participants must turn in humanely killed Burmese pythons to any of the competition’s three check stations in South Florida. Hunters can also choose if they want to get the snake carcass back after the contest’s judging if they’d like to use the skin to make wallets, belts or bags.
Michael Huckabee and Jay Kattalikis attended the safety training Friday morning, after driving in from Mississippi to participate in the Florida Python Challenge. Kattalikis said this is his first time doing the state’s python challenge, but that he’s not worried since he and Huckabee are used to “wrangling gators” and handling copperheads and rattlesnakes.
Kattalikis said he and Huckabee came here on a whim after another friend told him about it, and he gave Huckabee only 15 minutes to get ready before driving down to South Florida.
“All I could think was, ‘Holy crap, this is what I’ve lived doing my entire life, and there’s a tournament doing it. I want to do this,’” Kattalikis said.
In 2017, the South Florida Water Management District and the state began hiring contractors to handle its invasive python problem year round. According to the wildlife agency’s website, through 2023, more than 11,000 pythons have been removed by these contractors.
Last year’s challenge brought in 209 pythons and the grand prize winner was Paul Hobbs, who bagged 20 pythons. Also during 2023, Florida wildlife agency and district contractors removed about 2,200 pythons.
Amy Siewe, the self-named Python Huntress, won a prize last year for catching a Burmese python measuring 3.27 meters. This year, she won’t be participating in the challenge due to a knee surgery but said she’s not a fan of the annual challenge.
Siewe, who used to work as a state contractor catching invasive pythons, said she believed the initial intent of the challenge was to bring awareness to the issue. Now, it’s drawing large crowds of hunters, potentially scaring off pythons and potentially killing native snakes they mistake as pythons, like corn snakes, brown water snakes or cottonmouths.
“Pythons don’t take on their normal behavioral pattern because there’s so much traffic and they’ll come up and then they’ll go back into the swamp,” Siewe said. “I feel for myself, it’s counterproductive.”
Participants are required to undergo an online training, including information on how to identify Burmese pythons versus other snakes, Funck said. She said there’s also an additional optional in-person training participants can attend to properly identify Burmese pythons.
“That’s a huge part of what we do, is try to get the word out on how to identify these pythons, how to safely and humanely capture it,” Funck said.
Sinaloa cartel cofounder claims he was forced to come to US
date: 2024-08-11, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, cofounder of the Sinaloa drug cartel, claims he was kidnapped and is sitting in a U.S. federal prison cell in Texas because he trusted Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of the “Los Chapitos,” the sons of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, his cartel cofounder.
Zambada made the claim in a Saturday statement from U.S. federal detention sent to VOA and other news organizations by his lawyer, Frank Perez.
Zambada has pleaded not guilty to seven federal charges in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. Most of the charges involve drug trafficking, use of firearms and homicide. Guzman Lopez, who surrendered to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI on July 25, has pleaded not guilty in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago on narcotics, money-laundering and firearms charges.
“The Justice Department has taken into custody two additional alleged leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement on July 25, the night they landed in a private airplane at Santa Teresa, New Mexico, in the border area near El Paso, Texas.
“I did not turn myself in, and I did not come voluntarily to the United States. Nor did I have any agreement with either government. To the contrary, I was kidnapped and brought to the U.S. forcibly and against my will,” Zambada wrote in the statement. Zambada is waiting to be moved to New York, where the Justice Department transferred the case.
Why Guzmán López would come to the U.S., reportedly voluntarily, and forcibly bring Zambada to with him is not known. Both men face years in prison in the United States.
DEA sources have said Guzman Lopez had been coordinating his surrender for some time.
“I was ambushed,” Zambada wrote in his statement, recounting a meeting at the Huertos del Pedregal ranch on the outskirts of Culiacán, the Sinaloa state capital, to resolve differences between political leaders to which he said he had been invited. The political leaders were Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya, who has denied being at the ranch and has distanced himself from knowing Zambada, and Héctor Melesio Cuen Ojeda, a former federal deputy, mayor of Culiacán and rector of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa.
“A group of men assaulted me, knocked me to the ground, and placed a dark-colored hood over my head. They tied me up and handcuffed me, then forced me into the bed of a pickup truck.”
Cuen Ojeda was killed that night allegedly in a robbery attempt, something Zambada disputes. “They killed him at the same time and in the same place where they kidnapped me,” he wrote.
Zambada, until now untouchable, accuses Guzman Lopez of physical abuse. He said in his statement that Guzman Lopez hurt his back, knee and wrists as he forced him onto the private airplane.
Guzman Lopez “removed the hood from my head and bound me with zip ties to the seat,” Zambada said, adding, “No one else was aboard the plane except Joaquin, the pilot, and myself.”
The United States has stated that no resources from its government were used in this operation, according to U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar.
“This was an operation between the cartels where one handed over the other,” he said at an August 9 press conference at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, without giving details.
The Justice Department has made clear both men will face justice as the Sinaloa cartel is being singled out as the largest distributor of synthetic drugs in the U.S.
“Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable” Garland said in his statement the night of the arrests.
Zambada has asked the governments of Mexico and the United States for transparency about the events.
https://www.voanews.com/a/sinaloa-cartel-cofounder-claims-he-was-forced-to-come-to-us-/7737979.html
US colleges are cutting majors and slashing programs after years of putting it off
date: 2024-08-11, from: VOA News USA
City officials release audio and video recordings from 2022 Texas school shooting
date: 2024-08-11, from: VOA News USA
DALLAS — As law enforcement officers hung back outside Khloie Torres’ fourth-grade classroom in Uvalde, Texas, she begged for help in a series of 911 calls, whispering into the phone that there were “a lot” of bodies and telling the operator: “Please, I don’t want to die. My teacher is dead. Oh, my God.”
At one point, the dispatcher asks Khloie if there are many people in the room with her.
“No, it’s just me and a couple of friends. A lot of people are,” she says, pausing briefly, “gone.”
Calls from Khloie and others, along with body camera footage and surveillance videos from the May 24, 2022, shooting at Robb Elementary School, were included in a massive collection of audio and video recordings released by Uvalde city officials on Saturday after a prolonged legal fight.
The Associated Press and other news organizations brought a lawsuit after the officials initially refused to publicly release the information. The massacre, which left 19 students and two teachers dead, was one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history.
The delayed law enforcement response to the shooting has been widely condemned as a massive failure: Nearly 400 officers waited more than 70 minutes before confronting the gunman in a classroom filled with dead and wounded children and teachers. Families of the victims have long sought accountability for the slow police response in the South Texas city of about 15,000 people 130 kilometers west of San Antonio.
Brett Cross’ 10-year-old nephew, Uziyah Garcia, was among those killed. Cross, who was raising the boy as a son, was angered that relatives weren’t told the records were being released and that it took so long for them to be made public.
“If we thought we could get anything we wanted, we’d ask for a time machine to go back … and save our children, but we can’t, so all we are asking for is for justice, accountability and transparency, and they refuse to give this to us,” he said.
Jesse Rizo, whose 9-year-old niece Jacklyn Cazares was killed in the shooting, said the release of information Saturday reignited festering anger because it shows “the waiting and waiting and waiting” of law enforcement.
“Perhaps if they were to have breached earlier, they would have saved some lives, including my niece’s,” he said.
The police response included nearly 150 U.S. Border Patrol agents and 91 state police officials, as well as school and city police. While terrified students and teachers called 911 from inside classrooms, dozens of officers stood in the hallway trying to figure out what to do. Desperate parents who had gathered outside the building pleaded with them to go in.
The gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, entered the school at 11:33 a.m., first opening fire from the hallway, then going into two adjoining fourth-grade classrooms. The first responding officers arrived at the school minutes later. They approached the classrooms, but then retreated as Ramos opened fire.
At 12:06 p.m., much of the radio traffic from the Uvalde Police Department was still focused on setting up a perimeter around the school and controlling traffic in the area, as well as the logistics of keeping track of those who safely evacuated the building. They’ve had trouble setting up a command post, one officer tells his colleagues, “because we need the bodies to keep the parents out.”
“They’re trying to push in,” he says.
At 12:16 p.m., someone with the Texas Department of Public Safety, the state law enforcement agency, called police to let them know a SWAT team was en route from Austin, about 100 kilometers away. She asked for any information the police could give about the shooting, the suspect and the police response.
