News gathered 2024-09-01
(date: 2024-09-01 11:16:42)
Biden administration delays announcement on China tariffs
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-administration-delays-announcement-on-china-tariffs-/7767399.html
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-01, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
I am a couple of paragraphs into this Paul Graham post and I find myself nodding constantly.
The worst guidance with most catastrophic consequences was always given by the management mode people:
https://paulgraham.com/foundermode.html
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113063156264702711
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The networks should put Trump on time delay and when he says you can legally murder babies in some states, that should be treated as if he said fck or sht. Put up a screen that explains why he was cut off, then go to commercial.
https://mastodon.social/@bkize@hachyderm.io/113062650913634400
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Paul Graham wrote a very useful piece about "Founder Mode." As a founder myself, I think I can tell you why founders have a central role to play as a company grows.
http://scripting.com/2024/09/01.html#a155212
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
It's totally okay that Bluesky and Mastodon don't interop. We can flatten it out, as earlier developers did with TCP.
https://www.threads.net/@thebrianpenny/post/C_XR5WWxEoj
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Scripting News: News on the web still sucks.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/29/153350.html
A brief trip to the past
date: 2024-09-01, from: Status-Q blog
I’ve just come back from bobbing about in a small boat on the crystal blue waters of the Greek bit of the Mediterranean – a marvellous excerience! I’m sitting in the tender here because, as anyone who has tried it will confirm, it’s much easier to land a drone on a boat that doesn’t have Continue Reading
https://statusq.org/archives/2024/09/01/12156/
George Clooney, Brad Pitt disappointed their new film skips cinemas
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
Venice, Italy — Hollywood heavyweights George Clooney and Brad Pitt admit they are disappointed their latest comedy “Wolfs” is not getting a broad cinema release and instead heading almost straight onto Apple TV.
“It is a bummer,” Clooney said on Sunday, adding that television streamers, such as Apple AAPL.O, were nevertheless vital to the future of filmmaking, presenting actors with opportunities and generating bigger audiences for their work.
“Streaming, we need it, our industry needs this,” he said.
Written and directed by Jon Watts, “Wolfs” is an old-fashioned crime caper with Clooney and Pitt playing lone-wolf professional fixers who are forced to work together with comically unfortunate consequences.
Apple originally signaled it would place the film in a large number of cinemas before the TV release, but instead opted to show it briefly in a restricted number of U.S. movie theatres and then run it on its global TV service.
“We’ll always be romantic about the theatrical experience. At the same time, I love the existence of the streamers because we get to see more story, we get to see more talent, it gets more eyes,” said Pitt. “It’s a delicate balance right now and it’ll right itself.”
Asked what it meant if two of the biggest names in the business could not get a broad cinema release, as they had requested, Clooney quipped: “Clearly we’re declining.”
Sixteen years after last appearing together in 2008’s Coen brothers’ comedy “Burn After Reading,” Pitt and Clooney said they jumped at the chance to reunite when they read Watts’ script for “Wolfs.”
“I got to say, just as I get older, just working with the people that I just really enjoy spending time with has really become important to me,” said Pitt, who turned 60 last year.
In a news conference full of light-hearted banter, Clooney, said Pitt, was fortunate still to be offered parts. “He’s 74 years-old and he’s very lucky at this age to still be working.”
On a more serious note, he denied a New York Times story in August that said both he and Pitt had been paid more than $35 million each to appear in the film.
“I’m only saying that because I think it’s bad for our industry if that’s what people think is the standard bearer for salaries. I think that’s a terrible thing. It will make it impossible to make a film,” he said.
“Wolfs” is showing out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, which runs until Sept. 7.
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-01, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Some months ago, I did entertain the idea of “maybe I could automatically walk the UI tree from a Godot dialog and produce a SwiftUI one”.
It felt wrong, but I can now with confidence say, it would be shit.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113062902453095713
Heliography in darkness
date: 2024-09-01, from: OS News
Telegram doesn’t hold up to the promise of being private, nor secure. The end-to-end encryption is opt-in, only applies to one-on-one conversations and uses a controversial ‘homebrewn’ encryption algorithm. The rest of this article outlines some of the fundamentally broken aspects of Telegram. ↫ h3artbl33d Telegram is not a secure messenger, nor is it a platform you should want to be on. Chats are not encrypted by default, and are stored in plain text on Telegram’s server. Only chats between two (not more!) people who also happen to both be online at that time can be “encrypted”. In addition, the quotation marks highlight another massive issue with Telegram: its “encryption” is non-standard, home-grown, and countless security researchers have warned against relying on it. Telegram’s issues go even further than this, though. The application also copies your contacts to its servers and keeps them there, they’ve got a “People nearby” feature that shares location data, and so much more. The linked article does a great job of listing the litany of problems Telegram has, backed up by sources and studies, and these alone should convince anyone to not use Telegram for anything serious. And that’s even before we talk about Telegram’s utter disinterest in stopping the highly illegal activities that openly take place on its platform, from selling drugs, down to far more shocking and dangerous activities like sharing revenge pron, CSAM, and more. Telegram has a long history of not giving a single iota about shuttering groups that share and promote such material, leaving victims of such heinous crimes out in the cold. Don’t use Telegram. A much better alternative is Signal, and hell, even WhatsApp, of all things, is a better choice.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140647/heliography-in-darkness/
Where did summer go?
date: 2024-09-01, from: Enlightenment Economics
Already September 1st, and a tang of autumn in the morning air. I had a two-week holiday with no laptop or emails, and lots of reading. Then a two-week scramble to catch up with the accumulated email and work. So … Continue reading
http://www.enlightenmenteconomics.com/blog/index.php/2024/09/where-did-summer-go/
Servo gets tabbed browsing, Windows improvements, and more
date: 2024-09-01, from: OS News
If you’re reading this, you did a good job surviving another month, and that means we’ve got another monthly update from the Servo project, the Rust-based browser engine originally started by Mozilla. The major new feature this month is tabbed browsing in the Servo example browser, as well as extensive improvements for Servo on Windows. Servo-the-browser now has a redesigned toolbar and tabbed browsing! This includes a slick new tab page, taking advantage of a new API that lets Servo embedders register custom protocol handlers. ↫ Servo’s blog Servo now runs better on Windows, with keyboard navigation now fixed, –output to PNG also fixed, and fixes for some font- and GPU-related bugs, which were causing misaligned glyphs with incorrect colors on servo.org and duckduckgo.com, and corrupted images on wikipedia.org. Of course, that’s not at all, as there’s also the usual massive list of improved standards support, new APIs, improvements to some of the developer tools (including massive improvements in Windows build times), and a huge number of fixed bugs.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140645/servo-gets-tabbed-browsing-windows-improvements-and-more/
LEVER WEEKLY: Corporations Didn’t Save Their Receipts
date: 2024-09-01, from: The Lever News
A supermarket chain deletes evidence, fossil fuels score their own justice, and more from The Lever this week.
