News gathered 2024-09-06
(date: 2024-09-06 08:40:24)
Salesforce now owns Own Company after $1.9B bargain hunt
date: 2024-09-06, updated: 2024-09-06, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Acquisition of SaaS backup vendor ends mega-merger moratorium
Having adopted Own Company’s technology, Salesforce has decided to buy the SaaS data protection and data management outfit for $1.9 billion in cash.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/06/salesforce_own_company/
HMD Fusion is a smartphone that can learn new tricks thanks to modular “Fusion Outfits”
date: 2024-09-06, from: Liliputing
The HMD Fusion is a mid-range smartphone with a few unusual features. One is that, like several other recent HMD smartphones, the Fusion is designed to be easily repairable. But another is that while the phone’s built-in hardware isn’t all that remarkable, you can add functionality to the device by replacing the back cover with […]
The post HMD Fusion is a smartphone that can learn new tricks thanks to modular “Fusion Outfits” appeared first on Liliputing.
The new Khadas Mind is a pocket-sized PC with Intel Meteor Lake or Lunar Lake and support for modular add-ons
date: 2024-09-06, from: Liliputing
The Khadas Mind is a tiny desktop computer that’s designed to be part of a modular ecosystem that allows you to quickly attach an external graphics card, a docking station, or other accessories that tap into the high-speed “Mind Link” connector on the bottom of the system. When Khadas first launched the platform in 2023, […]
The post The new Khadas Mind is a pocket-sized PC with Intel Meteor Lake or Lunar Lake and support for modular add-ons appeared first on Liliputing.
In the US, music cassette tapes are making a comeback
date: 2024-09-06, from: VOA News USA
Music cassette tapes are making a comeback in the U.S, with more than 430,000 sold in 2023 – about five times the number sold just a decade ago. Cassette tapes are especially popular with younger generations who grew up with digital music. Karina Bafradzhian has the story. Videographer: Sergii Dogotar
https://www.voanews.com/a/in-the-us-music-cassette-tapes-are-making-a-comeback-/7774074.html
Trump, Musk and a proposed government efficiency commission
date: 2024-09-06, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Former President Donald Trump says he’ll establish a government efficiency commission if re-elected in November, and it would be headed by Elon Musk. Musk’s various ventures are regulated by federal agencies, which are currently investigating several of his companies. We’ll hear more. Plus, the NFL goes global, and traders lean toward a half-point rate cut this month.
Kremlin accuses US of unacceptable pressure on Russian media
date: 2024-09-06, from: VOA News USA
Moscow — The Kremlin on Friday accused the United States of applying unacceptable pressure on Russian media after the U.S. Justice Department charged Russian TV contributor Dimitri Simes and his wife with schemes to violate U.S. sanctions.
The two indictments were announced just one day after the U.S. took several legal actions against Russia to combat alleged efforts to meddle in the 2024 presidential elections, including charging two employees of the Russian state media network RT and sanctioning RT and its top network editor.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who has said Russia is not seeking to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, told reporters that Washington was trying to ensure that Moscow’s own perspective on world affairs was not available to people.
“Washington continues to try to put pressure on Russia, on Russian citizens, and even on the Russian media, which is engaged in informing both citizens inside our country and world public opinion about what is happening, from our perspective,” said Peskov.
“Washington does not even accept that there should be options out there for anyone to get news from our perspective.
This is nothing other than blatant pressure. We strongly condemn this stance as unacceptable,” he said.
Moscow still grants accreditation to Western journalists to work in Russia, though many have left since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022 and the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on spying charges in March 2023.
Gershkovich, who denied the charges, was freed in a prisoner swap last month.
Russia has said it will take retaliatory measures against U.S. media in response to Washington’s moves against RT.
Asked what those measures would be, Peskov said Russia carefully evaluated the editorial policies of various foreign media outlets and would take those factors into account when making any decisions, on what he suggested would be a case-by-case basis.
https://www.voanews.com/a/kremlin-accuses-us-of-unacceptable-pressure-on-russian-media-/7774052.html
Competition watchdog accuses Google of abusing ad dominance
date: 2024-09-06, updated: 2024-09-06, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Provisional findings echo worries in the US and EC about the search giant’s dominance
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has administered a provisional rap over Google’s knuckles for alleged abuse of its dominant position in the advertising technology marketplace.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/06/uks_competition_watchdog_takes_issue/
When a president swayed the decisions of the Federal Reserve
date: 2024-09-06, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Federal Reserve independence has come into the spotlight recently, with former President Donald Trump indicating he thinks the president should have some influence in the Fed’s actions. Today, we wind the clock back to when exactly that happened: In 1971, President Richard Nixon devised a scheme to sway then-Federal Reserve Chair Arthur Burns — and the direction of the U.S. economy — in the run-up to reelection. But first: Hiring was weaker than expected in August.
Small Internet protocol roundup
date: 2024-09-06, from: Tilde.news
http://dbohdan.sdf.org/smolnet/
Rust on RP2350
date: 2024-09-06, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Jonathan Pallant on programming in Rust on RP2350: the very considerable amount that’s working so far, what still needs some attention, and how people can get involved.
The post Rust on RP2350 appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/rust-on-rp2350/
OSAM-1 Partnership Opportunity: Request for Information
date: 2024-09-06, from: NASA breaking news
NASA is exploring potential partnerships for alternate use cases for the On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing 1 (OSAM-1) flight hardware, test facilities, and experienced personnel. Through a Request for Information for OSAM-1 Partnerships released Sept. 5, 2024, NASA seeks interest from U.S. organizations that will benefit commercial, civil, and national objectives, thereby advancing domestic leadership […]
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/osam-1-partnership-opportunity-request-for-information/
US IRS enforcement efforts recover $1.3 bln in unpaid taxes, Treasury says
date: 2024-09-06, from: VOA News USA
Washington — The U.S. Treasury and Internal Revenue Service said on Friday that they have recovered $1.3 billion in unpaid taxes from wealthy individuals under new enforcement initiatives funded by $60 billion in IRS modernization spending from the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act.
Why it’s important
Republicans in Congress have long vowed to rescind the 10-year IRS funding passed in 2022, arguing that it would unfairly harass Americans on their taxes. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump vowed on Thursday to rescind all unspent funds from the Inflation Reduction Act, which include billions of dollars earmarked for the IRS.
The IRS has planned to spend about $10.6 billion of those funds through end of the 2024 fiscal year, which concludes on Sept. 30, leaving nearly $50 billion that could be recouped. But budget forecasters say that doing so would increase the federal budget deficit by more than $100 billion over a decade because the agency would forego stepped-up enforcement.
By the numbers
The Treasury said that in the first six months of a new initiative to target 125,000 wealthy individuals who have not filed tax returns since 2017, it has collected $172 million from 21,000 non-filing taxpayers.
Another initiative to target wealthy individuals with more than $1 million in income and $250,000 in unpaid, recognized tax debts has brought in $1.1 billion to Treasury coffers.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the audit rate for millionaires fell by 80% due to budget cuts at the IRS.
“During the previous [Trump] administration, as audit rates on high-income taxpayers fell, the share of audits on taxpayers with incomes under $200,000 increased,” Yellen said in remarks to be delivered at an IRS service center in Austin, Texas. “In 2019, the top one percent of Americans was estimated to owe over one-fifth of unpaid taxes, leaving ordinary Americans to shoulder the burden.”