“Do you have a command post? Or where do you need our officers to go?” the caller asks.
The police representative responds that officers know there are several dead students inside the elementary school and others still hiding. Some of the survivors have been evacuated to a building nearby. She doesn’t know if a command post has been set up.
At 12:50 p.m., a tactical team enters one of the classrooms and fatally shoots Ramos.
Among criticisms included in a U.S. Justice Department report released earlier this year was that there was “no urgency” in establishing a command center, creating confusion among police about who was in charge.
Multiple federal and state investigations have laid bare cascading problems in law enforcement training, communication, leadership and technology, and questioned whether officers prioritized their own lives over those of children and teachers.
Some of the 911 calls released were from terrified instructors. One described “a lot, a whole lot of gunshots,” while another sobbed into the phone as a dispatcher urged her to stay quiet. “Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!” the first teacher cried before hanging up.
Just before arriving at the school, Ramos shot and wounded his grandmother at her home. He then took a pickup from the home and drove to the school.
Ramos’ distraught uncle made several 911 calls begging to be put through so he could try to get his nephew to stop shooting.
“Everything I tell him, he does listen to me,” Armando Ramos said. “Maybe he could stand down or do something to turn himself in,” he added, his voice cracking.
He said his nephew, who had been with him at his house the night before, stayed with him in his bedroom all night, and told him that he was upset because his grandmother was “bugging” him.
“Oh my God, please, please, don’t do nothing stupid,” the man says on the call. “I think he’s shooting kids.”
But the offer arrived too late, coming just around the time that the shooting had ended and law enforcement officers killed Salvador Ramos.
Two of the responding officers now face criminal charges. Former Uvalde school Police Chief Pete Arredondo and former school officer Adrian Gonzales have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of child abandonment and endangerment. A Texas state trooper in Uvalde who had been suspended was reinstated to his job earlier this month.
In an interview this week with CNN, Arredondo said he thinks he’s been “scapegoated” as the one to blame for the botched law enforcement response.
Some of the families have called for more officers to be charged and filed federal and state lawsuits against law enforcement, social media, online gaming companies, and the gun manufacturer that made the rifle the gunman used.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-11, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Spotify created then killed the podcast boom in Latin America. #stolenvalor
https://restofworld.org/2024/spotify-podcast-crash-latin-america/
Vehicle fire quickly extinguished
date: 2024-08-11, from: The Signal
Personnel with the Los Angeles County Fire Department quickly extinguished a vehicle fire that occurred on the southbound lanes of Interstate 5 and State Route 14 interchange on Saturday afternoon. […]
The post Vehicle fire quickly extinguished appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/vehicle-fire-quickly-extinguished-2/
Full Circle Weekly News 378
date: 2024-08-11, from: Full Circle Magazine
Credits
- Host: @bardictriad, @zaivala
- Bumper: Canonical
- Theme Music: From The Dust - Stardust
- https://soundcloud.com/ftdmusic
- CC BY 4.0
https://fullcirclemagazine.org/podcasts/podcast-378/
Xecast Episode 2: Conferences, homelabs, and AI
date: 2024-08-11, from: Ze Iaso’s blog
https://xeiaso.net/xecast/002/
Photos: Monthly Placerita Canyon Nature Center bird walk
date: 2024-08-10, from: The Signal
Every first and second Saturday morning of the month, local bird enthusiasts join docent naturalists on a two-hour trek through the Placerita Canyon Nature Center, led by Rosemarie Regis and […]
The post Photos: Monthly Placerita Canyon Nature Center bird walk appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/photos-monthly-placerita-canyon-nature-center-bird-walk/
Photos: Paris Olympics Day 15 highlights
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
PARIS (AP) — The United States collected gold in men’s basketball and women’s soccer and earned three more golds in a huge night at the track at the Paris Olympics. Stephen Curry scored 24 points to lead Team USA over France 98-87 to win its fifth straight gold medal and 17th overall. The U.S. women’s […]
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/08/10/photos-paris-olympics-day-15-highlights/
Rooker hits 29th HR, Bido and 3 relievers combine on 2-hitter as A’s blank Blue Jays 1-0
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
Mason Miller strikes out the side in the ninth to finish off Oakland’s ninth shutout of the season.
Photos: The Hodads
date: 2024-08-10, from: The Signal
The Hodads returned to Santa Clarita to bring the beach to the valley at Valencia Marketplace’s Summer Concerts on Friday, singing classics for residents of all ages to enjoy.
The post Photos: The Hodads appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/photos-the-hodads/
Stapler: I remade a 32 year old classic Macintosh app
date: 2024-08-10, from: Tilde.news
https://blog.gingerbeardman.com/2024/08/10/stapler-i-remade-a-32-year-old-classic-macintosh-app/
Steph Curry’s late barrage seals another Olympic men’s basketball title as US beats France
date: 2024-08-10, from: VOA News USA
It was the fifth consecutive gold medal for the U.S.
Let No Lie Be Left Untold
date: 2024-08-10, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Kellyanne Conway (former Senior Counselor to Donald Trump) whimpered, “She (Kamala Harris) does not speak well, she does not work hard, she should not be the standard bearer for the (Democratic) party.”
The post Let No Lie Be Left Untold appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/10/let-no-lie-be-left-untold/
Taking cues from 2014 team, SF Giants appear to be hitting stride at right time
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
Behind 7 strong innings from Logan Webb, the Giants clinched their fifth series win in a row and won for the 12th time in their past 15 games.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Inside Project 2025’s Secret Training Videos.
https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-project-2025-secret-training-videos-trump-election
Caltrain rolls out first electric train for trip from San Francisco to Millbrae
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
Limited public service for electric trains starts Sunday.
The Soul of Maintaining a New Machine - First Draft
date: 2024-08-10, from: Tilde.news
Steph Curry leads Team USA to gold medal win over France
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
Steph Curry is a gold medalist, and head coach Steve Kerr helped lead Team USA to the top of the podium.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/08/10/usa-france-olympics-france-gold-medal-olympics/
Reticent of spotlight, Madison Bumgarner can’t avoid being center of attention at SF Giants’ World Series reunion
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
Bumgarner kept his public comments brief and avoided reporters but made a brief appearance on the Giants’ telecast.
Ferguson officer critically injured at protest on anniversary of Michael Brown’s death
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
The St. Louis Fire Department placed a member of the department on leave after he made a social media post that the department described as insensitive.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/08/10/ferguson-officer-injured-michael-brown-protest/
Navigating School Traffic Safely
date: 2024-08-10, from: City of Santa Clarita
By City Manager Ken Striplin As the new school year approaches, the streets around our schools will once again be bustling with activity. With over 50 elementary, junior high and high schools in our community, tens of thousands of students are dropped off and picked up in the surrounding neighborhoods every day. Ensuring the safety […]
The post Navigating School Traffic Safely appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.
https://santaclarita.gov/blog/2024/08/10/navigating-school-traffic-safely/
San Jose Jazz Summer Fest energy lights up downtown
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
“This is really the best weekend of the year in San Jose, where we come together as a community,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said of the big event.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/08/10/san-jose-jazz-summer-fest-energy-lights-up-downtown/
Romanian gymnast bumped to 3rd in floor exercise. Will Jordan Chiles have to forfeit medal?
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
The ruling adds another layer to what has been a difficult few days for all three athletes.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/08/10/romanian-gymnast-jordan-chiles-bronze-floor-exercise/
49ers pregame: Where things stand with Trent Williams, Brandon Aiyuk
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
Left tackle Trent Williams’ contract holdout got extra costly Saturday, even though an eventual pay raise will cushion the NFL-imposed fines he’s accruing.
DEF CON Badge Maker Pulled Off Stage Amid Claims of Non-Payment and Failed Work
date: 2024-08-10, from: 404 Media Group
Entropic Engineering, the small company that helped manufacture this year’s DEF CON badge, claims the conference organizers failed to pay for completed work. DEF CON says the company went well over budget.