https://www.levernews.com/lever-weekly-corporations-didnt-save-their-receipts-2/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
There Are No Backsies on Dobbs.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/09/01/there-are-no-backsies-on-dobbs/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Clash of the Tech Titans: Silicon Valley Fractures Over Harris vs. Trump.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Abortion is the clearest issue there is. If you think women should choose you must vote for Harris.
https://politicalwire.com/2024/09/01/trump-and-gop-struggle-to-address-abortion-issues/
US hotel workers strike in Boston, Greenwich as contract negotiations stall
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — About 1,070 hotel workers in the U.S. cities of Boston and Greenwich are on strike after contract talks with hotel operators Marriott International MAR.O, Hilton Worldwide HLT.N and Hyatt Hotels H.N stalled, the Unite Here union said on Sunday.
The strikes in Boston and Greenwich will last three days, the union said, adding that more hotel workers in different cities are expected to walk off the job across the U.S. throughout the Labor Day holiday weekend.
Unite Here, which represents workers in hotels, casinos and airports across the United States and Canada, said frustrated workers may strike in major destinations including San Francisco and Seattle as they struggle to agree with hotel operators on wages and on reversing pandemic-era job cuts.
“Strikes have also been authorized and could begin at any time in Baltimore, Honolulu, Kauai, New Haven, Oakland, Providence, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle,” Unite Here said in a statement.
A total of 40,000 Unite Here hotel workers in more than 20 cities are working under contracts that expire this year. About 15,000 of those workers have authorized strikes in 12 markets from Boston to Honolulu.
Workers have been in negotiations for new four-year contracts since May.
“We’re on strike because the hotel industry has gotten off track,” Unite Here President Gwen Mills said.
“We won’t accept a ‘new normal’ where hotel companies profit by cutting their offerings to guests and abandoning their commitments to workers,” Mills added.
Unite Here workers in 2023 won record contracts in Los Angeles following rolling strikes and in Detroit after a 47-day strike.
In Las Vegas, casino operators MGM MGM.N, Caesars CZR.O and Wynn WYNN.O resorts reached an agreement in November to avert a strike with 40,000 hospitality workers days before a deadline that would have crippled the Vegas Strip.
iGulu F1 could be the hoppy ending to your home-brew horror show
date: 2024-09-01, updated: 2024-09-01, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Good things come to those who wait – and have deep pockets
Review It’s no secret that this vulture is partial to an adult beverage or two. But brewing your own? That way lies madness due to the complexities involved. However, the iGulu F1 seeks to make home-brew disasters a thing of the past thanks to automation and idiot-proof ingredients.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/01/igulu_f1_home_brewer/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Founder Mode.
https://paulgraham.com/foundermode.html
Pickleball picks away at American tennis
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
New York — Does American tennis have a pickleball problem?
Even as the U.S. Open opened this week with more than a million fans expected for the sport’s biggest showcase, the game’s leaders are being forced to confront a devastating fact — the nation’s fastest-growing racket sport (or sport of any kind) is not tennis but pickleball, which has seen participation boom 223% in the past three years.
“Quite frankly, it’s obnoxious to hear that pickleball noise,” U.S. Tennis Association President Dr. Brian Hainline grumbled at a recent state-of-the-game news conference, bemoaning the distinctive pock, pock, pock of pickleball points.
Pickleball, an easy-to-play mix of tennis and ping pong using paddles and a wiffleball, has quickly soared from nearly nothing to 13.6 million U.S. players in just a few years, leading tennis purists to fear a day when it could surpass tennis’ 23.8 million players. And most troubling is that pickleball’s rise has often come at the expense of thousands of tennis courts encroached upon or even replaced by smaller pickleball courts.
“When you see an explosion of a sport and it starts potentially eroding into your sport, then, yes, you’re concerned,” Hainline said in an interview with The Associated Press. “That erosion has come in our infrastructure. … A lot of pickleball advocates just came in and said, ‘We need these tennis courts.’ It was a great, organic grassroots movement but it was a little anti-tennis.”
Some tennis governing bodies in other countries have embraced pickleball and other racket sports under the more-the-merrier belief they could lead more players to the mothership of tennis. France’s tennis federation even set up a few pickleball courts at this year’s French Open to give top players and fans a chance to try it out.
But the USTA has taken a decidedly different approach. Nowhere at the U.S. Open’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is there any such demonstration court, exhibition match or any other nod to pickleball or its possible crossover appeal.
In fact, the USTA is flipping the script on pickleball with an ambitious launch of more than 400 pilot programs across the country to broaden the reach of an easier-to-play, smaller-court version of tennis called “red ball tennis.” Backers say it’s the ideal way for people of all ages to get into tennis and the best place to try it is (wait for it) on pickleball courts.
“You can begin tennis at any age,” USTA’s Hainline said. “We believe that when you do begin this great sport of tennis, it’s probably best to begin it on a shorter court with a larger, low-compression red ball. What’s an ideal short court? A pickleball court.”
And instead of the plasticky plink of a pickleball against a flat paddle, Hainline said, striking a fuzzy red tennis ball with a stringed racket allows for a greater variety of strokes and “just a beautiful sound.” Players can either stick with red ball tennis or advance through a progression of bouncier balls to full-court tennis.
“Not to put it down,” Hainline said of pickleball, “but compared to tennis … seriously?”
So what does the head of the nation’s pickleball governing body have to say about such comments and big tennis’ plans to plant the seeds of its growth, at least in part, on pickleball courts?
“I don’t like it but there is so much going on with pickleball, so many good things, I’m going to stick to what I can control, harnessing the growth and supporting this game,” said Pickleball USA CEO Mike Nealy.
Among the positive signs, Nealy said, is the continuing construction of new pickleball courts across the country, raising the total to more than 50,000. There’s also growing investment in the game at clubs built in former big-box retail stores, pro leagues with such backers as Tom Brady, LeBron James and Drake, and the emergence of “dink-and-drink” establishments that tap into the social aspect of the game by allowing friends to enjoy pickleball, beer, wine and food under the same roof.