US job growth misses expectations in August; unemployment rate slips to 4.2%
date: 2024-09-06, from: VOA News USA
Washington — U.S. employment increased less than expected in August, but a drop in the jobless rate to 4.2% suggested an orderly labor market slowdown continued and probably did not warrant a big interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve this month.
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 142,000 jobs last month after a downwardly revised 89,000 rise in July, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls increasing by 160,000 jobs after a previously reported 114,000 gain in July. Estimates ranged from 100,000 to 245,000 jobs.
The smaller-than-expected increase in payrolls likely does not signal a deterioration in labor market conditions.
August payrolls have a tendency to initially print weaker relative to the consensus estimate and recent trend before being revised higher later. Hiring typically picks up in the education sector, which is anticipated by the model that the government uses to strip out seasonal fluctuations from the data.
The start of the new school year, however, varies across the country, which can throw off the so-called seasonal factors. The initial August payrolls counts have been revised higher in 10 of the last 13 years. Layoffs remain at historic low levels.
The drop in the unemployment rate followed four straight monthly increases, which had lifted it near a three-year high of 4.3% in July. Early on Friday, financial markets saw a roughly 43% probability of a half-point rate cut at the Fed’s Sept. 17-18 policy meeting, according to CME Group’s FedWatch Tool. The odds of a 25 basis point rate reduction were around 57%.
Average hourly earnings increased 0.4% in August after falling 0.1% in July. Wages increased 3.8% year-on-year after advancing 3.6% in July. Still-solid wage growth continues to underpin the economy through consumer spending.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-06, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
"Journalism in the US is gone," would be a more accurate title for this piece in the Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/06/trump-clinton-harris-election
We Just Lived Through the Hottest Summer Ever
date: 2024-09-06, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Torrential rains flooded the streets of Milan, Italy • The U.K. recorded its coldest summer since 2015 • The temperature in Palm Springs, California, hit 121 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday.
THE TOP FIVE
- Summer 2024 was hottest on record
Summer 2024 was officially the warmest on record in the Northern Hemisphere, according to new data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Between June and August, the average global temperature was 1.24 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the 1991-2020 average, beating out last summer’s record. August 2024 tied August 2023 for joint-hottest month ever recorded globally, with an average surface air temperature of 62.27 degrees Fahrenheit.
C3S
“During the past three months of 2024, the globe has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day on record, and the hottest boreal summer on record,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S. “This string of record temperatures is increasing the likelihood of 2024 being the hottest year on record. The temperature-related extreme events witnessed this summer will only become more intense, with more devastating consequences for people and the planet unless we take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
- Trump says climate change’s effect on sea levels is ‘not our
problem’
During a speech at the Economic Club of New York yesterday, former President Donald Trump said that because of climate change, “the ocean is going to go down 100th of an inch within the next 400 years,” and dismissed this as “not our problem.” This appears to be a warped variation of his repeated claim that “the ocean is going to rise one eighth of an inch over the next 400 years.” He’s said this many times, occasionally subbing in “200 to 300 years” for 400 years. Either way, he’s incorrect. “Trump’s numbers are orders of magnitude off the mark,” wrote Heatmap’s Jeva Lange in her epic historical fact check of Trump’s various climate statements. “The oceans are on track to rise 3.5 feet to 7 feet along America’s coastlines by 2100,” Lange said. Back in 2022, Michael Oppenheimer, director of the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment at Princeton University, called Trump’s sea-level calculation “so far from accurate as to appear to have been entirely fabricated.”
- U.S. and China find some common ground during climate talks
The U.S. and China had “excellent discussions” during climate talks this week in Beijing, climate envoy John Podesta said today. The two nations came closer to being on the same page about climate finance and greenhouse gas emissions cuts. “Notwithstanding some friction in our bilateral relationship, we can find places to collaborate for the good of our people and the good of our climate,” Podesta said. As Bloomberg noted, this is likely the last opportunity for the world’s two biggest emitters to try to find common ground ahead of the U.S. presidential election and the COP29 climate summit in November.
- Ford F-150 Lightning sales rise in August
Ford reported some interesting August sales figures yesterday. The company saw a 50% jump in hybrid sales last month compared to a year before, and a 29% rise in electric vehicle sales, with F-150 Lightning sales up 160% year over year. But internal combustion engine cars still made up 86% of total monthly sales. The automaker recently scrapped its plans to build a three-row EV crossover and instead plans to make that vehicle as a hybrid, and will double down on producing more hybrid models.
- Super Typhoon Yagi makes landfall in China
China evacuated 400,000 people from some of its southern provinces in anticipation of Super Typhoon Yagi. Schools are shut down, flights have been canceled, and Hong Kong’s stock market is closed. The storm struck the Philippines earlier this week but has doubled in strength since, and now packs wind speeds of about 140 miles per hour, giving it the power of a Category 4 hurricane. It made landfall on the popular tourist island of Hainan this morning and is expected to hit Guangdong, China’s most populous province, before churning toward Vietnam’s historic Ha Long Bay. It is the strongest typhoon to strike China’s southern coast in 10 years, and according to NASA, it has been supercharged by unusually warm water in the Northwest Pacific Basin.
THE KICKER
“Everybody’s getting drunk and having a good time: ‘Oh, look at the gift they brought us!’ But at night, they’re going to sneak out of that horse, and they’re going to leave an environmental disaster.” –A long-time resident of Superior, Arizona, ponders the promise and perils of mining the town’s copper deposits, one of the largest remaining in the world.
https://heatmap.news/climate/2024-summer-hottest-ever
Defense AI models ‘a risk to life’ alleges spurned tech firm
date: 2024-09-06, updated: 2024-09-06, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Chatterbox Labs CEO claims Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office unfairly cancelled a contract then accused him of blackmail
In-depth Chatterbox Lab CEO Danny Coleman alleges that after three and a half years of uncompensated work to provide the US Defense Department with tools for “Responsible AI,” he found himself accused of trying to blackmail the government.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/06/defense_ai_models_risk/
Quick, Someone Find a Dutch Boy
date: 2024-09-06, updated: 2024-09-06, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/09/06/quick-someone-find-a-dutch-boy/
Foot-thick wall workaround: Gigabit network links beamed through solid concrete
date: 2024-09-06, updated: 2024-09-06, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Makes cabling a bit less onerous, says WaveCore maker
Airvine Scientific has a product that could make life easier for IT staff. WaveCore is designed to beam a network signal through thick concrete walls, eliminating the need to drill holes or route your cabling via a circuitous course.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/06/wavecore_can_beam_a_gigabit/
China’s halt of foreign adoptions leaves questions about pending cases
date: 2024-09-06, from: VOA News USA
beijing — The Chinese government is ending its intercountry adoption program, and the U.S. is seeking clarification on how the decision will affect hundreds of American families with pending applications.
In a phone call with U.S. diplomats in China, Beijing said it “will not continue to process cases at any stage” other than those cases covered by an exception clause. The embassy is seeking clarification in writing from China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs, the U.S. State Department said Thursday.
“We understand there are hundreds of families still pending completion of their adoption, and we sympathize with their situation,” the State Department said.
At a daily briefing Thursday, Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry, said China is no longer allowing foreign adoptions of the country’s children, with the only exception for blood relatives to adopt a child or a stepchild.
She didn’t explain the decision other than to say that it was in line with the spirit of relevant international conventions.