US downs Brazil, 1-0, to win gold medal in women’s soccer
date: 2024-08-10, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-downs-brazil-1-0-to-win-gold-medal-in-women-s-soccer/7737636.html
How to ingeniously and wirelessly inject malware onto someone’s nearby Windows PC via Google’s Quick Share
date: 2024-08-10, updated: 2024-08-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Or rather could, until the web giant was tipped off
DEF CON Ten now-fixed bugs in Google’s Quick Share for Windows could have been exploited to wirelessly write new files onto victims’ PCs without their approval, and ultimately execute code remotely on those victims’ machines by chaining together a handful of other vulnerabilities.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/10/google_quick_share_rce/
SanDisk introduces the first 8TB SD and 4TB microSD cards
date: 2024-08-10, from: Liliputing
Earlier this year Western Digital announced plans to release 4TB SD cards in 2025. Now the company is showing off its first 4TB microSD cards, and promising that full-sized SD cards with up to 8TB of storage are also on the way. WD announced both of upcoming products at the Future Memory Storage 2024 conference […]
The post SanDisk introduces the first 8TB SD and 4TB microSD cards appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/sandisk-introduces-the-first-8tb-sd-and-4tb-microsd-cards/
We don’t need a boss, we need a process
date: 2024-08-10, updated: 2024-08-10, from: Robin Rendle Essays
https://robinrendle.com/notes/we-dont-need-a-boss-we-need-a-process/
How LLMs Guide Us to a Happy Path for Configuration and Coding
date: 2024-08-10, from: John Udell blog
“Some argue that by aggregating knowledge drawn from human experience, LLMs aren’t sources of creativity, as the moniker “generative” implies, but rather purveyors of mediocrity. Yes and no. There really are very few genuinely novel ideas and methods, and I don’t expect LLMs to produce them. Most creative acts, though, entail novel recombinations of known … Continue reading How LLMs Guide Us to a Happy Path for Configuration and Coding
https://blog.jonudell.net/2024/08/10/how-llms-guide-us-to-a-happy-path-for-configuration-and-coding/
Frostapalooza Visualizations
date: 2024-08-10, from: Chris Coyier blog
A week from today is Frostapalooza, Brad’s big show he’s throwing incorporating a ton of friends and family. In addition to the 40 musicians rotating on stage, now there will be visual artists showing off their work as well. Brad writes: Jeff Robbins makes some really amazing music software called Visibox that helps bands easily create, manage, and […]
https://chriscoyier.net/2024/08/10/frostapalooza-visualizations/
Trust the vibes
date: 2024-08-10, updated: 2024-08-10, from: Robin Rendle Essays
https://robinrendle.com/notes/trust-the-vibes/
@Robert’s feed at BlueSky (date: 2024-08-10, from: Robert’s feed at BlueSky)
Alex Schroeder’s idea about an off-line blog reader using NNTP is intriguing. https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-08-10-offline-reader
https://bsky.app/profile/rsdoiel.bsky.social/post/3kzewjd47xc25
2024-08-10 An offline reader using NNCP
date: 2024-08-10, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
2024-08-10 An offline reader using NNCP
The NNCP manual suggests
using rss2email to read feeds offline, via NNCP. And why
not! Email is great. Email via NNCP works.
Yesterday, however, I wondered about a program that would use NNCP directly to pull new (Markdown) files. Such a “site” wouldn’t have to be on the web. It wouldn’t need a feed. It would act like a blog because new files are requested as they are published. They are published by being linked to from some sort of index. In my case, for example, index.md would be the “blog view” of the site (you’d only get new pages as they are published) and changes.md would be the “wiki view” of the site (you’d get updates if the page changes). Request this file on a regular bases, then request every file linked to from those pages (unless you already have a copy).
I’ve scripted this all using a bit of Perl. Sadly, installation is not
trivial because there’s no Perl module to turn HJSON into JSON, so I’m
calling the hjson-cli programm which you have to install,
too. Sorry!
To install the Perl modules, use CPAN:
cpan JSON
cpan CommonMark
To install hjson-cli if you have Go installed:
go install github.com/hjson/hjson-go/v4/hjson-cli@latest
Ideally, I’d write a JSON::HJSON module, package it all for
CPAN, and then you’d install it using cpan NNCP::Pull or
something like that.
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-08-10-offline-reader
Using AppleTalk with QEMU 9 on Raspberry Pi 5
date: 2024-08-10, from: Biosrhythm blog
I recently built QEMU from scratch on the Raspberry Pi 5 and wanted to document my steps. My goal was to run two different Mac emulations: a 68k and PPC Mac, specifically with AppleTalk networking functioning over Ethernet. Assumptions: Raspberry Pi 5 with Raspbian Bookworm 64-bit using Ethernet interface eth0. This part builds on the […]
https://biosrhythm.com/?p=2837
Review: San Jose native has triumphant homecoming at Outside Lands
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
Rising EDM star Gryffin shines bright on Day 1 of the three-day festival, which also featured The Killers, “Mean Girls” star Renee Rapp and more.
Record-breaking fires scorch more than 1.4 million acres in Oregon
date: 2024-08-10, from: VOA News USA
PORTLAND, Oregon — Wildfires in Oregon have burned more acres of land in 2024 than in any year since reliable records began, authorities said Friday, with the mid-August peak of fire season still on the horizon.
Blazes have scorched more than 5,700 square kilometers (2,200 square miles), Northwest Interagency Coordination Center spokesperson Carol Connolly said. That’s more than any other year since 1992, when reliable records began to be kept, she said. It surpasses the previous record, set in 2020.
Connolly said 71 large fires have burned most of the land this year. Large fires are defined as those that consume more than 40 hectares (nearly 100 acres) of timber or more than 120 hectares (almost 300 acres) of grass or brush.
Thirty-two homes in the state have been lost to the fires, she said, which have been fueled by high temperatures, dry weather and low humidity.
They have prompted evacuation notices across the state and largely torched rural and mountain areas, although some have also sparked closer to the Portland metro area.
Level 3 “go now” evacuation notices were in place Friday for the small town of Cherry Grove, about 56 kilometers (35 miles) west of Portland, as a fire burned in a nearby forest. David Huey, a deputy with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, said most residents evacuated after officers went door to door encouraging them to leave.
Airplanes and helicopters were scooping water from nearby Henry Hagg Lake to drop on the fire, said Gert Zoutendijk, spokesperson for the Gaston Rural Fire District. The lake was set to be closed to the public throughout the weekend.
The fire was roughly 1.3 square kilometers (half a square mile) with zero containment as of Friday afternoon, although crews have made progress on lining the fire, Zoutendijk said.
Another fire, near the Portland suburb of Oregon City, led authorities to temporarily close part of a state highway in the morning and issue “go now” evacuation orders along part of the route. By midafternoon, authorities downgraded the evacuation and reopened the highway.
The largest blaze is the Durkee Fire in eastern Oregon, which has scorched more than 1,200 square kilometers (459 square miles) but was at least 95% contained as of Friday, according to authorities. At one point it was the biggest fire in the country.
California’s Park Fire has since become the largest, burning more than 1,710 square kilometers (660 square miles) and destroying more than 600 structures. A man was arrested and accused of starting the fire by pushing a burning car into a gully in a wilderness park outside the Sacramento Valley city of Chico.
Also in California, the Crozier Fire in El Dorado County has burned about 7.7 square kilometers (3 square miles) and was 5% contained as of Friday evening, according to Cal Fire. The fire is burning in steep and rugged terrain and threatens 4,017 structures. The weather is expected to remain hot and dry through the weekend.
Why Walz was the perfect choice
date: 2024-08-10, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News
Lakoff
talks about the Nurturing Mother and the Strict Father as models for
Democrats and Republicans respectively, and how the Dems never got this,
and never campaigned accordingly. Now they’re doing it. Owning the
nuturing mother mode, but also the Protective Father, tough and angry
when necessary, but a fun dad, a sweetheart. Biden was that, but we
caught him too late in life for that to really flourish, hence the low
approval ratings.
I think we can afford now to ignore the NY Times et al. We don’t just want freedom, we are free, now. That’s what we’re feeling. Now we’re an army and we’re ready to march. We’re ready to fight and our weapons are our feet, our voices and our votes. This is why it’s working.
At first I didn’t like White Dudes for Harris but now I get it. I saw a guy who’d normally I’d think of as a MAGA, in the crowd behind Kamala yesterday while she spoke, I thought yeah us old white dudes need permission to have sweet hearts. It’s time for us to be happy too. Why the f not.