“I don’t think it needs to be one or the other or a competition,” Nealy said of pickleball and tennis. “You’re certainly going to have the inherent frictions in communities when tennis people don’t feel that they’re getting what they want. … They’re different games but I think they are complimentary. There’s plenty of room for both sports to be very successful.”
Top-ranked American tennis player Taylor Fritz agreed. “There are some people in the tennis world that are just absolute pickleball haters, and that’s fine. But for me, I don’t really have an issue with pickleball. I like playing sometimes. … I don’t see any reason why both of them can’t exist.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/pickleball-picks-away-at-american-tennis/7763499.html
Newborn rattlesnakes at Colorado ‘mega den’ make their live debut
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
CHEYENNE, Wyoming — A “mega den” of hundreds of rattlesnakes in Colorado is getting even bigger now that late summer is here and babies are being born.
Thanks to livestream video, scientists studying the den on a craggy hillside in Colorado are learning more about these enigmatic — and often misunderstood — reptiles. They’re observing as the youngsters, called pups, slither over and between adult females on lichen-encrusted rocks.
The public can watch too on the Project RattleCam website and help with important work including how to tell the snakes apart. Since researchers put their remote camera online in May, several snakes have become known in a chat room and to scientists by names including “Woodstock,” “Thea” and “Agent 008.”
The live feed, which draws as many as 500 people at a time online, on Thursday showed a tangle of baby snakes with tiny nubs for rattles. They have a lot of growing to do: A rattlesnake adds a rattle segment each time it sheds its skin a couple times a year, on average.
The project is a collaboration between California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, snake removal company Central Coast Snake Services and Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
By involving the public, the scientists hope to dispel the idea that rattlesnakes are usually fierce and dangerous. In fact, experts say they rarely bite unless threatened or provoked and often are just the opposite.
Rattlesnakes are not only among the few reptiles that care for their young. They even care for the young of others. The adults protect and lend body heat to pups from birth until they enter hibernation in mid-autumn, said Max Roberts, a CalPoly graduate student researcher.
“We regularly see what we like to call ‘babysitting,’ pregnant females that we can visibly see have not given birth, yet are kind of guarding the newborn snakes,” Roberts said Wednesday.
As many as 2,000 rattlesnakes spend the winter at the location on private land, which the researchers are keeping secret to discourage trespassers. Once the weather warms, only pregnant females remain while the others disperse to nearby territory.
This year, the scientists keeping watch over the Colorado site have observed the rattlesnakes coil up and catch water to drink from the cups formed by their bodies. They’ve also seen how the snakes react to birds swooping in to try to grab a scaly meal.
The highlight of summer is in late August and early September when the rattlesnakes give birth over a roughly two-week period.
“As soon as they’re born, they know how to move into the sun or into the shade to regulate their body temperature,” Roberts said.
There are 36 species of rattlesnakes, most of which inhabit the U.S. They range across nearly all states and are especially common in the Southwest. Those being studied now are prairie rattlesnakes, which can be found in much of the central and western U.S. and into Canada and Mexico.
Like other pit viper species but unlike most snakes, rattlesnakes don’t lay eggs. Instead, they give birth to live young. Eight is an average-size brood, with the number depending on the snake’s size, according to Roberts.
Roberts is studying how temperature changes and ultraviolet sunlight affect snake behavior. Another graduate student, Owen Bachhuber, is studying the family and social relationships between rattlesnakes.
The researchers watch the live feed all day.
“We are interested in studying the natural behavior of rattlesnakes, free from human disturbance. What do rattlesnakes actually do when we’re not there?” Roberts said.
Now that the Rocky Mountain summer is cooling, some males have been returning. By November, the camera running on solar and battery power will be turned off until next spring, when the snakes will re-emerge from their “mega den.”
Notes on font licensing
date: 2024-09-01, updated: 2024-09-01, from: Robin Rendle Essays
https://robinrendle.com/notes/notes-on-font-licensing/
US transfers ‘some aircraft’ used by former Afghan army to Uzbekistan
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
washington — The United States has handed over to the Uzbek government possession of aircraft that former Afghan air force personnel flew to Uzbekistan after the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 2021.
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told VOA on Thursday that the ownership of “some aircraft” was transferred to Uzbekistan as part of the Department of Defense’s Excess Defense Articles program.
“This transfer was agreed in the context of our strong bilateral cooperation on counterterrorism, counternarcotics and enhanced border security,” the spokesperson told VOA in an email, without saying how many aircraft were transferred to the Uzbek government.
The fate of aircraft that were flown to Uzbekistan after the fall of Afghanistan into the hands of the Taliban has been a bone of contention between the Taliban and Uzbekistan for three years.
Afghan air force personnel flew about 46 aircraft — 22 military planes and 24 helicopters — to Uzbekistan as the government in Afghanistan collapsed in the face of the Taliban’s advances in August 2021.
The Taliban, who consider the aircraft to be Afghan property, objected to the handover of the aircraft to Uzbekistan.
“The Ministry of Defense [of the Taliban] clearly declares that the United States has no right to donate or confiscate the property of the Afghan people,” the spokesperson of the Taliban’s Ministry of Defense said in an audio message sent to media this week.
The Taliban spokesperson also called on Uzbekistan to make a “reasonable decision” to return the aircraft to the Taliban.
Local media in Uzbekistan reported last week that the U.S. ambassador said the aircraft had already been transferred.
Tashkent has not commented yet on the transfer. However, Uzbek authorities previously said that the aircraft belonged to the United States because the U.S. government paid for them and that it would not return the military equipment to the Taliban.
Tashkent-Taliban relations
Alisher Hamidov, an expert on Central Asia, told VOA that the transfer of aircraft to Uzbekistan may complicate the relations between Tashkent and the Taliban.
“The situation with the planes may now endanger Uzbekistan’s diplomatic relations,” he said, adding that Tashkent has been playing mediator between Kabul and other countries over the past three years.
“The main goal was to bring Afghanistan [Taliban] to the international arena, restore relations and, of course, strengthen Uzbekistan’s economy and foreign policy,” Hamidov added.
Uzbekistan has cultivated close relations with the Taliban, though it does not officially recognize the Taliban’s government in Afghanistan.
On Thursday, the Taliban’s deputy prime minister, Abdul Ghani Baradar, attended the inauguration ceremony of the Termez International Trade Center in Uzbekistan’s border town of Termez.