Many foreigners have adopted children from China over the decades, visiting the country to pick them up and then bringing them to a new home overseas.
U.S. families have adopted 82,674 children from China, the most from any foreign country.
China suspended international adoptions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The government later resumed adoptions for children who had received travel authorization before the suspension in 2020, the U.S. State Department said in its latest annual report on adoptions.
A U.S. consulate issued 16 visas for adoptions from China from October 2022 through September 2023, the first in more than two years, the State Department report said. It wasn’t clear if any more visas had been issued since then.
In January, Denmark’s only overseas adoption agency said it was winding down operations after concerns were raised about fabricated documents and procedures, and Norway’s top regulatory body recommended stopping overseas adoptions for two years pending an investigation into several cases.
Beijing’s announcement also has followed falling birth rates in the country. The number of newborn babies fell to 9.02 million in 2023, and the overall population declined for the second consecutive year.
7-Eleven owner rejects Canadian takeover
date: 2024-09-06, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: It’s the world’s largest convenience chain, with 85,000 stores — and Seven & i Holdings said the $40 billion takeover bid for 7-Eleven from rival Alimentation Couche-Tard “grossly undervalues” the business. We’ll hear the latest on why the deal seems to be falling apart. Also on this morning’s show: How do you put a value on Banksy’s street art to local neighborhoods?
Hubble Examines a Busy Galactic Center
date: 2024-09-06, from: NASA breaking news
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy IC 4709 located around 240 million light-years away in the southern constellation Telescopium. Hubble beautifully captures its faint halo and swirling disk filled with stars and dust bands. The compact region at its core might be the most remarkable sight. It holds an active galactic […]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-examines-a-busy-galactic-center/
Datacenters to emit 3x more carbon dioxide because of generative AI
date: 2024-09-06, updated: 2024-09-06, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Carbon capture outfits could be making up to $45B, say analysts
The datacenter industry is set to emit 2.5 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide between now and the end of the decade, three times more than if generative AI had not been developed.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/06/datacenters_set_to_emit_3x/
Will The Real Kamala Harris Please Stand Up? (Part 1)
date: 2024-09-06, from: The Lever News
Kamala Harris has branded herself as a crusader against corporate greed — but does her background support the claim?
https://www.levernews.com/will-the-real-kamala-harris-please-stand-up-part-1/
Copper Almost Killed This Arizona Town. Now Copper Could Save It.
date: 2024-09-06, from: Heatmap News
In the town of Superior, Arizona, there is a hotel. In the hotel, there is a room. And in the room, there is a ghost.
Henry Muñoz’s father owned the building in the early 1980s, back when it was still a boarding house and the “Magma” in its name, Hotel Magma, referred to the copper mine up the hill. One night, a boarder from Nogales, Mexico, awoke to a phantom trying to pin her to the wall with the mattress; naturally, she demanded a new room. When Muñoz, then in his fearless early 20s, heard this story from his father, he became curious. Following his swing shift at the mine, Muñoz posted himself to the room with a case of beer and passed the hours until dawn drinking and waiting for the spirit to make itself known.
Muñoz didn’t see a ghost that night, but he has since become well acquainted with others in town. There is the Mexican bakery, which used to sell pink cookies but now opens only when the late owner’s granddaughter feels up to it. There’s the old Magma Club, its once-segregated swimming pool — available one day a week to Hispanics — long since filled in. Muñoz can still point out where all the former bars were on Main Street, the ones that drew crowds of carousing miners in the good years before copper prices plunged in 1981 and Magma boarded up and left town. Now their dusty windows are what give out-of-towners from nearby Phoenix reason to write off Superior as “dead.”
“What happens when a mine closes, the hardship that brings to people — today’s generation has never experienced that,” Muñoz told me.
Superior is home to about 2,400 people, less than half its population when the mine was booming. To tourists zipping past on U.S. 60 to visit the Wild West sites in the Superstition Mountains, it might look half a step away from becoming a ghost town, itself. As recently as 2018, pictures of Main Street were used as stock photos to illustrate things like “America’s worsening geographic inequality.”
But if you take the exit into town, it’s clear something in Superior is changing. The once-haunted boarding house has undergone a multi-million-dollar renovation into a boutique hotel, charging staycationers that make the hour drive south from Scottsdale $200 a night. Across the street, Bellas Cafe whips up terrific sandwiches in a gleaming, retro-chic kitchen. The Chamber of Commerce building, a little further down the block, has been painted an inviting shade of purple. And propped in the window of some of the storefronts with their lights on, you might even see a sign: WE SUPPORT RESOLUTION COPPER.
Resolution Copper’s offices are located in the former Magma Hospital, where Muñoz was born and where his mother died. People in hard hats and safety vests mill about the parking lot, miners without a mine, which is not an unusual sight in Superior these days — no copper has been sold out of the immediate area in over two decades. And yet just a nine-minute drive further up the hill and another 15-minute elevator ride down the deepest mine shaft in the country lies one of the world’s largest remaining copper deposits. It’s estimated to be 40 billion pounds, enough to meet a quarter of U.S. demand, according to the company’s analysis.
That’s “huge,” Adam Simon, an Earth and environmental sciences professor at the University of Michigan, told me, and not just in terms of sheer size.
“Copper is the most important metal for all technologies we think of as part of the energy transition: battery electric vehicles, grid-scale battery storage, wind turbines, solar panels,” Simon said. In May, he published a study with Lawrence Cathles, an Earth and atmospheric sciences researcher at Cornell University, which looked at 120 years of copper-mining data and found that just to meet the demands of “business as usual,” the world will need 115% more of the material between 2018 and 2050 than has been previously mined in all of human history, even with recycling rates taken into account.
Aluminum, used in high-voltage lines, is sometimes floated as a potential substitute, but it’s not as good of a conductor, and copper is almost always the preferred metal in batteries and electricity generation. Renewables are particularly copper-intensive; one offshore wind turbine can require up to 29 tons. What lies in the hills behind Superior, then, represents “millions of electric vehicles, millions of wind turbines, millions of solar panels. And it’s also lots of jobs, from top to bottom — jobs for people with bachelor’s degrees in engineering, mining, geology, and environmental science, all the way down to security officers and truck drivers,” Simon said. He added: “The world will need more copper year over year for both socioeconomic improvement in the Global South and also the energy transition, and neither of those can happen without increasing the amount of copper that we produce.”
Muñoz insisted to me that the promises of jobs and a robust local economy are a kind of Trojan horse. “Everybody’s getting drunk and having a good time: ‘Oh, look at the gift they brought us!’” he said of Superior’s support for Resolution Copper. “But at night, they’re going to sneak out of that horse, and they’re going to leave an environmental disaster.”
For now, though, the copper has just one catch: Resolution isn’t allowed to touch it.
If not for a painted sign declaring the ground HOLY LAND, there would be nothing visible to suggest the 16 oak-shaded tent sites over Resolution Copper’s ore body were anything particularly special. The Oak Flat campground is less than five miles past Superior, but at an elevation of nearly 4,000 feet, it can feel almost 10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler. On the late June day that I visited with Muñoz, Sylvia Delgado, and Orlando “Marro” Perea — the leaders of the Concerned Citizens and Retired Miners Coalition — the floor of the East Valley was 113 degrees Fahrenheit, and the altitude offered only limited relief.