PS: Bush had the highest approval in history after 9/11. 90%.
PPS: In case it’s not obvious, there are some old white dudes who overwhelmingly support Trump who might respond to the Protective Father position.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/10/155808.html?title=whyWalzWasThePerfectChoice
USA Women’s Water Polo Stunned by Netherlands 11-10 in Bronze Medal Match
date: 2024-08-10, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Ryann Neushul shined with two goals off the bench in the USA’s 11-10 loss to Netherlands.
The post USA Women’s Water Polo Stunned by Netherlands 11-10 in Bronze Medal Match appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Police raided Livermore smoke shop for allegedly selling flavored tobacco and ‘magic’ mushrooms
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
Police say the hundreds of products seized included nicotine liquid for vaporizer pens, cigar wraps, as well as chocolate bars and gummies containing psilocybin.
Saving SSH passphrases on KDE
date: 2024-08-10, from: Stavros Stuff
I now notice I haven’t written anything in almost a year, which nobody else seems to have noticed, so I guess it’s just as well. I have, though, broken my unintentional hiatus to post something that reminds me why I hate technology so much: All UX is bad.
I’ve been a Linux user for more than a decade now, but the latest Ubu
https://www.stavros.io/posts/saving-ssh-passphrases-on-kde/
An open letter to Fei-Fei Li concerning California’s proposed AI regulation, SB-1047
date: 2024-08-10, from: Gary Marcus blog
Dear DrFeiFei,
https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/an-open-letter-to-fei-fei-li-concerning
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-08-10, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
From Andreas Kling, creator of SerenityOS and the new Ladybrowser:
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112938178750826167
Man fatally shot while driving in Oakland
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
Oakland police are investigating the city’s 56th homicide of the year, a man fatally shot while driving early Saturday.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/08/10/man-fatally-shot-while-driving-in-oakland-2/
Richmond’s regulating street vending, but brick-and-mortar merchants aren’t convinced they’re being heard
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
Without adequate enforcement, shop owners worry the new program won’t lead to change.
July breaks record for California’s hottest month ever
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
The sweltering month “is, unfortunately, very consistent with expectations that we’re going to see hotter and hotter summers,” one expert said.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/08/10/july-breaks-record-for-californias-hottest-month-ever/
Youth engagement reaches new heights this election cycle
date: 2024-08-10, from: VOA News USA
Will the youth vote send Kamala Harris or Donald Trump to the White House? Organizers on both sides have seen a swell of voter enthusiasm and support, particularly among young people. But the younger demographic has had a historically low turnout at the polls. VOA’s Tina Trinh explores whether that could change come November.
https://www.voanews.com/a/youth-engagement-reaches-new-heights-this-election-cycle/7737401.html
2024-08-06 Pocket Reform
date: 2024-08-10, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
2024-08-06 Pocket Reform
I got my MNT Pocket Reform miniature laptop! I’m hoping that this will be my new travel laptop as the Purism laptop I got back in 2017 has a broken hinge. The two halves are attached to each other using two super strong hinges. The hinges are so strong, in fact, that one of them ripped its screws out of the plastic. So now the screen is held up by just one super strong hinge and don’t really want to open or close it all that often for fear of breaking it.
Here are my initial impressions of the new MNT Pocket Reform.
It is small, but chunky. It’s definitely not flat. It also isn’t heavy, so I’m happy. The small keyboard and the small trackball work.
I was unable to power it on for the longest time. I had two problems.
First, there’s a small standby power switch on the left hand side that you need to turn on. The manual suggests “using a pointed object such as a SIM card ejector.” Which I managed to find. And then what do you do? You use the SIM card ejector like you always do: stab it into the small hole. So I did that for a bit, wondering at the empty spaces I was a able to reach. What was I supposed to press? It was only when I started to really look into the small hole that I realized: there was actually something to be moved left and right within it!
Second, the manual says that to turn it on, “hold Hyper + Enter for more than 2 seconds.” I pressed those two keys and the OLED display lit up. There was the menu! There it said “Power On”. I picked it. Nothing happened. Then the OLED display showed a tiny “T” in the upper left corner. I did this again and again, exploring the small menu. The laptop wouldn’t power on no matter how often I selected the menu. That’s because I didn’t press Hyper + Enter for more than 2 seconds! Press those keys until the keyboard lights up with the pink backlights.
I setup my root passwords, created my user account, ran sudo apt
update and sudo apt upgrade and looked around at
things. After a few minutes I noticed that there is no indication of the
batteries charging. That made me nervous for a while as I kept seeing
that “1%” charge in the top right corner. It’s probably charging, I
thought. Then the laptop turned off. Oh! I guess it wasn’t charging
after all. What did I miss? Now that it is powered off, I see that the
load percentage starts climbing again.
This is what it says right now:
🔋 3.6 8%
🔋 3.7 Off
-1.07A
7.57V
Why is the second battery off? The manual doesn’t explain what On/Off on the second line means. It’s an indication of whether the computer is on or off! For the longest time I thought that the first battery had some charge and the second battery was “off”. Once I rebooted, it changed to “On”.
In any case, it seems that my problem is that when the laptop powers on
without being connected to a charger, it won’t charge if you do connect
it. Perhaps a new system image would fix it? I’m not sure. I downloaded
an image, unzipped it, wrote it to a microSD card, and maybe booted from
it, but nothing seemed to have changed. I had to provide a root password
and a first username and another password… and that’s it. Was I supposed
to run a command? I don’t know. Did the apt update && apt
upgrade fix the problem? I don’t know.
Anyway, when the laptop suddenly lost power (see above) I waited for it to recharge for a bit and rebooted. It looked like this had corrupted the disk, somehow. There are plenty of recovery messages and percentages ending with an error because something cannot be written to the read-only file system.
The output ends with the following, in an extremely tiny font:
...
mount: mounting /dev/mmcblk2p2 on /root failed: Structure needs cleaning
Failed to mount /dev/mmcblk2p2 as root file system
And now I am dropped in the initramfs. I try figure what
I’m supposed to do. I search for some keywords online but don’t
understand what I’m seeing. Finally, I try to leave with
exit, Ctrl+D and whatever else I can think off. I reboot.
This time there are fewer messages about the filesystem and then I’m
back at the login prompt. It fixed itself.
Phew!
I’m back.
My take-away is this: usability and user interface issues both large and small remain a challenge in computers.
2024-08-07. Before the login prompt is shown, there is
a long and helpful introduction that flashes by. At the login prompt,
you can specify a different command to run instead of starting the
window manager. I did that, specifying /usr/bin/fish (I
have installed fish and prefer it over the default shell,
bash). This allows you to read the message. I guess it’s
the /etc/reform-help message.
Specifically, I learned about all the commands starting with
reform-. Nice! In the manual these tools are mentioned on
page 50.
When I run sudo reform-check, it tells me that “eMMC does
not contain the latest uboot” and that I can run
reform-flash-uboot emmc to fix it. Do I dare? The following
two messages are shown and they are not identical. That’s a bit strange.
W: /boot/flash.bin is not the latest uboot
W: You can update it to the latest version by running as root:
reform-flash-uboot
W: eMMC does not contain latest uboot
W: You can update it to the latest version by running as root:
reform-flash-uboot emmc
I guess I’ll run the first command and then reform-check
again.
In the meantime I saw that I don’t have the
pocket-reform-handbook installed but that I do have the
reform-handbook. Heh. (The MNT Reform is the bigger
laptop.)
Anyway, when I run reform-flash-uboot without arguments, I
get an error.