On August 17, the prime minister of Uzbekistan, Abdulla Aripov, visited Kabul and signed 35 trade and investment agreements valued at $2.5 billion.
Malik Mansur of VOA’s Uzbek Service contributed to this report, which originated in VOA’s Afghan Service.
Netanyahu vows to ‘settle the score’ with Hamas after bodies of six hostages are found
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Sunday to intensify the fight with Hamas after the Israeli military recovered the bodies of six hostages, all of whom were apparently shot to death by the militants just as troops were zeroing in on their location in Gaza.
“Those who kill hostages do not want an agreement” for a Gaza cease-fire, Netanyahu said in a statement, telling Hamas leaders that “we will hunt you down, we will catch you and we will settle the score.”
A military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, told reporters in a briefing, “According to our initial estimation, they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short time before we reached them.” They were found in a tunnel in the southern city of Rafah.
Netanyahu also accused Hamas of carrying out a shooting attack earlier on Sunday that killed three police officers near the city of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Hamas has not claimed responsibility for the attack but called it a “heroic operation by the resistance.”
Netanyahu said, “We are fighting on all fronts against a cruel enemy who wants to murder us all. The fact that Hamas continues to commit atrocities such as those it committed on October 7 obliges us to do everything we can to ensure that it can no longer do so.”
The Israeli military said the West Bank attackers fired at a vehicle at the checkpoint near Hebron. “Security forces have begun to search for the terrorists,” it said in a statement.
An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, told CNN’s “State of the Union” show that Israeli forces are continuing to search tunnels near where the bodies of the hostages were found, only a kilometer from where a living hostage, Qaid Farhan Alkadi, a member of the Bedouin community in southern Israel, was rescued last week.
Oma Neutra, the mother of another hostage, Omer Neutra-Oma, said on CNN, “It’s time for the leaders to get this done,” to reach a cease-fire to halt nearly 11 months of fighting in Gaza precipitated by the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of about 250 hostages.
“Enough is enough,” she said.
The Israeli counteroffensive has killed nearly 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to Gaza health officials, while the Israeli military says the death toll includes several thousand Hamas combatants.
Israel says it believes 101 Israeli and foreign hostages remain in Gaza, but about one-third of them is believed to be dead, while the fate of the others is not known.
Senior Hamas officials said that Israel, in its refusal to sign a cease-fire agreement, was to blame for the newest deaths.
“Netanyahu is responsible for the killing of Israeli prisoners,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters. “The Israelis should choose between Netanyahu and the deal.”
Hamas has offered to release the hostages in return for an end to the war, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and the release of dozens of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants, jailed by Israel.
The Hostage Families Forum called on Netanyahu to take responsibility and explain what was holding up an agreement.
“They were all murdered in the last few days, after surviving almost 11 months of abuse, torture, and starvation in Hamas captivity. The delay in signing the deal has led to their deaths and those of many other hostages,” it said.
Families of the hostages called for a nationwide Israeli general strike to try to increase pressure on Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid also called for a “general strike.”
“They were alive, but Netanyahu and his cabinet of death decided not to save them,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “There are still hostages alive. We can still make a deal.”
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called on the government to reverse a decision last Thursday to keep Israeli forces in the Philadelphi Corridor along the border with Egypt, a key point of contention in negotiations for a Gaza cease-fire.
“The cabinet must gather immediately and reverse the decision made on Thursday,” Gallant said in a statement. “We must bring back the hostages that are still being held by Hamas.” Gallant and Netanyahu got into a shouting match over the corridor issue, but other security officials sided with Netanyahu.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who has closely followed the fate of the hostages, said the six bodies found in the Gaza tunnel included Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Biden said he was “devastated and outraged.”
“Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages,” he said in a statement.
Goldberg-Polin, 23, was captured at a music festival near the Gaza border and appeared in a video released by Hamas in late April.
Earlier, speaking to reporters at his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware vacation retreat, Biden said he was “still optimistic” about reaching a cease-fire deal to stop the conflict, adding, “People are continuing to meet.”
Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
Family confirms death of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
JERUSALEM — The family of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin announced the young man’s death early Sunday, ending a relentless campaign by his parents to rescue him that included meetings with world leaders and an address to the Democratic convention last month.
Goldberg-Polin, 23, was seized by militants at a music festival in southern Israel on October 7. The native of Berkeley, California, lost part of his left arm to a grenade in the attack. In April, a Hamas-issued video showed him, his left hand missing and clearly speaking under duress, sparking new protests in Israel urging the government to do more to secure his and others’ freedom.
Israel’s announcement is bound to bring urgent new calls for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a deal to bring home remaining hostages. The Israeli leader has taken a tough line in negotiations and repeatedly said that military pressure is needed to bring home the hostages. According to Israeli media, he has feuded with top security officials who have said a deal should be reached urgently.
President Joe Biden, who had met with the parents, said he was “devastated and outraged.”
“It is as tragic as it is reprehensible,” he said. “Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages.”
The family issued a statement early Sunday, hours after the Israeli army said it had located bodies in Gaza.
“With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Polin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh,” it said. “The family thanks you all for your love and support and asks for privacy at this time.”
There was no immediate comment from the army, details on the exact circumstances of his death or identities of other bodies recovered.
Asked about the case earlier on Saturday, Biden said bodies were still being identified and that families were being notified. But he called for an end to the war and said cease-fire efforts were progressing.
“I think we’re on (the) verge of having an agreement,” he said as he left church in Delaware. “It’s just time to end. It’s time to finish it.”
Goldberg-Polin’s parents, U.S.-born immigrants to Israel, became perhaps the most high-profile relatives of hostages on the international stage. They met with Biden, Pope Francis and others and addressed the United Nations, urging the release of all hostages.
On August 21, his parents addressed a hushed hall at the Democratic National Convention — after sustained applause and chants of “bring him home.”
“This is a political convention. But needing our only son — and all of the cherished hostages — home is not a political issue. It is a humanitarian issue,” said his father, Jon Polin. His mother, Rachel, who bowed her head during the ovation and touched her chest, said “Hersh, if you can hear us, we love you, stay strong, survive.”
Both wore stickers with the number 320, representing the number of days their son had been held. It had long become part of a morning ritual — tear a new piece of tape, write down another day.
“I find it so remarkable how nauseating it is every single time,’’ Rachel Goldberg-Polin told The Associated Press in January, ahead of the 100-day mark.”And it’s good. I don’t want to get used to it. I don’t want anybody to get used to the fact that these people are missing.’’