Directly below us and to the east of the campground, beneath a bouldery, yucca-studded desert, lies the copper deposit. At 7,000 or so feet deep, extracting it would require an advanced mining process called block caving, in which ore is collected from below through what is essentially a controlled cave-in, like sand slipping through the neck of an hourglass.
Muñoz, a fifth-generation miner, prefers the metaphor of going to the dentist. “They drill out your tooth and refill it: that’s basically traditional cut-and-fill mining,” he told me. “Block cave, on the other hand, would be going to the dentist and having them pull out the whole molar. It just leaves a vacant hole.” In this case, the resulting cavity would be almost two miles wide and over 1,000 feet deep by the time the ore was exhausted sometime in the 2060s.
Even four decades is just a blink of an eye for Oak Flat, though, where human history goes back at least 1,500 years; anthropologists say the mine’s sinkhole would swallow countless Indigenous burial locations and archeological sites, including petroglyphs depicting antlered animals that Muñoz and Perea showed me hidden deep in the rocks. Even more alarmingly, the subsidence would obliterate Chí’chil Biłdagoteel, the Western Apache’s name for the lands around Oak Flat, which are sacred to at least 10 federally recognized tribes. The members of the San Carlos Apache who are leading the opposition effort, and use the location for a four-day-long girlhood coming-of-age ceremony, say it is the only place where their prayers can reach the Creator directly.
Mining and Indigenous sovereignty have been at odds in Arizona for over a century. “The Apache is as near the lobo, or wolf of the country, as any human being can be to a beast,” The New York Times wrote in 1859, claiming the tribe was “the greatest obstacle to the operations of the mining companies” in the area. Three years later, the U.S. Army’s departmental commander ordered Apache men killed “wherever found,” the social archaeologist John Welch writes in his eye-opening historical survey of the region, in which he also advocates for using the term “genocide” to describe the government’s policies. That violence still casts a shadow in Superior: Apache Leap, an astonishing escarpment that looms over the town and backs up against Oak Flat, is named for a legend that cornered Apache warriors jumped to their deaths from its cliffs rather than surrender to the U.S. Cavalry.
As the Apache were being forced onto reservations and into residential boarding schools during the late 1890s, a treaty with the government set aside Oak Flat for protection. The land was later fortified against mining by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, with the federal protections reconfirmed by the Nixon administration in the 1960s. (The defunct Magma Mine that fueled the first copper boom in Superior is located just off this 760-acre “Oak Flat Withdrawal Area.”)
In 1995, the enormity of the Oak Flat ore body — and the billions it would be worth if it could be accessed — started to become apparent. The British and Australian mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton formed a U.S. subsidiary, Resolution Copper, which bought the old Magma mine and began to lobby Arizona politicians to sign over the neighboring parcel of Oak Flat. Between 2004 and 2013, lawmakers from the state introduced 11 different land transfer bills into Congress, none of which managed to earn broad support.
Then, in December 2014, President Barack Obama signed a must-pass defense spending bill. On page 1,103 was a midnight rider, inserted by Arizona Republican Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, which authorized a land transfer of 2,400 acres of Tonto National Forest, including Oak Flat, to Resolution Copper in exchange for private land the company had bought in other parts of the state. (Flake previously worked as a paid lobbyist for a Rio Tinto uranium mine, and the company contributed to McCain’s 2014 Senate campaign.)
Heatmap
Illustration / Esri, TomTom, Garmin, FAO, NOAA, USGS, © OpenStreetMap
contributors, and the GIS User Community
The senators’ rider also included an odd little twist. While the National Environmental Policy Act requires the Forest Service to conduct an environmental impact statement for a potential mine, the bill stipulated that the land transfer to Resolution Copper had to be completed within a 60-day window of the final environmental impact statement’s release, regardless of what the FEIS found.
After six years of study, the FEIS was rushed to publication by President Donald Trump in the final five days of his term, triggering that 60-day countdown. President Biden rescinded Trump’s FEIS once he took office in 2021, pending further consultation with the tribes, but the clock will begin anew once a revised FEIS is released, potentially later this year. (The new FEIS was expected last summer, but the Forest Service has since reported there is no timeline for its release. The agency declined to comment to Heatmap for this story, citing ongoing litigation.)
A spokesperson for Resolution Copper told me that the company is “committed to being a good steward of the land, air, and water throughout the entirety of this project,” and described programs to restore the local ecology and preserve certain natural features, including Apache Leap. “At each step,” the spokesperson said, “we have taken great care to solicit and act upon the input of our Native American and other neighbors. We have made many changes to the project scope to accommodate those concerns and will continue those efforts over the life of the project.”
Meanwhile, Apache Stronghold — the San Carlos Apache-led religious nonprofit opposing the mine — filed a lawsuit to block the land transfer, arguing that the destruction of Oak Flat infringes on their First Amendment right to practice their religion. The lower courts haven’t agreed, citing a controversial 1988 decision against tribes who made a similar argument in defense of a sacred grove of trees in California. Apache Stronghold, joined by the religious liberty group Becket, is now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its case, a decision that is expected any day now. Nearly everyone I spoke with for this story, however, was pessimistic that the Justices would agree to hear the battle over Oak Flat, meaning the lower court’s ruling against Apache Stronghold would stand.
If Mila Besich could have it her way, Biden would visit Superior. He’d marvel at Apache Leap and Picketpost Mountain, visit the impressive new Superior Enterprise Center — paid for partially with money from his 2021 American Rescue Plan Act — and maybe wrap up the day with a purple scoop of prickly pear ice cream from Felicia’s Ice Cream Shop. And, most importantly, he’d hear her pitch: that “Superior and the state of Arizona have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to be the leader in advancing your green energy strategy.” She says Superior — and America — needs this mine.
Superior is a blue town, and Besich, its mayor, is a Democrat, which means she has found herself in the awkward position of defending Resolution Copper against colleagues like Congressman Raúl Grijalva of Tucson and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who have introduced unsuccessful bills in Congress to prevent the land transfer. There is something of a bitter irony, too, in seeing her party tout the economic upsides of the energy transition while standing in the way of Superior’s mine, which would employ an average of 1,434 workers per year and add over $1 billion annually to Arizona’s economy during its lifespan, according to the FEIS.
“Every mayor wants more jobs in their community,” Besich told me simply. But, she also pointed out, “Copper is critical to the green economy, so if we want the green economy, we should want to be mining American copper.”
Superior, of course, isn’t just any town. “Everybody here either worked in the mines or had family that worked in the mines,” James Schenck, a former employee of Resolution Copper who supports the mine and serves as the treasurer for Rebuild Superior, a nonprofit working to diversify the local economy, told me. “They understand the downsides, and some of them, for a while, were having a hard time understanding how this is different than what went on before.”
Though everyone seems to be on cordial terms — at one point during my visit, I was having lunch with Muñoz and Delgado when Besich walked in, and everyone smiled politely at one another — there are still clear factions. A Facebook group for locals warns against “posts concerning DRAMA, POLITICS, RELIGION, and MINING,” presumably the same topics to be avoided at family Thanksgivings.
The critical mineral experts I talked to for this story, though, said Schenck is largely right on that point. “Mining in 2024 is radically different than mining in 1954 or in 1904,” Simon told me. “It is really surgical.”