/usr/sbin/reform-flash-uboot: 59: MMC_BOOT: parameter not set
I cannot decide whether this is a typo or not. It looks like one?
alex@subterraneobombus ~> sudo nl /usr/sbin/reform-flash-uboot|grep MMC_BOOT
27 if [ "$EMMC_BOOT" = false ]; then
49 if [ "$EMMC_BOOT" = true ] && [ "$SD_BOOT" = true ]; then
53 elif [ "$MMC_BOOT" = true ]; then
60 if [ "$EMMC_BOOT" = true ] && [ "$SD_BOOT" = true ]; then
71 elif [ "$MMC_BOOT" = true ]; then
alex@subterraneobombus ~> grep MMC_BOOT "/usr/share/reform-tools/machines/MNT Pocket Reform with
i.MX8MP Module.conf"
EMMC_BOOT=true
Do I really want to do this? Luckily, I mentioned this issue on IRC, and @josch pointed me to this post by @andypiper: Updating uboot?. This is the important bit:
Do not flash u-boot to emmc on the pocket reform. There is a bug in the u-boot offset which will make your pocket unbootable if you fix the other bug in reform-flash-uboot. – josch on IRC
Oof! Disaster narrowly avoided. And now I understand what Andy Piper means when he writes:
I also managed to temporarily brick the machine by corrupting the uboot in flash, and needed to rig it up with Dupont wires on headers and access the machine from another via USB to get back to where I wanted to be. – MNT Pocket Reform: first impressions
Andy’s post had a screenshot showing the fediverse client Tuba which is available on Debian testing. Nice! I’ll give it a try.
Tuba requires a “login” keyring so I had to install
seahorse also known as “Passwords and Keys”. See
keyring
issues for more.
Back to small things to watch out for. When I run apt
update it ends with a notice saying: “Missing Signed-By in the
sources.list(5) entry for
https://mnt.re/reform-debian-repo”
2024-08-10. After a recent upgrade, the battery indicator stopped working. It just kept on showing 100%. The temporary fix, based on the discussion in the forum:
-
sudo apt install upower -
edit
~/.config/waybar/configand replace"battery"with"upower"on line 7 - restart the window manager
You don’t need to configure waybar-upower(5) because the
defaults are good. I didn’t delete the config for
waybar-battery(5) because as far as I can tell, the idea is
to go back to it.
While we’re looking at the window manager, this is my new background image:
Note that when you view the image in another tab, it’ll be a negative: purple grass instead of green grass. The original is what I used before coming up with the image above.
You know what I’ve been putting off? Firefox setup. 😭
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-08-06-pocket-reform
How table tennis is helping Parkinson’s, brain tumor patients take back control
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
The U.S. national team trains at 888 Table Tennis in Burlingame, but top-tier training wasn’t the only purpose of the facility, which opened in 2020. The owner’s son is one of many people with brain tumors and other neurological impairments who have found ping pong helps their condition.
YOU LOVE TO SEE IT: StubHub Gets A Ticket To Court
date: 2024-08-10, from: The Lever News
Plus, Google takes a hit, an electric utility compensates wildfire victims, homeowners get thousands to use less energy, and Ohio touches grass.
https://www.levernews.com/you-love-to-see-it-stubhub-gets-a-ticket-to-court/
Blight woes mount in San Jose — where are the biggest offenders?
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
Blighted buildings, junk-packed empty lots and decaying properties have alarmed a growing number of people in San Jose.
Opinion: BART’s manufactured ‘fiscal crisis’ affects entire Bay Area
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
Member of district’s own board says transit agency prefers to play victim rather than addressing its money problems.
‘It’s right back in my face again’: Relatives of murder victims decry death penalty resentencings
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
“It’s not fair to any family who has had to sit through a trial just to re-live those memories all over again.”
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Donald Trump isn't fun anymore: How Kamala Harris stole the show — and extinguished his flame.
Opinion: Delta tunnel project will protect California’s vital water supply
date: 2024-08-10, from: San Jose Mercury News
Modern, reliable water infrastructure is essential to our health, homes and livelihoods as well as the state’s economy.
The ‘Unsettling,’ Nearly Normalized Surveillance Tech Monitoring the U.S.-Mexico Border
date: 2024-08-10, from: The Markup blog
“At any given moment, there is something or someone watching you,” sociologist Francisco Lara-García tells The Markup
Webmentions and lobster rolls
date: 2024-08-10, from: Ben Werdmuller’s blog
Webmentions have been broken on this blog for a little while. I’m on vacation this week, so I’m hoping to get them fixed up — as well as a few other fixes here and there.
Mostly, though, I have to admit that I’ll be taking the little one to the beach, cooking delicious food, and finding my first lobster roll of the season. I’m looking forward to it.
https://werd.io/2024/webmentions-and-lobster-rolls
Inside Project 2025’s Secret Training Videos
date: 2024-08-10, from: Ben Werdmuller’s blog
<div class="known-bookmark">
<div class="e-content">[Andy Kroll at ProPublica and Nick Surgey at Documented]
“Project 2025, the controversial playbook and policy agenda for a right-wing presidential administration, has lost its director and faced scathing criticism from both Democratic groups and former President Donald Trump. But Project 2025’s plan to train an army of political appointees who could battle against the so-called deep state government bureaucracy on behalf of a future Trump administration remains on track.”
It’s not hyperbole to look at these as training videos to enact a heavily right-wing America: one that is subject to Christian nationalist ideas and seeks to squash dissent. They discuss how to eliminate climate change protections and erase decades of progress on race and gender.
At any rate, it’s a fascinating view on a movement that, regardless of your political views, clearly seeks to re-make America. In that sense they’re a little like something from a Philip K Dick novel - or, dare I say it, the Handmaid’s Tale.
<p>[<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-project-2025-secret-training-videos-trump-election">Link</a>]</p>
</div>
</div>https://werd.io/2024/inside-project-2025s-secret-training-videos
Cybercrime Convention: Überwachungsabkommen mit Missbrauchsgarantie
date: 2024-08-10, updated: 2024-08-10, from: Chaos Computer Club Updates
Die geplante Cybercrime Convention bei den Vereinten Nationen entpuppt sich als Überwachungsabkommen, das Menschenrechte mit Füßen tritt und weltweit IT-Sicherheitsfachleute und Journalisten gefährdet. Dieses Abkommen darf Europa nicht ratifizieren.
https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2024/stopp-cybercrime-convention
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki dies, aged 56.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Silicon Valley May Be Losing Its Cultural Connection With Burning Man.
2024-08-09 Grenzland Zine
date: 2024-08-10, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
2024-08-09 Grenzland Zine
Es ist wieder soweit, auf dem Grenzland Discord Server wird an einem Zine gewerkelt! Vorbestellungen nimmt grenzland@betola.de 📧 bzw. @wandererbill 🐘 entgegen.
Um zu sehen, was in den A5 Heften so drinnen ist, kann man sich die alten Ausgaben als PDF anschauen.
Wahrscheinlicher ist allerdings, dass ein Zine aus Papier ein interessanteres, langfristigeres Artefakt unserer Zeit und unserer Spielkultur ist.
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-08-09-grenzland
@Jessica Smith’s blog (date: 2024-08-10, from: Jessica Smith’s blog)
On the news tonight there was an item on a town in Thailand where there’s been a massive increase in the monkey population and these monkeys have got very assertive stealing food, seizing control of the local swimming pool, etc.. The best part of the item was when they said police had responded by rounding monkeys up en masse and confining them in some dedicated facility… so 30 of the monkeys swiftly staged a breakout, and went and stormed police headquarters in retaliation! I told Viv that those Canadian polar bears should take some notes…
https://www.jayeless.net/2024/08/monkeys-in-thailand.html
The Time Ranger | What Foul Evil Lurks in Newhall Pool?
date: 2024-08-10, from: The Signal
Top of the August 2024 morn to you, trail riders and dear friends of local history. We’ve a most interesting trek ahead, what with some eye-wateringly dumb crooks and an […]
The post The Time Ranger | What Foul Evil Lurks in Newhall Pool? appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/the-time-ranger-what-foul-evil-lurks-in-newhall-pool/
Robert Lamoureux | How to determine which improvements help resale most
date: 2024-08-10, from: The Signal
Question: Hello Robert, I love your article in The Signal. Thank you so much for contributing your time and effort to producing the article each week. My wife and I […]
The post Robert Lamoureux | How to determine which improvements help resale most appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/robert-lamoureux-how-to-determine-which-improvements-help-resale-most/
Today in SCV History (Aug. 10)
date: 2024-08-10, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1769 – Fr. Juan Crespi, en route to San Francisco Bay with the Portolá expedition, names the Santa Clara River Valley (SCV) for St. Clare [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-aug-10/
Bangladesh not the first student uprising to help bring about radical change
date: 2024-08-10, from: VOA News USA
BANGKOK — In Bangladesh, weeks of protests against a quota system for government jobs turned into a broad uprising that forced the prime minister to flee the country and resign.