She asked other people around the world to take up the ritual, too, not only for her son, who moved to Israel with his family when he was 7, but for the other hostages and their families.
She and her husband sought to keep their son and the others held from being reduced to numbers, describing Hersh as a music and soccer lover and traveler with plans to attend university since his military service had ended. At events she often addressed her son directly in the hope he could hear her, urging him to live another day.
Some 250 hostages were taken on October 7. Before the military’s announcement of the latest discovery of bodies, Israel said it believed 108 hostages were still held in Gaza and about one-third of them were dead. In late August, the Israeli military recovered the bodies of six hostages in southern Gaza.
Eight hostages have been rescued by Israeli forces, the most recent found on Tuesday. Most of the rest were freed during a weeklong cease-fire in November in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Two previous Israeli operations to free hostages killed scores of Palestinians. Hamas says several hostages have been killed in Israeli airstrikes and failed rescue attempts. Israeli troops mistakenly killed three Israelis who escaped captivity in December.
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-01, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
My teen is not taking well that I am a few trends ahead of her on TikTok.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113060054572855375
VOA Immigration Weekly Recap, August 25-31
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/7766820.html
Catholic diocese sues US over foreign-born priests’ expiring visas
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
Full Circle Weekly News 381
date: 2024-09-01, 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-381/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-08-31, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
OMG, I think I need to use SwiftUI materials for my toolbar backgrounds!
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113059327243024197
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-08-31, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Godot on iPad, my summer wrap-up:
https://blog.la-terminal.net/godot-on-ipad-summer-update/
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113059249071131750
MiniDisc Wiki
date: 2024-08-31, from: Tilde.news
https://www.minidisc.wiki/start
Mississippi bus crash kills 7, injures dozens
date: 2024-08-31, from: VOA News USA
BOVINA, Mississippi — Seven people were killed and dozens were injured in Mississippi after a commercial bus overturned on Interstate 20 Saturday morning, according to the Mississippi Highway Patrol.
Six passengers were pronounced dead at the scene and another died at a hospital, according to a news release. The bus was traveling west when it left the highway near Bovina in Warren County and flipped over. No other vehicle was involved.
The crash was caused by tire failure, the National Transportation Safety Board said on the social media platform known as X. The bus was operated by Autobuses Regiomontanos based in Laredo, Texas. A woman who answered the phone at the company said it was aware of the crash, but she didn’t answer questions or provide her name.
The transit company says it has 20 years of experience providing cross-border trips between 100 destinations in Mexico and the United States. Its website promotes “a modern fleet of buses that receive daily maintenance,” and offers “trips with a special price for workers.”
The dead included a 6-year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister, according to Warren County Coroner Doug Huskey. They were identified by their mother. Authorities were working to identify the other victims, he said.
Thirty-seven passengers were taken to hospitals in Vicksburg and Jackson. The department is continuing its investigation and hasn’t released the names of the deceased. No other information was immediately provided.
https://www.voanews.com/a/mississippi-bus-crash-kills-7-injures-dozens/7766782.html
Here’s 22 examples of Google employees trying to avoid creating evidence for court
date: 2024-08-31, from: OS News
In its antitrust case against Google, the Federal Government filed a list of chats it had obtained that show Google employees explicitly asking each other to turn off a chat history feature to discuss sensitive subjects, showing repeatedly that Google workers understood they should try to avoid creating a paper trail of some of their activities. The filing came following a hearing in which judge Leonie Brinkema ripped Google for “destroyed” evidence while considering a filing from the Department of Justice asking the court to find “adverse interference” against Google, which would allow the court to assume it purposefully destroyed evidence. Previous filings, including in the Epic Games v Google lawsuit and this current antitrust case, have also shown Google employees purposefully turning history off. ↫ Seamus Hughes The fact that corporations break the law, and lie, cheat, and scam their way to the top is not something particularly shocking, nor will it surprise anyone. I can barely even get angry about it anymore – birds gotta eat, fish gotta swim, corpos gotta break the law, that sort of thing. It’s just an inevitability of reality, a law of nature. You know it, I know it, the whole world knows it. No, what really upsets me is just how easily they get away with it, and even if they do get punished, any fines or other forms of punishment are so utterly disproportionately mild compared to the crimes committed. It’s incredibly rare for anyone responsible for corporate crime to ever face any serious punishment, let alone jail time, and even in the rare cases where they do, they usually have some stock options or whatever left over from their employment contract that will ensure a lavishly wealthy lifestyle. Fines levied against corporations as a whole are usually so low they’re just a minor cost of doing business, to the point where one has to wonder why they’re even being levied at all. Compare this to us normal folks, and the differences couldn’t be more stark. Whenever we’re accidentally late on some small bill, we get fined automatically, with very little recourse. We get a speeding ticket automatically in the mail because we drove 5 km/h over the speed limit. Our tax agencies are stupidly effective and efficient at screwing you over for that small side hustle selling crap on eBay. And rarely do we have any effective, efficient recourse. And these things can quickly spiral out of control when you’re already living paycheck to paycheck – being poor is really, really expensive. And let’s not even get into how much worse any of this is if you’re part of a minority, like being black in the US, or of North-African descent in Europe. In this case, the illegal activities of Google and its executies and employees is on such clear display, and yet, few, if any, will suffer any consequences for them. If you ever wonder why so many regular people flock to political extremes, it’s exactly this kind of deep unfairness and inequality that lies at its roots. It’s dispiriting, demoralising, and disheartening, and primes the pumps for disenfranchisement with society, and thus the search for alternatives, upon which extremists pray. We either stop our continual slide into corporatism, or our societies will fall.
Border arrests expected to rise in August; 5-month drop might have ended
date: 2024-08-31, from: VOA News USA
san diego, california — Arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico during August are expected to rise slightly from July, officials said, likely ending five straight months of declines.
Authorities made about 54,000 arrests through Thursday, which, at the current rate, would bring the August total to about 58,000 when the month ends Saturday, according to two U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss information that has not been publicly released.
The tally suggests that arrests could be bottoming out after being halved from a record 250,000 in December, a decline that U.S. officials largely attributed to Mexican authorities increasing enforcement within their borders. Arrests were more than halved again after Democratic President Joe Biden invoked authority to temporarily suspend asylum processing in June. Arrests plunged to 56,408 in July, a 46-month low that changed little in August.