Muñoz is one of those in town who still isn’t buying it, and has converted his garage into an interpretive center for exposing the perceived infiltrators. As soft classic rock played over the speakers and a fan whirred to keep us cool, he showed me the 3D model he had commissioned of the Oak Flat sinkhole, with a miniature Eiffel Tower subsumed in its crater for scale. Laid out on a table on the other side of the room was a row of six dictionary-thick, spiral-bound sections of the FEIS, their most pertinent sections bookmarked. On the walls, Muñoz had hung pictures of comparable tailings sites in other parts of the world — cautionary tales of the hazards posed during the long lifespan of mines. (Including the water demands, no small concern in a place like Arizona, which opens a whole other can of worms).
“I use my experience to educate the people,” Muñoz said. “This isn’t what it’s made out to be. They’re going to play you.”
Muñoz was employed at the Magma Copper mine until 1982, when he was 27. “One day they said, ‘We’re shutting down.’ They folded up just like a carnival does on Monday morning,” he recalled. The abrupt departure devastated Superior: In These Times described the following years as an “economic cataclysm” for the town. By 1989, the median household income was just $16,118 compared to $36,806 in Queen Creek, the nearest Phoenix suburb just a 45-minute drive away.
“I witnessed grown men cry,” Muñoz said. “Men who’d been in the mines pretty close to 30 years — they never knew nothing else.” His father, the former boarding house owner, was among them: “He had limited writing abilities and what have you. He was 58. People lost their homes here. They lost their cars. There were divorces. Some people committed suicide. The drinking, the drugs. It was a bad time.”
Muñoz went on food stamps and unemployment. “This generation that is coming up, they’ve never experienced that,” he said. “They’ve never experienced a repossession note in the mail from the bank. They’ve never experienced a disconnection notice hanging from your front door knob. And they’ve never experienced calling up the utilities and saying, ‘Hey, can you wait until Friday when my unemployment check comes in?’”
Superior’s story isn’t unique; Arizona’s Copper Triangle is a constellation of hollowed-out company towns. Like many other out-of-work Magma miners, Muñoz eventually found a job at San Manuel, a BHP-owned block cave mine about an hour south of Superior. Then, in 1999, copper prices stuttered again, and by 2003, it shut down, too.
Muñoz had just returned from a car show in San Manuel when we met in his garage, and he reported it was still a sorry sight. “The main grocery store is closed, the Subway, all the buildings are boarded up, and the schools are shut down,” he said. The mine “just abandoned that town.”
Even as Muñoz and the Concerned Citizens and Retired Miners Coalition work with Apache Stronghold and national environmentalist groups like HECHO, the Sierra Club, and the National Wildlife Federation try to block Resolution Copper’s mine, there is a distinct feeling in Superior of its inevitability. Schenck, the treasurer for Rebuild Superior, told me he suspects just “10% or 15%” of people in town are “against the project.”
“My personal belief is this copper deposit is going to be developed at some point,” Schenck said. “It’s too important.”
Besich, the mayor, gave this impression too. “What people need to understand is, this ore body is not going anywhere,” she said. “Someone will mine it in the future.” She views Superior and the copper industry as partners in an “arranged marriage,” and her job as mayor is helping them “figure out how to get along.”
From the outside, though, Resolution Copper looks more like a sugar daddy. To date, Rio Tinto and BHP have spent more than $2 billion combined pursuing the Oak Flat mine, including pumping money into the Chamber of Commerce building, the Enterprise Center, and the fire department. When the town of Kearny, downstream of the mine’s proposed tailings site, needed a new ambulance, Resolution Copper offered to help foot the bill. Local high schoolers and tribal members can even apply for Resolution Copper scholarships.
Critics say Resolution Copper is buying political and social influence in the Copper Corridor, a modern-day iteration of the propaganda tactics that swept aside the Apache in the late 1800s. Rio Tinto and BHP “remain committed to influencing U.S. government decisions about the use of public lands and minerals, regardless of additional harms to those lands, to Native Americans, or to National Register historic sites and sacred places,” the archaeologist Welch wrote in his Oak Flat study.
Rio Tinto is infamous even in the mining industry for its poor history of handling community- and heritage-related concerns. To pick a recent example, the company drew international condemnation for its 2020 destruction of the Juukan Gorge cave in Western Australia, a sacred site to the Aboriginal people that had evidence of continuous human occupation going back to the Ice Age. Though Rio Tinto had the legal right to destroy the 45,000-year-old caves, “it is hard to believe community engagement is being taken seriously” by the company, Glynn Cochrane, a former Rio Tinto senior advisor, said in a testimony in the aftermath. Archaeologists and sympathetic politicians have warned that the cultural and spiritual loss caused by mining Oak Flat would be like a second Juukan Gorge.
The San Carlos Apache are not a monolith, however, and the community has differing beliefs about the cultural importance of Oak Flat. Tribal members who support the mine or work for Resolution Copper are often cited by non-Native supporters as proof of Apache Stronghold’s supposedly arbitrary defense of Oak Flat. (Apache Stronghold, which is on a prayer journey to petition the Supreme Court, did not return Heatmap’s request for comment.)
Muñoz and his team are specifically worried about how Superior, the town, will make out. U.S. copper smelters are already at capacity, meaning Resolution Copper would likely send much if not all of the raw copper extracted at Oak Flat to China for processing. (Rio Tinto’s largest shareholder is the Aluminum Corporation of China.) The spokesperson for Resolution Copper told me that it’s the company’s priority to process the ore domestically, and Rio Tinto does have its own facility in the U.S., the Kennecott copper smelting facility in Utah. Yet it hasn’t committed publicly to processing the Arizona ore there, and it’s far from clear that it even has the capacity to do so.
For Simon, the University of Michigan professor, that shouldn’t be a deterrent: “If we mine more copper here and it just means we have to export it — who cares?” he pushed back. “If it has to go to China and they smelt it, then you send it to China and they smelt it. Climate is the prize, and if we want to mitigate our impact, we’ve got to do it. There are no ifs, ands, or buts.”
Oak Flat is also located outside of Superior’s town limits, meaning the community would only recoup about $500,000 in tax revenue, on the high end, from the mine annually, according to the 2021 FEIS — Schenek told me the town’s budget is around $3 million, so it’s hardly insignificant, though it is peanuts compared to the $38 million the state would reap. The FEIS additionally estimated that only about a quarter of the mine’s eventual employees would actually “seek to live in or near Superior;” many would choose instead to commute the hour or so from Phoenix’s Maricopa County.
Because of technological advances in mining and robotics, the mine also won’t bring back the physical jobs locals remember from the 1970s — by Resolution Copper’s own admission. Besich, at least, isn’t bothered by this detail: “In all reality, I don’t see my children and their peers wanting to do the manual physical labor that my grandfather, my father, and certainly my great-grandfather did,” she told me. “So the change in technique is good, and I think that it’s actually better for the environment in the long term.” She added that Resolution Copper’s investment in things like local infrastructure and worker training programs will compensate for the comparably insignificant tax revenue the town will otherwise receive, ensuring Superior gets a fair cut of the bonanza.
What supporters and opponents of the mine can agree on is that Superior must avoid the devastation of the 1980s if or when the Oak Flat mine is exhausted in 40 or more years. Besich and Schenck told me their vision is for Superior to be a town with a mine, not a mining town. But is such a thing even possible? In recent years, Superior has tried to position itself as an outdoor recreation gateway to the many climbing routes and hiking trails in the area. Yet I struggle to imagine anyone would want to vacation or recreate so close to a massive mining operation.