The demonstrations began peacefully last month and were primarily led by students frustrated with the system that they said favored those with connections to the ruling party.
But it turned violent on July 15 as student protesters clashed with security officials and pro-government activists. Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled this week after the unrest during which nearly 300 people died, including both students and police officers.
Students or other young people have frequently played pivotal roles in popular uprisings that have brought down governments or forced them to change policies. Here are some other major cases:
Gota Go Gama protests in Sri Lanka
Like in Bangladesh, widespread protests in Sri Lanka in 2022 were able to bring down a government, and youth played a key role.
Scattered demonstrations turned into months-long protests starting in March 2022 as an economic crisis worsened in the Indian Ocean island nation, leading to a shortage of fuel, cooking gas and other essentials as well as an extended power outage.
In April, protesters primarily led by university students and other young people occupied an esplanade adjoining President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s office in the capital Colombo, demanding he and his government resign.
More people joined daily, setting up a tent camp dubbed “Gota Go Gama,” or “Gota Go Village,” a play on Gotabaya’s nickname “Gota.”
The protest site was peaceful, with organizers offering free food, water, toilets and even medical care for people. Camp leaders, many of whom were university students, held daily media briefings and made regular speeches, while the crowd was entertained by bands and plays.
The government reacted by imposing a curfew, declaring a state of emergency, allowing the military to arrest civilians and restricting access to social media, but were unable to stop the protest.
Under pressure, many ministers resigned but President Rajapaksa and his older brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa remained.
In May, Rajapaksa supporters attacked the protest camp, drawing widespread condemnation from across the country and forcing Prime Minister Rajapaksa to resign.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa clung to power until July, when protesters stormed his official residence, forcing him to flee the country. After taking temporary refuge in the Maldives, Rajapaksa later resigned.
His successor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, in one of his first moves as new president ousted protesters from occupied government buildings and shut down their camp, dismantling their tents in the middle of the night.
The situation has since calmed, and Wickremesinghe has been able to address the shortages of food, fuel and medicine and restore power.
Complaints continue, however, about the rise in taxes and electric bills that are part of the new government’s efforts to meet International Monetary Fund loan conditions. Former Prime Minister Rajapaksa’s son Namal Rajapaksa will be running in the presidential elections this September.
Athens Polytechnic uprising in Greece
In November 1973, students at Athens Polytechnic university rose up against the military junta that ruled Greece with an iron fist for more than six years.
Military officers seized power in a 1967 coup, establishing a dictatorship marked by the arrest, exile and torture of its political opponents.
The regime’s brutality and hardline rule gave rise to a growing opposition, particularly among students, culminating in the November uprising.
The protest began peacefully on November 14, with students staging a strike at the Athens Polytechnic university and occupying the campus. By the next day, thousands from around Athens had joined in to support the students and the demonstrations grew, as did calls to end the dictatorship.
On November 17, the military crushed the revolt when a tank smashed through the university’s gates in the early hours of the day, killing several students. The number of fatalities is still disputed, but at the time the regime had announced 15 dead.
Days after the uprising, another military officer staged a coup and implemented an even harsher regime. It was short lived however, after a series of events led to a return to democracy in Greece, its birthplace, in 1974.
A prosecutor’s report issued after the return to civilian government, estimated fatalities at 34, but mentioned only 18 names. There were more than 1,100 injured.
Today, annual marches in Athens to commemorate the pro-democracy student uprising still attract thousands of people.
Kent State demonstrations in the United States
American students had long been protesting the U.S. involvement in Vietnam when President Richard Nixon authorized attacks on neutral Cambodia in April 1970, expanding the conflict in an attempt to interrupt enemy supply lines.
On May 4, hundreds of students at Ohio’s Kent State University gathered to protest the bombing of Cambodia, and authorities called in the Ohio National Guard to disperse the crowd.
After failing to break up the protest with teargas, the National Guard advanced and some opened fire on the crowd, killing four students and wounding nine others.
The confrontation, sometimes referred to as the May 4 massacre, was a defining moment for a nation sharply divided over the protracted conflict, in which more than 58,000 Americans died.
It sparked a strike of 4 million students across the U.S., temporarily closing some 900 colleges and universities. The events also played a pivotal role, historians argue, in turning public opinion against the conflict in Southeast Asia.
Soweto Uprising in South Africa
In the decades-long struggle against white minority rule in South Africa, a pivotal moment came in 1976 in the Soweto area of Johannesburg.
In a series of demonstrations starting June 16, Black students from multiple schools took to the streets to protest against being forced to study in Afrikaans, the Dutch-based language of the white rulers who designed the system of racial oppression known as apartheid.
The protests spread to other areas in South Africa, becoming a flashpoint for anger at a system that denied adequate education, the right to vote and other basic rights to the country’s Black majority.
Hundreds are estimated to have died in the government crackdown that followed.
The bloodshed was epitomized by a photograph of a dying student, Hector Pieterson. The image of his limp body being carried by another teenager was seen around the world and galvanized international efforts to end South Africa’s racial segregation, though apartheid would linger for nearly two more decades.
South Africa achieved democracy with majority rule elections in 1994 and today June 16 is a national holiday.
Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia
As the Communist governments of Eastern Europe teetered in 1989, widespread demonstrations broke out in Czechoslovakia after riot police suppressed a student protest in Prague on November 17.
On November 20 as the anti-Communist protests grew, the students being joined by scores of others and some 500,000 took to the streets of Prague.
Dubbed the “Velvet Revolution” for its non-violent nature, the protests led to the resignation of the Communist Party’s leadership on November 28.
By December 10, Czechoslovakia had a new government and on December 29, Vaclav Havel, a dissident playwright who had spent several years in prison, was elected the country’s first democratic president in a half century by a parliament still dominated by communist hard-liners.
In 1992, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
How Maui’s 151-year-old banyan tree is coming back to life after fire
date: 2024-08-10, from: VOA News USA
LAHAINA, Hawaii — When a deadly wildfire tore through Lahaina on Maui last August, the wall of flames scorched the 151-year-old banyan tree along the historic town’s Front Street. But the sprawling tree survived the blaze, and thanks to the efforts of arborists and dedicated volunteers, parts of it are growing back — and even thriving.
One year after the fire, here’s what to know about the banyan tree and the efforts to restore it.
Why is Lahaina’s banyan tree significant?
The banyan tree is the oldest living one on Maui but is not a species indigenous to the Hawaiian Islands. India shipped the tree as a gift to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the first Protestant missionaries to live in Lahaina. It was planted in 1873, a quarter century before the Hawaiian Islands became a U.S. territory and seven decades after King Kamehameha declared Lahaina the capital of his kingdom.
The tree is widely beloved and fondly remembered by millions of tourists who have visited Maui over the years. But for many others it is a symbol of colonial rule that has dispossessed Native Hawaiians of their land and suppressed their language and culture.
For generations, the banyan tree served as a gathering place along Lahaina’s waterfront. By many accounts, it was the heart of the oceanside community — towering more than 18 meters (60 feet) high and anchored by multiple trunks that span nearly an acre.
The enormous tree has leafy branches that unfurl majestically and offer shade from the sun. Aerial roots dangle from its boughs and eventually latch onto the soil to become new trunks. Branches splay out widely and have become roosting places for choirs of birds.
What happened to it during the fire?
The 2023 fire charred the tree and blackened many of its leaves. But it wasn’t the flames so much as the intense heat that dried out much of the tree, according to Duane Sparkman, chair of the Maui County Arborist Committee. As a result of this loss of moisture, about half of the tree’s branches died, he said.
“Once that section of the tree desiccated, there was no coming back,” he said.
But other parts of the tree are now growing back healthy.
How was it saved?
Those working to restore the tree removed the dead branches so that the tree’s energy would go toward the branches that were alive, Sparkman said.
To monitor that energy, 14 sensors were screwed into the tree to track the flows of cambium, or sap, through its branches.
“It’s basically a heart monitor,” Sparkman said. “As we’ve been treating the tree, the heartbeat’s getting stronger and stronger and stronger.”
Sparkman said there are also plans to install vertical tubes to help the tree’s aerial roots, which appear to be vertical branches that grow down toward the ground. The tubes will contain compost to provide the branches with key nutrients when they take root in the soil.