Asked about the latest numbers, the Homeland Security Department released a statement by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas calling on Congress to support failed legislation that would have suspended asylum processing when crossings reached certain thresholds, reshaped how asylum claims are decided to relieve bottlenecked immigration courts and added Border Patrol agents, among other things.
Republicans including presidential nominee Donald Trump opposed the bill, calling it insufficient.
“Thanks to action taken by the Biden-Harris Administration, the hard work of our DHS personnel and our partnerships with other countries in the region and around the world, we continue to see the lowest number of encounters at our Southwest border since September 2020,” Mayorkas said Saturday.
The steep drop from last year’s highs is welcome news for the White House and the Democrats’ White House nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, despite criticism from many immigration advocates that asylum restrictions go too far and from those favoring more enforcement who say Biden’s new and expanded legal paths to entry are far too generous.
More than 765,000 people entered the United States legally through the end of July using an online appointment app called CBP One and an additional 520,000 from four nationalities were allowed through airports with financial sponsors. The airport-based offer to people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela — all nationalities that are difficult to deport — was briefly suspended in July to address concerns about fraud by U.S. financial sponsors.
San Diego, California, again had the most arrests among the Border Patrol’s nine sectors on the Mexican border in August, followed by El Paso, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona, though the three busiest corridors were close, the officials said. Arrests of Colombians and Ecuadoreans fell, which officials attributed to deportation flights to those South American countries. Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras were the top three nationalities.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-31, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Nuns in rural Kansas vex big companies with their investment activism.
Firefox adds automatic picture-in-picture so you can stream and surf more easily
date: 2024-08-31, from: Liliputing
Mozilla has added a new toggle to Firefox that makes activating picture-in-picture video streaming a little bit easier. Firefox has offered picture-in-picture functionality for five years. If you wanted to keep a video going in the foreground while switching over to another tab, however, you had to do it manually. Turn the new setting on […]
The post Firefox adds automatic picture-in-picture so you can stream and surf more easily appeared first on Liliputing.
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-08-31, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Today in Boston we celebrate a local holiday known as “Allston Christmas” all across town - it is a true miracle.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113058039651500017
Check your IP cameras: There’s a new Mirai botnet on the rise
date: 2024-08-31, updated: 2024-08-31, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Also, US offering $2.5M for Belarusian hacker, Backpage kingpins jailed, additional MOVEit victims, and more
in brief A series of IP cameras still used all over the world, despite being well past their end of life, have been exploited to create a new Mirai botnet. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/31/ip_cameras_mirai_botnet/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-31, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Kamala Harris has been dealing with trolls almost since there have been trolls.
https://www.threads.net/@davew/post/C_V0pbwpOcu
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-31, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trump Won’t Commit to Vetoing Federal Abortion Ban.
https://politicalwire.com/2024/08/31/trump-wont-commit-to-vetoing-federal-abortion-ban/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-31, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The press took its best shot at Kamala Harris, and it was a big puff of smoke, she just cruised right through it.
https://www.threads.net/@davew/post/C_VzCo_JSN5
Plus Post: SoftLogic Solutions’ Software Carousel
date: 2024-08-31, from: Computer ads from the Past
Get the best of Windows and OS/2 without learning all this.
https://computeradsfromthepast.substack.com/p/plus-post-softlogic-solutions-software
Harris calls on Trump to debate with mics ‘on the whole time’
date: 2024-08-31, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee in the November 5 U.S. presidential election, on Saturday called on her Republican rival, Donald Trump, to debate her with their microphones switched on throughout the event.
Harris and the former president have agreed to a debate, hosted by ABC News, on September 10.
“Donald Trump is surrendering to his advisors who won’t allow him to debate with a live microphone. If his own team doesn’t have confidence in him, the American people definitely can’t,” Harris said in a post on social media platform X.
“We are running for President of the United States. Let’s debate in a transparent way with the microphones on the whole time.”
Trump has said that he preferred to have his microphone kept on and that he did not like it muted during the last debate against then-contender President Joe Biden.
So-called “hot mics” can help or hurt political candidates, catching off-hand comments that sometimes were not meant for the public. Muted microphones also prevent the debaters from interrupting their opponent.
A representative for ABC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The debate would be the first time Harris and Trump face off since Biden dropped out of the presidential race following a poor performance at a CNN debate in June that raised doubts about his mental acuity.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz and Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance have agreed to an October 1 debate on CBS News.
https://www.voanews.com/a/harris-calls-on-trump-to-debate-with-mics-on-the-whole-time-/7766615.html
Here’s 22 Examples of Google Employees Trying to Avoid Creating Evidence in Antitrust Case
date: 2024-08-31, from: 404 Media Group
“pls turn off history”
AMCOG’s Tony Bartram talks to WROCC – 4th September
date: 2024-08-31, from: RiscOS Story
Tony Bartram has around twenty titles in his AMCOG Games back catalogue, and is currently working on two more titles, both of which feature something new or novel for our platform, and he will be talking at the next Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club (WROCC) meeting, this coming Wednesday. The first of these is a 3D space game, which will be coming at you at the RISC OS London Show later this year – and when I say ‘coming at you’ I mean that in a slightly more literal way…
https://www.riscository.com/2024/amcog-wrocc-4th-september/
Harris’ record in California praised, ridiculed, in US presidential campaign
date: 2024-08-31, from: VOA News USA
U.S. presidential candidate Kamala Harris is from one of America’s most politically liberal states — California. Her work as a local prosecutor, the state’s attorney general and U.S. senator is central to Harris’ presidential campaign. Her opponent, Donald Trump, says that Harris’ record in California shows she is too liberal for the rest of America. From Los Angeles, Genia Dulot tells us what Californians are saying.
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-08-31, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
For me, the question is how can I integrate this business guidance into Godot for iPad?