Muñoz believes Superior should throw itself entirely into tourism, which brings in three times as much revenue as the copper industry in Arizona. He dismissed arguments that losing the mine this far into negotiations and preparations would set the town back two decades, telling me about a conversation he had with Vicky Peacey, the president of Resolution Copper. “She said, ‘How do I tell my 300-plus employees that they don’t have a job?’” he recalled. “I said, ’The same way BHP told the 3,300 in San Manuel they didn’t have a job. Magma Copper didn’t have a problem telling us we didn’t have a job in ’82.”
Whatever gets decided about Oak Flat will reverberate far beyond Superior, though. “We’ve got to keep our eyes on the prize,” Simon told me. “And if the prize is mitigating human impacts on climate, and that requires the energy transition, and that requires copper, and we have a potential mine in Arizona that would provide 500,000 tons of copper every year for decades — we need to do that.”
At the end of my day in Superior, I went with Muñoz and Delgado, another former miner, to visit the haunted boarding house.
The renovated interior was surprisingly beautiful, decorated with period-appropriate details like iron bed frames, clawfoot bathtubs, and lace curtains that softened the harshness of the mid-afternoon light. Though even the FEIS warns that “mining in Arizona has followed a ‘boom and bust’ cycle, which potentially leads to great economic uncertainty,” it was with a pang that I imagined the building one day falling back into disrepair. It, and the town, had survived too much.
After peeking into Room 103, where Muñoz had passed his tipsy night all those decades ago, we asked the friendly woman working the front desk if she’d had any supernatural experiences herself — surely she’d seen the mattress-flipping phantom, or swinging chandeliers, or perhaps a white-boot miner who’d come down from the hills?
To our disappointment, she shook her head. For now, whatever ghosts there once might have been in Superior had gone.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include comment from
Resolution Copper.
https://heatmap.news/economy/resolution-copper-mine
Pat Gelsinger’s grand plan to reinvent Intel is in jeopardy
date: 2024-09-06, updated: 2024-09-06, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Foundry faces a reckoning
Comment Intel’s fledgling foundry business is in trouble. The division is bleeding billions each quarter and now the chipmaker has revealed that it won’t even manufacture parts on its own long-awaited 20A node.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/06/intel_foundry_in_jeopardy/
Venezuela says detained US sailor entered ‘without any type of document’
date: 2024-09-06, from: VOA News USA
Caracas, Venezuela — A U.S. Navy sailor held in Venezuela since late last month was arrested for entering “without any type of document,” the South American country’s attorney general said Thursday.
An American official on Wednesday announced the sailor had been detained at a time of soaring tensions between Washington and Caracas in the aftermath of disputed elections in Venezuela, with the opposition party claiming it can prove were stolen.
In his first comments on the matter, Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab said the sailor “entered without any type of document, without any means of subsistence for what he came to do in the country.”
He said the sailor held dual U.S. and Mexican nationalities.
For its part, the Pentagon said the sailor had been in Venezuela on “personal travel.”
“This wasn’t something that was authorized,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters.
“The U.S. Navy is looking into this. We’re working with the State Department,” she said, adding that: “Of course, we’d like to see the sailor returned home.”
Venezuela was rocked by protests after President Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner of a disputed July 28 election, with 25 civilians and two soldiers killed and more than 2,400 people arrested.
The opposition claims it won by a landslide, and the United States, the European Union and several Latin American countries have refused to recognize Maduro’s claimed victory without seeing detailed voting results.
On Monday, Washington seized Maduro’s plane in the Dominican Republic and flew it to Florida, a move the Venezuelan leader condemned as “piracy” but which Washington said was necessary due to sanctions violations.
The following day, Washington denounced an arrest warrant issued for opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia and warned of further action against Maduro.
The U.S. State Department has warned Americans against traveling to Venezuela for reasons including crime, unrest and wrongful detention.
Oak Ridge boffins enlist Quantum Brilliance to make supercomputers sparkle at room temp
date: 2024-09-06, updated: 2024-09-06, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Diamond-based accelerators could help smash science problems
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is working with a company called Quantum Brilliance on the integration of quantum systems and high-performance computing (HPC) to tackle scientific concerns.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/06/ornl_quantum_brilliance/
To patch this server, we need to get someone drunk
date: 2024-09-06, updated: 2024-09-06, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
When maintenance windows are hard to open, a little lubrication helps
On Call The Register understands consuming alcohol is quite a popular way to wind down from the working week, but each Friday we get the party started early with a new and sober instalment of On Call, the reader contributed column in which you share stories about the emotional hangovers you’ve earned delivering tech support.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/06/on_call/
SQL king Larry Ellison becomes sequel sultan with controlling interest in Paramount Global
date: 2024-09-06, updated: 2024-09-06, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Oh, great: another tech billionaire owns a media company – although his son probably runs the show
Oracle founder and CTO Larry Ellison has been revealed as holding the controlling interest in US media giant Paramount Global.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/06/larry_ellison_paramount_global/
Webcurios 06/09/24
date: 2024-09-06, from: Web Curios blog
Reading Time: 36 minutes I went to the seaside last weekend, to visit an old friend of mine who lives there with his partner and child, and who has an allotment, and who is pretty much the least-online person I know, and I looked at his life and thought ‘yeah, ok, fine, leaving aside the kid, I am…jealous?’ For…https://webcurios.co.uk/webcurios-06-09-24/
NASA’s solar sailing spacecraft is tumbling – but that’s part of the plan
date: 2024-09-06, updated: 2024-09-06, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Who needs fuel – or even engines – when you could use the sun to push a spacecraft along?
NASA has announced its experimental ACS3 solar-sailing spacecraft is working as expected, after it was spotted tumbling in the night sky.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/06/nasa_solar_sail_acs3/
In Haiti, Blinken announces $45 million new aid, calls for renewed security mission mandate
date: 2024-09-06, from: VOA News USA
Port-au-Prince, Haiti — During a trip to Haiti on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced $45 million in new humanitarian aid for the Caribbean nation, which has been wracked by violence for years.
He also called for the renewal of the United Nations mandate for the Multinational Security Support, or MSS, mission to combat the armed gangs that dominate much of the capital.
“At this critical moment, you do need more funding. We do need more personnel to sustain and carry out the objectives of this mission,” Blinken told a news conference on a rare visit to Port-au-Prince.
The top U.S. diplomat said he plans to convene a ministerial meeting at the coming U.N. General Assembly to encourage greater international contributions to address Haiti’s security, economic, and humanitarian needs.
The MSS mandate is set to expire at the beginning of October. U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is reportedly exploring the possibility of changing the mission into a traditional U.N. peacekeeping operation, a move that would ease funding, provide more equipment and enable use of military forces rather than only police officers.
Blinken said that while the MSS mission itself needs to be renewed, it also needs to ensure that it is “reliable” and “sustainable.”
“A peacekeeping operation would be one such option. I think there are others,” he told reporters on Thursday.
Blinken’s visit to Port-au-Prince underscores U.S. support for Haiti as the country grapples with gang violence.
On Thursday, Blinken met with Edgard Leblanc Fils from Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council.
“Both concurred on the critical need to make timely advancements on election preparations,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
Apart from Fils, Blinken also held talks with Prime Minister Garry Conille, MSS head Godfrey Otunge and Normil Rameau, head of the Haitian National Police.