A planned irrigation system will also feed small drops of water into the tubes. The goal, Sparkman said, is to help those aerial roots “bulk up and become the next stabilizer root.” The system will also irrigate the surrounding land and the tree’s canopy.
“You see a lot of long, long branches with hundreds of leaves back on the tree,” Sparkman said, adding that some branches are even producing fruit. “It’s pretty amazing to see that much of the tree come back.”
What other trees were destroyed in the fire?
Sparkman estimates that Lahaina lost some 25,000 trees in the fire.
These included the fruit trees that people grew in their yards as well as trees that are significant in Hawaiian culture, such as the ulu or breadfruit tree; the fire charred all but two of the dozen or so that remained.
Since the blaze, a band of arborists, farmers and landscapers — including Sparkman — has set about trying to save the ulu and other culturally important trees. Before colonialism, commercial agriculture and tourism, thousands of breadfruit trees dotted Lahaina.
To help restore Lahaina’s trees, Sparkman founded a nonprofit called Treecovery. The group has potted some 3,500 trees, he said, growing them in “micro-nurseries” across the island, including at some hotels, until people can move back into their homes.
“We have grow hubs all over the island of Maui to grow these trees out for as long as they need. So, when the people are ready, we can have them come pick these trees up and they can plant them in their yards,” he said. “It’s important that we do this for the families.”
2024-08-09 NNCP setup automation
date: 2024-08-10, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
2024-08-09 NNCP setup automation
This is a continuation of the minimal NNCP setup to get started. Once we verified that everything works as expected with manual invocations, the next step is automation. There are two options:
- Enable all the services. This makes sense if you expect a lot of traffic.
- Only call the executables every now and then. This makes sense if you expect very little traffic.
If you want to enable all the services, the examples
directory has service definitions for you. Running
nncp-caller only makes sense if there is at least one entry
in your /etc/nncp.hjson that has a cron key.
sudo systemctl enable /usr/share/doc/nncp/examples/nncp-daemon.service
sudo systemctl enable /usr/share/doc/nncp/examples/nncp-caller.service
sudo systemctl enable /usr/share/doc/nncp/examples/nncp-toss.service
sudo systemctl start nncp-daemon.service
sudo systemctl start nncp-caller.service
sudo systemctl start nncp-toss.service
sudo systemctl status nncp-daemon.service
sudo systemctl status nncp-caller.service
sudo systemctl status nncp-toss.service
I don’t expect a lot of NNCP traffic. This is why my setup on the laptop and server uses the alternative.
In order to conserve resources, you could decide not to have these services running all the time. I’m doing this for two reasons: I don’t want to upgrade the virtual machine I’m renting. It’s a point of pride to do much with very little. From the perspective of impeding collapse, I also think that we should all get on board with frugal computing (@wim_v12e).
Ready for some frugal computing? Here we go.
Run the daemon on the server. That is, if other sites know your internet
address and call you, then you need this. My laptop does not but my
server does. When somebody calls the server on port 5400, start the
nncp-daemon using inetd (from the
openbsd-inet or the inetutils-inetd packages
on Debian).
In your /etc/inetd.conf file:
5400 stream tcp nowait nncp /usr/bin/nncp-daemon nncp-daemon -quiet -ucspi
Run nncp-call every hour or every day from cron for the
systems you want to call. Those systems don’t need a cron
key in the /etc/nncp.hjson file.
This is my laptop calling my server every hour, via
/etc/cron.hourly/nncp:
#!/bin/sh
if [ -x /usr/bin/nncp-call ]; then
su nncp -s /bin/sh -c "/usr/bin/nncp-call -noprogress sibirocobombus"
fi
This is on the laptop, for my neighbours erebor and
quux in /etc/cron.daily/nncp:
if [ -x /usr/bin/nncp-call ]; then
for neighbour in erebor quux; do
su nncp -s /bin/sh -c "/usr/bin/nncp-call -noprogress $neighbour"
done
fi
This is for the server, tossing stuff once per hour, via
/etc/cron.hourly/nncp:
#!/bin/sh
if [ -x /usr/bin/nncp-toss ]; then
su nncp -s /bin/sh -c "/usr/bin/nncp-toss"
fi
Adding autotoss: true only helps for the system calling
others. On the server, tossing needs to happen on a regular basis.
Finally, you can do some clean-up by copying
/usr/share/doc/nncp/examples/cron-daily-nncp to
/etc/cron.daily/nncp-cleanup.
I’m using the following, both on the laptop and the server:
#!/bin/bash
if [ -x /usr/bin/nncp-rm ]; then
for TYPE in part seen hdr area; do
su nncp -s /bin/bash -c "nncp-rm -quiet -all -older 7d -$TYPE"
done
su nncp -s /bin/bash -c "nncp-rm -quiet -tmp -older 7d"
fi
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-08-09-nncp-automation
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-08-10, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Israel waited for people to assemble for prayer this morning and then killed about 100 people.
The pictures circulating show children in pieces.
The Biden administration really likes to bend backwards for that ass backwards right wing regime.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112935553274685976
SCV 40 Under Forty Nominations Open
date: 2024-08-10, from: SCV New (TV Station)
JCI Santa Clarita has announced nominations for the 2024 Santa Clarita Valley 40 Under Forty are now open
https://scvnews.com/40-under-40-nominations-now-open/
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-10, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Today I got my Hello World app for ChatGPT working.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/09.html#a030535
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-10, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
I’m
really excited about maybe finally getting my archive of Scripting News
and DaveNet stuff, dating back to 1994, into ChatGPT before too long.
Some people will be surprised to find that they’re in the archive. If
this works it’ll be like the index in the back of a large book. I know
I’ve tried this before, but this time I think I’ll be able to do it
myself and fuss over it and learn from it the way I do software
development. Converting a very large work of writing into a reference, I
hope.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/09.html#a030021
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-10, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
1995: “There was nothing rehearsed about Jerry Garcia.”
http://scripting.com/2024/08/09.html#a025928
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Ignore the NY Times.
https://balloon-juice.com/2024/08/09/the-new-york-times-is-an-arm-of-the-trump-campaign/
Sept. 14: Cheers for Charity Benefits Michael Hoefflin Foundation
date: 2024-08-10, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Michael Hoefflin Foundation will present the Second Annual Cheers for Charity fundraiser, an event with “Drinks, Food and Music” on Saturday, Sept. 14, at the Canyon Country Community Center
https://scvnews.com/sept-14-cheers-for-charity-benefits-michael-hoefflin-foundation/
US ambassador confirms Mexican drug lord was brought to US against his will
date: 2024-08-10, from: VOA News USA
MEXICO CITY — The U.S. ambassador to Mexico confirmed Friday that drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was brought to the United States against his will when he arrived in Texas in July on a plane along with fellow drug lord Joaquín Guzmán López.
Zambada’s attorney had earlier claimed the longtime chief of the Sinaloa cartel had been kidnapped. But officials had not confirmed that, and Zambada’s age and apparent ill-health had led some to speculate he turned himself in.
U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar on Friday said, “the evidence we saw … is that they had brought El Mayo Zambada against his will.”
“This was an operation between cartels, where one turned the other one in,” Salazar said. Zambada’s faction of the Sinaloa cartel has been engaged in fierce fighting with another faction, led by the sons of imprisoned drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Guzmán López is the half-brother of the factional leaders.
Salazar said no U.S. personnel, resources or aircraft were involved in the flight on which Guzmán López turned himself in, and that U.S. officials were “surprised” when the two showed up at an airport outside El Paso, Texas on July 25.
Frank Pérez, Zambada’s attorney, said in a statement in July that “my client neither surrendered nor negotiated any terms with the U.S. government.”
“Joaquín Guzmán López forcibly kidnapped my client,” Pérez wrote. “He was ambushed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed by six men in military uniforms and Joaquin. His legs were tied, and a black bag was placed over his head.”
Pérez went on to say that Zambada, 76, was thrown in the back of a pickup truck, forced onto a plane and tied to the seat by Guzmán López.
In early August, Zambada made his second appearance in federal court in Texas after being taken into U.S. custody the week before.
Guzmán López had apparently long been in negotiations with U.S. authorities about possibly turning himself in. Guzmán López, 38, has pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other charges in federal court in Chicago.