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113057096315033982
The Final Demonstration of the Xerox ‘Star’ computer (1998)
date: 2024-08-31, from: Tilde.news
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OwG_rQ_Hqw
E Ink faces growing competition in the “paper-like” display space
date: 2024-08-31, from: Liliputing
For the past few decades, E Ink has dominated the market for the paper-like displays found in eBook readers and other devices. The screens are high-contrast, easy to view indoors or outdoors, don’t require a backlight, don’t reflect glare, and consume very little power. But E Ink displays also have slow screen refresh rates, limited […]
The post E Ink faces growing competition in the “paper-like” display space appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/e-ink-faces-growing-competition-in-the-paper-like-display-space/
YOU LOVE TO SEE IT: National Parks Score A Monumental Gift
date: 2024-08-31, from: The Lever News
Plus, sustainable housing is going up, diabetes patients get high-tech help, and abortion rights can’t wait.
https://www.levernews.com/you-love-to-see-it-national-parks-score-a-monumental-gift/
Canadian artist wants Anthropic AI lawsuit corrected
date: 2024-08-31, updated: 2024-08-31, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Tim Boucher objects to the mischaracterization of his work in authors’ copyright claim
Interview Tim Boucher, a Canadian artist, author, and AI activist, sent a letter to the San Francisco judge overseeing an authors’ lawsuit against AI firm Anthropic to object to the way the legal filing characterizes his work.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/31/canadian_artist_anthropic_ai_lawsuit/
Gaza conflict shapes — and reshapes — political views of Muslim American voters
date: 2024-08-31, from: VOA News USA
High rents are forcing small businesses into tough choices
date: 2024-08-31, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — While many costs have come down for small businesses, rents remain high and in some cases are still rising, forcing many owners into some uncomfortable decisions.
“Every time the rent goes up, we have to raise prices, to keep up with the cost,” said Adelita Valentine, owner of HairFreek Barbers in Los Angeles. “But with the cost of living, it makes it difficult on our customers.”
Other owners are choosing to be late on payments or seeking out new locations where the rent is lower. A few are pushing back against their landlord.
Although inflation is easing, it remains a top concern for small businesses. According to Bank of America internal data, rent payments per small business client rose 11% year-over-year in July. That’s more than twice the increase for renting and owning a residence, a metric known as shelter, according to the government’s monthly Consumer Price Index. That figure rose 5.1% in July.
And although the situation has improved since the height of the pandemic, a survey by business networking platform Alignable of more than 6,000 small business owners found that 41% could not pay their July rent on time and in full. And 52% said they’ve encountered rent spikes in the past six months.
The rent for Valentine’s barbershop rose to $4,000 in January from $3,600 in December, the fifth increase in the past eight years. She had to raise the price for her cuts from $35 to $40.
Two months ago, she moved locations for a cheaper $3,200 rent, but her space is smaller now and she sees fewer families coming in.
“A lot of people can’t afford to take a whole family to get haircuts,” after the price increase, she said.
Peter Yu has owned iPAC Automotive, an auto repair and detailing shop in Ontario, Canada, for six years. He said the rent on the shop typically went up about 4% a year. But when his landlord sold the property to a new owner, Yu’s rent jumped from about $1,800 (2,500 Canadian dollars) to about $2,700 (3,700 Canadian dollars) after three months.
He contemplated moving but decided that the cost of a move would be more than just paying the extra rent.
Yu tried to raise prices a month ago, but customers would come in and say “Oh, its too expensive,” and leave, he said. So, he had to drop the price increase in order to get those customers back.
“When we do try to raise our prices, consumers don’t have the money to pay for it. They’re looking for financing options,” he said. Yu’s services run the gamut from paint correction that costs a few hundred dollars to troubleshooting problematic EV battery and electric drive units for out-of-warranty Teslas that can cost up to $15,000.
So instead, he’s going to try to improve his marketing, close more sales, and find a way to offer more financing.
Standing firm against a landlord sometimes works. Janna Rodriguez has run her home-based The Innovative Daycare Corp. in Freeport, New York, since 2018. When she first signed her lease, she paid $3,500, plus costs including landscaping and maintenance. In 2020, the pandemic began, and her landlord raised her rent to $3,800 and also made her start paying half of the homeowner’s insurance. Last year, the landlord raised her rent to $4,100, plus the additional expenses.
Rodriguez raised her prices for the first time, by $10 per child per week, to help offset the rising rent.
This year she successfully pushed back when the landlord wanted to raise the rent yet again.
“I said to them, if you do that, then I’m going to find another property to move my business to, because at this point now you’re trying to bankrupt a business, right?”
It’s worked – so far. But Rodriguez is worried about the future.
For others, negotiating a late payment is an option. Nicole Pomije owner of Minneapolis-based The Cookie Cups, which makes cookie kits for kids, has a 372-square-meter office space along with a warehouse where she develops her line of baking kits. Her rent rose 10% this year to $4,000 monthly. Then there are unanticipated bills, such as $1,500 for snow plowing.
“There’s so much stuff that pops up that you just you never expect,” she said. “And it’s always when you never expect it.”
Pomije hasn’t raised prices, but instead tried to mitigate the higher rent costs by buying materials in bulk – like ordering 5,000 boxes instead of 1,000 boxes for a 40% discount – and finding cost savings elsewhere.
Still, there have been several months over the past couple of years where she couldn’t pay rent on time. So, far the landlord has been amenable.
“If we have a conversation like hey, we don’t know if we’re going to make it for the first this month. It might be closer to the tenth,” she said.
Asked if she thinks costs might ease in the future, Pomije said she is focused on the present.
“It’s weird, but I’m trying not to think about the future too much and I’m trying to just do what we have to do, and get ready for a holiday season and just, like, get everything paid on time now,” she said. “And then we’ll kind of reevaluate everything in January.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/high-rents-are-forcing-small-businesses-in-into-tough-choices/7763504.html
Here’s what Harris and Trump have said about easing costs for families
date: 2024-08-31, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The high cost of caring for children and the elderly has forced women out of the workforce, devastated family finances, and left professional caretakers in low-wage jobs — all while slowing economic growth.
That families are suffering is not up for debate. As the economy emerges as a theme in this presidential election, the Democratic and Republican candidates have sketched out ideas for easing costs that reveal their divergent views about family.
On this topic, the two tickets have one main commonality: Both of the presidential candidates — and their running mates — have, at one point or another, backed an expanded child tax credit.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination last week, has signaled that she plans to build on the ambitions of outgoing President Joe Biden’s administration, which sought to pour billions in taxpayer dollars into making child care and home care for elderly and disabled adults more affordable. She has not etched any of those plans into a formal policy platform. But in a speech earlier this month, she said her vision included raising the child tax credit.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican, has declined to answer questions about how he would make child care more affordable, even though it was an issue he tackled during his own administration. His running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, has a long history of pushing policies that would encourage Americans to have families, floating ideas like giving parents votes for their children. Just this month, Vance said he wants to raise the child tax credit to $5,000. But Vance has opposed government spending on child care, arguing that many children benefit from having one parent at home as caretaker.