The United States and Canada are the top funders of the MSS in Haiti. The first-year estimated cost for the mission is $589 million. The U.S. has already provided $309 million — $200 million toward the MSS mission base and $109 million in financial support.
Gang-related violence and drug trafficking have fueled political instability and insecurity in Haiti, leading to unbearable conditions for Haitians.
At least 80% of Port-au-Prince is no longer under Haitian authorities’ control, with violence spreading to other parts of the country.
In the past year, displacement in Haiti has tripled as gang violence grips the Caribbean nation. The U.N. says at least 578,000 people have been displaced because of violence, including murders, kidnappings and rapes.
The situation is further exacerbated by widespread hunger, with nearly half the 11.7 million population facing acute food insecurity.
After Haiti, Blinken arrived in Santo Domingo later Thursday. His visit follows the start of Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader’s second term in mid-August.
The Dominican Republic will host the 2025 Summit of the Americas, where Western Hemisphere leaders will address shared challenges and policy issues facing the region.
VOA’s Liam Scott contributed to this report.
VMware revenue bounces for Broadcom, chips were a little undercooked
date: 2024-09-06, updated: 2024-09-06, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
CEO says market for non-AI silicon has bottomed out
Broadcom’s turnaround plan for VMware appears to be working, as the silicon-and-software-slinger reported 47 percent year on year revenue growth – but also posted a loss.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/06/broadcom_q3_2024/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-06, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
JD Vance says that school shootings are a 'fact of life.’
https://apnews.com/article/jd-vance-georgia-shooting-7d7727a1aff8491f66914a4d8a14cd8c
Persevering Through the Storm
date: 2024-09-06, from: NASA breaking news
It’s dust-storm season on Mars! Over the past couple of weeks, as we ascended the Jezero Crater rim, our science team has monitored increasing dust in the atmosphere — typically highest around this time of the Martian year.
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/persevering-through-the-storm/
Tribes celebrate removal of dam, revival of community along Klamath River
date: 2024-09-06, from: VOA News USA
For more than a century, dams have blocked fish migration on California’s second-largest river. VOA’s Matt Dibble takes us to the removal of the last of four dams, a victory for Native Americans who depend on the river.
In Haiti, Blinken pledges $45M in aid, calls for renewal of security mission
date: 2024-09-06, from: VOA News USA
state department — During a trip to Haiti on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced $45 million in new humanitarian aid for the Caribbean nation, which has been wracked by violence for years.
“At this critical moment, you do need more funding. We do need more personnel to sustain and carry out the objectives of this mission,” Blinken told a news conference on a rare visit there.
During the visit, Blinken also called for renewing a U.N. mandate for an international security mission to Haiti to fight armed gangs that control much of the country’s capital.
The mandate, first approved for 12 months, is set to expire at the beginning of October. Blinken said a U.N. peacekeeping mission could help bring a more sustainable peace to Haiti.
“Much remains to be done, and we’re determined to continue,” he said. “It’s starting to move.”
“The Haitian people, not Haitian gangs, will write the country’s future,” Blinken said.
Blinken’s visit to Port-au-Prince underscores U.S. support for Haiti, with additional humanitarian assistance anticipated as the country grapples with gang violence.
On Thursday, Blinken also met with Edgard Leblanc Fils, the head of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council, in Port-au-Prince, a State Department spokesperson said.
“Both concurred on the critical need to make timely advancements on election preparations,” spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
Blinken also will visit the Dominican Republic. His trip to Santo Domingo follows the start of Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader’s second term in mid-August.
A senior State Department official told reporters on Wednesday that the United States is prioritizing efforts with its international partners to set up a structure that ensures “a reliable source of financing and staffing” for a security mission in Haiti.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is reportedly considering the possibility of transitioning a largely U.S.-funded multinational security force into a traditional U.N. peacekeeping operation.
“A formal PKO [peacekeeping operation] is one of the ways that we could accomplish that, but we’re looking at multiple ways to do that,” said Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.
With about a month left in the mandate of the U.N.-ratified, Kenya-led Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) in Haiti, progress has been limited, and many pledges remain unfulfilled.
“The one-year anniversary of the mission is October 2, and we’re going to work to ensure that it’s poised for success and renewal of its mandate in whatever form that takes,” Nichols told VOA on Wednesday.
Multinational security assists police
Gang-related violence and drug trafficking have fueled political instability and insecurity in Haiti, leading to an unbearable living situation for the Haitian people.
In October 2022, Haiti requested the deployment of an international force to assist the Haitian National Police in combating heavily armed gangs and facilitating humanitarian aid. In October 2023, the U.N. Security Council authorized the MSS.
The United States and Canada are the top funders of the MSS in Haiti. The first-year estimated cost for the mission is $589 million. The U.S. has already provided $309 million — $200 million toward the MSS mission base and $109 million in financial support.
During a visit to Haiti in July, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced an additional $60 million in humanitarian assistance for the Haitian people, along with providing armored vehicles for the national police.
Apart from Fils, Blinken met with MSS head Godfrey Otunge and was also to meet Prime Minister Garry Conille and Normil Rameau, head of the Haitian National Police.
Gang violence grips nation
At least 80% of Port-au-Prince is no longer under the control of the Haitian authorities, with violence spreading to other parts of the country.
In the past year, displacement in Haiti has tripled as gang violence grips the Caribbean nation. The United Nations reports that at least 578,000 people have been displaced due to violence, which includes murders, kidnappings and rapes.
The situation is exacerbated by widespread hunger, with nearly half the 11.7 million population facing acute food insecurity.
Gangs, some aligned with political elites, accumulated their control over territory and illicit markets during the tenure of the unpopular former Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who took office after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021, according to a Congressional Research Service report.
Henry resigned in April 2024 following the formation of a Transitional Presidential Council.
VOA’s Liam Scott contributed to this report.
Father of Georgia school shooting suspect arrested on murder, manslaughter charges
date: 2024-09-06, from: VOA News USA
WINDER, Ga. — The father of a 14-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting four people at a Georgia high school and wounding nine others was arrested Thursday and faces charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter for allowing his son to possess a weapon, authorities said.
It’s the latest example of prosecutors holding parents responsible for their children’s actions in school shootings. In April, Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first to be convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting. They were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four students in 2021.
Colin Gray, 54, the father of Colt Gray, was charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said at a news conference.
“These charges stem from Mr. Gray knowingly allowing his son, Colt, to possess a weapon,” Hosey said. “His charges are directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon.”
In Georgia, second-degree murder means that a person has caused the death of another person while committing second-degree cruelty to children. It is punishable by 10 to 30 years in prison. Involuntary manslaughter means that someone unintentionally causes the death of another person.
Authorities have charged 14-year-old Colt Gray as an adult with murder in the shootings Wednesday at Apalachee High School outside Atlanta. Arrest warrants obtained by the AP accuse him of using a semiautomatic assault-style rifle in the attack, which killed two students and two teachers and wounded nine other people.
The teen denied threatening to carry out a school shooting when authorities interviewed him last year about a menacing post on social media, according to a sheriff’s report obtained Thursday.
Conflicting evidence on the post’s origin left investigators unable to arrest anyone, the report said. Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said she reviewed the report from May 2023 and found nothing that would have justified bringing charges at the time.
“We did all we could do with what we had at the time,” Mangum told The Associated Press in an interview.