But U.S. officials said they had almost no warning when Guzmán López’s plane landed at an airport near El Paso. Both men were arrested and remain jailed. They are charged in the U.S. with various drug crimes.
Salazar said the plane had taken off from Sinaloa — the Pacific coast state where the cartel is headquartered — and had filed no flight plan. He stressed the pilot wasn’t American, nor was the plane.
The implication is that Guzmán López intended to turn himself in and brought Zambada with him to procure more favorable treatment, but his motives remain unclear.
Zambada was thought to be more involved in day-to-day operations of the cartel than his better-known and flashier boss, “El Chapo,” who was sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. in 2019.
Zambada is charged in a number of U.S. cases, including in New York and California. Prosecutors brought a new indictment against him in New York in February, describing him as the “principal leader of the criminal enterprise responsible for importing enormous quantities of narcotics into the United States.”
The capture of Zambada and Guzmán López — and the idea that one cartel faction had turned in the leader of the other — raised fears that the already divided cartel could descend into a spiral of violent infighting.
That prompted Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to take the unusual step of issuing a public appeal to drug cartels not to fight each other.
Garcia checks in on local resources with federal support
date: 2024-08-10, from: The Signal
From local water treatment to improving the Child & Family Center, Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, made the rounds Friday reveling in the kind of goodwill that $82.4 million to […]
The post Garcia checks in on local resources with federal support appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/garcia-checks-in-on-local-resources-with-federal-support/
Tightrope walker marks Twin Towers stunt, 50 years on
date: 2024-08-10, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — Renowned French high-wire artist Philippe Petit marked the 50th anniversary of his famous walk between New York’s Twin Towers with a performance in a Manhattan cathedral, accompanied by live music from Sting.
Petit walked between the spires of the World Trade Center skyscrapers, 1,350 feet up, on August 7, 1974.
A photographer captured the feat with the New York skyline in the background as Petit — without a harness — made the crossing.
Now 74 years old, Petit partly re-created his gravity-defying stunt Thursday in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, about seven miles north of the former Twin Towers, which were destroyed in the attacks of September 11, 2001.
“Of course, my illegal walk between the towers was the most important moment of my life at the time, and now I look back and I have done something like 100 high wire walks all over the world,” Petit told AFP.
In the reconstruction, Petit was met by a police officer as he completed his walk.
The New York Times, which called Petit’s Twin Towers walk the “art crime of the century,” reported that in 1974 after 45 minutes of “knee bends and other stunts,” Petit turned himself over to waiting police.
He was charged with disorderly conduct and trespass, but the charges were dropped in return for a free aerial performance in a city park.
The feature film The Walk, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and the Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire tell the story of the famous stunt.
https://www.voanews.com/a/tightrope-walker-marks-twin-towers-stunt-50-years-on-/7737224.html
Garcia authors bill to stop ‘wasteful high-speed rail spending’
date: 2024-08-10, from: The Signal
Congressman Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita has introduced H.R. 9308, the “No Frankenrail Act,” to put an end to the misuse of federal funds on high-speed rail projects that have been […]
The post Garcia authors bill to stop ‘wasteful high-speed rail spending’ appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/garcia-authors-bill-to-stop-wasteful-high-speed-rail-spending/
Kathryn Barger | Keeping Up With Kathryn
date: 2024-08-10, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Accessibility to the arts is often connected to affordability. The high cost of living in Los Angeles County can decrease residents’ disposable income and become a barrier for them to experience arts, culture and leisure activities.
https://scvnews.com/kathryn-barger-keeping-up-with-kathryn-10/
US election looms over US-South Korea-Japan security cooperation
date: 2024-08-10, from: VOA News USA
washington — Experts in Washington are split on their perspectives of the durability of the recently elevated U.S.-South Korea-Japan security cooperation in the event of former President Donald Trump winning the November U.S. presidential election, given his critical stance toward U.S. alliances in the past.
Last month, the U.S., South Korea and Japan signed a memorandum of cooperation on the Trilateral Security Cooperation Framework (TSCF), which is aimed at institutionalizing the countries’ security partnership against threats from China and North Korea.
While not legally binding, the memorandum is expected to facilitate trilateral security cooperation regardless of any leadership changes in their respective countries.
The agreement calls for regular high-level talks, joint exercises and other exchanges among the three nations.
Some in Washington, however, question whether the United States, South Korea and Japan would successfully institutionalize the enhanced security cooperation in a second Trump presidency.
“Certainly, the greatest and near-term concern is if President Trump is reelected, whether he would undo some of the progress of recent years,” Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation, told VOA Korean by telephone Wednesday.
Klingner added that the three governments hoped that signing the memorandum would regularize and operationalize the ongoing security improvements among the three nations.
The Biden administration says stronger trilateral cooperation is an integral part of its Indo-Pacific strategy.
The administration also has been touting the August 2023 summit at Camp David with the U.S., South Korea and Japan as a historic meeting, saying the three leaders “inaugurated a new era of trilateral partnership” there.
In a Washington Post opinion piece published this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the U.S. security partnership in the Indo-Pacific region is working more effectively than before, citing the cooperation among the United States, South Korea and Japan as an example.
“President [Joe] Biden brought together Japan and South Korea — two countries with a difficult history — to join the United States in the Camp David Trilateral Summit, spurring unprecedented defense and economic cooperation among our countries,” they wrote.
Uncertainty looms
It is uncertain how the U.S. trilateral partnership with South Korea and Japan would shape up if Trump returns to power, as the former president has not publicly articulated a stance on the trilateral cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.
Trump has put strong emphasis on U.S. allies paying their “fair share” of defense costs.
During his presidency, Trump demanded that South Korea and Japan pay more for the cost of the U.S. military presence in their countries. He warned the U.S. could withdraw its troops unless the demands were met.
Michael O’Hanlon, director of foreign policy research at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told VOA Korean via email Wednesday that it would be hard to predict whether the TSCF would survive a possible Trump second term.
“Most things are personalized with him, or they relate to his instincts and impressions based on previous business dealings,” he said.
“Both the leaders [of South Korea and Japan] he dealt with when president are now gone. So, it’s a wild card or blank slate.”
However, some disagree.
Richard Armitage, who served as deputy secretary of state during the George W. Bush administration, told VOA Korean by telephone Thursday that Trump would likely allow the institutionalization of the TSCF, considering the strong support from both sides of the aisle.
“I find the majority [of] members on Capitol Hill are very positive to it,” Armitage said.
“I do notice that some of the people who are rumored to be coming in, should Mr. Trump win, are actually quite international in their outlook,” he added, declining to say who those people are.
Alliance commitment
Frederick Fleitz, who served as chief of staff of the National Security Council in the Trump White House, told VOA Korean by phone Wednesday that he would expect the agreement on the security framework among the U.S. and the two U.S. allies in Asia to be upheld in a second Trump administration.
“It’s going to remain,” Fleitz said. “He [Trump] is a strong supporter of alliances, particularly our alliance in the Asian Pacific.”
Fleitz added that the stronger security ties among the three countries is “a significant achievement that’s going to continue.”
Evans Revere, who served as acting assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, told VOA Korean via email that China’s rise to become the greatest threat in the Indo-Pacific theater is a fact not to be ignored by any of the three countries.
“There is every reason to believe the three countries can effectively institutionalize trilateral security cooperation, even if there is a change of administration in one or more of the three capitals,” Revere said. “There is a growing perception in all three countries of the threats and challenges they share in common. China’s attempts at political, military and economic intimidation are becoming more frequent.”
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running to become the successor to Biden, is widely predicted to continue on the path Biden forged.
“Harris does not have a clearly established record on U.S.-South Korea-Japan security cooperation, but I expect that she will follow the policies of the Biden administration on this issue,” Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration, told VOA Korean via email.
Blinken, Austin and Sullivan highlighted in the Post opinion piece that the transformed approach toward the Indo-Pacific region is “one of the most important and least-told stories of the foreign policy strategy advanced by President Biden and Vice President Harris.”
Joeun Lee contributed to this report.
Aug. 15: Castaic School Board Regular Meeting
date: 2024-08-10, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Castaic Union School District Governing Board will hold its regular meeting Thursday, Aug. 15, at 6 p.m
https://scvnews.com/aug-15-castaic-school-board-regular-meeting/