The candidates’ care agendas could figure prominently into their appeal to suburban women in swing states, a coveted demographic seen as key to victory in November. Women provide two-thirds of unpaid care work — valued at $1 trillion annually — and are disproportionately impacted when families can’t find affordable care for their children or aging parents. And the cost of care is an urgent problem: Child care prices are rising faster than inflation.
Kamala Harris: Increase child tax credit
When Harris addressed the Democratic National Convention, she talked first about her own experience with child care. She was raised mostly by a single mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who worked long hours as a breast cancer researcher. Among the people who formed her family’s support network was “Mrs. Shelton, who ran the day care below us and became a second mother.”
As vice president, Harris worked behind the scenes in Congress on Biden’s proposals to establish national paid family leave, make prekindergarten universal, and invest billions in child care so families wouldn’t pay more than 7% of their income. She announced, too, the administration’s actions to lower copays for families using federal child care vouchers, and to raise wages for Medicaid-funded home health aides. Before that, her track record as a senator included pressing for greater labor rights for domestic workers, including nannies and home health aides who may be vulnerable to exploitation.
This month at a community college in North Carolina, Harris outlined her campaign’s economic agenda, which includes raising the child tax credit to as much as $3,600 and giving families of newborns even more — $6,000 for the child’s first year.
“That is a vital — vital year of critical development of a child, and the costs can really add up, especially for young parents who need to buy diapers and clothes and a car seat and so much else,” she told the audience. Her running mate selection of Tim Walz, who established paid leave and a child tax credit as governor of Minnesota, has also buoyed optimism among supporters.
Donald Trump: Few specifics, but some past support
For voters grappling with the high cost of child care, Trump has offered little in the way of solutions. During the June presidential debate, CNN moderator Jake Tapper twice asked Trump what he would do to lower child care costs. Both times, he failed to answer, instead pivoting to other topics. His campaign platform is similarly silent. It does tackle the cost of long-term care for the elderly, writing that Republicans would “support unpaid Family Caregivers through Tax Credits and reduced red tape.”
The silence marks a shift from his first campaign, when he pitched paid parental leave, though it was panned by critics because his proposal excluded fathers. When he reached the White House, the former president sought $1 billion for child care, plus a parental leave policy at the urging of his daughter and policy adviser, Ivanka Trump. Congress rejected both proposals, but Trump succeeded in doubling the child tax credit and establishing paid leave for federal employees.
In his 2019 State of the Union address, Trump said he was “proud to be the first president to include in my budget a plan for nationwide paid family leave, so that every new parent has the chance to bond with their newborn child.”
This year, there are signs that his administration might not pursue the same agenda, including his selection of Vance as a running mate. In 2021, before he joined the Senate, Vance co-authored an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal opposing a proposal to invest billions in child care to make it more affordable for families. He and his co-author said expanding child care subsidies would lead to “unhappier, unhealthier children” and that having fewer mothers contributing to the economy might be a worthwhile trade-off.
Vance has floated policies that would make it easier for a family to live off of a single income, making it possible for some parents to stay home while their partners work. Along with his embrace of policies he calls pro-family, he has tagged people who do not have or want children as “sociopaths.” He once derided Harris and other rising Democratic stars as “childless cat ladies,” even though Harris has two stepchildren — they call her “Momala” — and no cats.
Even without details about new care policies, Trump believes that families would ultimately get a better deal under his administration.
The Trump-Vance campaign has attacked Harris’ record on the economy and said the Biden administration’s policies have only made things tougher for families, pointing to recent inflation.
“Harris … has proudly and repeatedly celebrated her role as Joe Biden’s co-pilot on Bidenomics,” said Karoline Leavitt, a campaign spokeswoman. “The basic necessities of food, gas and housing are less affordable, unemployment is rising, and Kamala doesn’t seem to care.”
Vanuatu ancestral relics, trafficked as art to New York, return home
date: 2024-08-31, from: VOA News USA
Summary of changes for August 2024
date: 2024-08-31, from: Hundred Rabbits blog
Hey everyone!
This is the list of all the changes we’ve done to our projects during the month of August.
Summary Of Changes
- 100r.co, added new pages: Sointula, Johnstone Strait anchorages, and Central coast anchorages. Updated existing pages: added Yuculta and Dent rapids with southbound tactics, no windlass with 3 new photos, lpg with troubleshooting, and gimballed stove with performance tests.
- Left, added support for macros.
- Uxnfor, added support for macros.
- Uxn, found a tiny optimization that makes things a bit faster.
- M291, started a little music player for Uxn11.
- Wiktopher, updated some Solresol words in the Ilken songs featured in the book.
- Hakum, added a new comic named Smile.
- Wunderland Rabbits, added a new rabbit pic.
This month, Pino reached the northern tip of Vancouver Island, sailed south through Johnstone Strait, and into calmer, familiar waters on the 11th of August. Both of us were eager for a taste of summer weather, we hoped to catch what was left of it. Our legs demanded an anchorage with options for walking, so we chose to anchor in {Hathayim Marine Park}. The lovely people on the sailboat Nanamuk were anchored here too, they mapped many of the trails in the area, even the overgrown, less-traveled routes. We updated our summer route map through northern B.C.
From May 1st to August 11th, like with our book Busy Doing Nothing, Rek kept a detailed logbook of daily happenings onboard. We hope to publish these notes to this wiki soon.
Book Club: This month we are reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman, and Everyday Utopia: What 2000 years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life by Kristen R. Ghodsee.
https://100r.co/site/log.html#aug2024
MP3 for image compression (2006)
date: 2024-08-31, from: Tilde.news
https://keyj.emphy.de/mp3-for-image-compression/
GPT apps fail to disclose data collection, study finds
date: 2024-08-31, updated: 2024-08-31, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Researchers say that implementing Actions omit privacy details and expose info
Many of the GPT apps in OpenAI’s GPT Store collect data and facilitate online tracking in violation of OpenAI policies, researchers claim.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/31/gpt_apps_data_collection/
Who Wins With Cursor & Copilot?
date: 2024-08-31, updated: 2024-08-31, from: Tom Kellog blog
Who wins now that Cursor is out? Good programmers? Bad programmers? Here, I make the case that it is more about your tempermant and personality traits. If you’re good in the places where the AI is weak, you’ll knock it out of the park.
http://timkellogg.me/blog/2024/08/31/llm-pairing
How Oprah will screw up the AI story
date: 2024-08-31, updated: 2024-08-31, from: Anil Dash