When a sheriff’s investigator from neighboring Jackson County interviewed Gray last year, his father said the boy had struggled with his parents’ separation and often got picked on at school. The teen frequently fired guns and hunted with his father.
“He knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do, and how to use them and not use them,” Colin Gray said according to a transcript obtained from the sheriff’s office.
The teen was interviewed after the sheriff received a tip from the FBI that Colt Gray, then 13, “had possibly threatened to shoot up a middle school tomorrow.” The threat was made on Discord, a social media platform popular with video gamers, according to the sheriff’s office incident report.
The FBI’s tip pointed to a Discord account associated with an email address linked to Colt Gray, the report said. But the boy said “he would never say such a thing, even in a joking manner,” according to the investigator’s report.
The investigator wrote that no arrests were made because of “inconsistent information” on the Discord account, which had profile information in Russian and a digital evidence trail indicating it had been accessed in different Georgia cities as well as Buffalo, New York.
The attack was the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut; Parkland, Florida; and Uvalde, Texas. The classroom killings have set off fervent debates about gun control and frayed the nerves of parents whose children are growing up accustomed to active-shooter drills. But there has been little change to national gun laws.
Classes were canceled Thursday at the Georgia high school, though some people came to leave flowers around the flagpole and kneel in the grass with heads bowed.
Gray was being held Thursday at a regional youth detention facility. His first court appearance was scheduled for Friday morning.
He has been charged in the deaths of students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, according to Hosey.
At least nine other people — eight students and one teacher at the school in Winder — were wounded and taken to hospitals. All were expected to survive, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said.
It was the 30th mass killing in the U.S. so far this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. At least 127 people have died in those killings, which are defined as events in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer — the same definition used by the FBI.
Who is alleged Chinese agent Linda Sun?
date: 2024-09-06, from: VOA News USA
washington — Linda Sun, the Chinese American political aide accused this week of acting as an agent of Beijing, rose rapidly in New York state politics on her way to a job as deputy chief of staff to Governor Kathy Hochul.
She climbed the ladder with stints as public relations director to a Taiwanese American member of Congress and an assignment as the deputy chief diversity officer in the office of the previous governor.
But according to the indictment made public this week, she used her position to tamp down public criticism of China’s treatment of its Uyghur minority and to prevent interactions between Taiwanese government officials and senior New York state officials.
In return, the indictment alleges, Beijing rewarded her with millions of dollars in bribes and business deals.
Sun and her husband, Chris Hu, were arrested Tuesday, accused of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act by illegally acting as agents of the Chinese government. Other charges include visa fraud, alien smuggling and money laundering conspiracy. Hu was also charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud and abuse of identification.
Court appearance
The two naturalized U.S. citizens made their first appearance in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn on Tuesday. During the arraignment, they pleaded not guilty and were released on a combined $2 million bail. They are not allowed to travel outside New York, New Hampshire and Maine.
In a statement shared with VOA Mandarin, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu dismissed the allegations.
“I am not aware of the specific details. But in recent years, the U.S. government and media have frequently hyped up the so-called ‘Chinese agents’ narratives, many of which have later been proven untrue,” he said.
He added that “China requires its citizens overseas to comply with the laws and regulations of the host country, and we firmly oppose the groundless slandering and smearing targeting China.”
Barnard graduate
Sun was born in China in 1983 and moved to the U.S. with her parents at age 5. She is fluent in Chinese.
She got her undergraduate degree in political science from Barnard College in 2006. According to a campus magazine, she first got involved in public service at age 8 by translating forms and filing tax returns for her parents.
She obtained her master’s degree in education from Columbia University in 2009, but her path turned to politics.
In 2008, she met Grace Meng, the U.S. representative for New York’s 6th Congressional District. Meng was campaigning at the time and was said to be impressed by Sun’s energy and initiative.
Sun joined Meng’s campaign as public relations director and then became chief of staff for the Taiwanese American congresswoman.
In 2012, Sun became the director of Asian American Affairs and Queens regional representative in the governor’s office. She also served as the deputy chief diversity officer in former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration from 2018 to 2020 and then was deputy chief of staff to Hochul from 2021 to 2022.
Alleged effort to silence
As a deputy chief diversity officer, she called on ethnic minorities to have a seat at the table through government programs.
However, according to the indictment, Sun sought to silence voices in the U.S. speaking out for China’s Uyghur Muslim minority, whom the Chinese government has long been accused of oppressing. She allegedly had an argument with Hochul’s speechwriter, who had insisted the then-lieutenant governor should mention the Uyghur situation in China in a Lunar New Year speech to the Chinese American community.
The indictment said Sun successfully prevented Taiwanese government officials, including former Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, from interacting with senior New York state officials, while facilitating Chinese delegations’ trips to the U.S. with fraudulent invitation letters.
In return for Sun’s political assistance, the indictment says, the Chinese government financially rewarded her with millions of dollars and aided Hu’s commercial activities in China.
Using the illegal funds, the couple is alleged to have bought a 2024 Ferrari, a $2.1 million apartment in Hawaii and a $3.55 million Long Island single-family home.
Sun and Hu are scheduled to next appear in court on September 25.
Adrianna Zhang and Adam Xu contributed to this report.
https://www.voanews.com/a/who-is-alleged-chinese-agent-linda-sun-/7773589.html
Nvidia and chums inject $160M into Applied Digital to keep GPU sales rolling
date: 2024-09-06, updated: 2024-09-06, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Datacenters are the lifeline for its $30B ML-fueled boom
AI has made GPUs one of the hottest commodities on the planet, driving more than $30 billion in revenues for Nvidia in Q2 alone. But, without datacenters, the chip powerhouse and its customers have nowhere to put all that tech. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/06/nvidia_applied_digital_gpu_funding/
US tightens export controls on quantum kit and chips for China, Iran, Russia
date: 2024-09-06, updated: 2024-09-06, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Alloys make the list too, as allies try to ensure foes can’t weaponise tech
The US has tightened export controls on quantum computing and semiconductor technology to address national defense and foreign policy concerns posed by foes including China, Iran, and Russia.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/06/us_rolls_out_new_export/
LinkedIn collaborative articles confuse me
date: 2024-09-06, from: Ze Iaso’s blog
Toss an insight to your algorithmic overlords
https://xeiaso.net/notes/2024/linkedin-collaborative-articles/
Homeland security hopes to scuttle maritime cyber-threats with port infosec testbed
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Supply chains, 13M jobs and $649B a year at risk, so Uncle Sam is fighting back - with a request for info
The US Department of Homeland Security is seeking help to assess the security of tech at maritime ports, to safeguard the 13 million jobs and $649 billion of economic activity generated by the nation’s docks.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/dhs_maritime_ports_cybersecurity/
Channel One Russia personality indicted over alleged violations of US sanctions
date: 2024-09-05, from: VOA News USA
Windows App SDK 1.6 released
date: 2024-09-05, from: OS News
We are proud to announce that version 1.6 of the Windows App SDK is now available! Whether you’re looking for the incredible performance boost and footprint reduction of Native AOT support, enhancements for deploying your package, or quality of life improvements for controls like PipsPager and RatingControl, WinAppSDK 1.6 offers a raft of new features, performance boosts and structural changes that enable you to make your native Windows apps better than ever before. The Windows App SDK provides a rich set of APIs and tools to help you build beautiful and fast Windows desktop apps, including any C++ Win32 or C# .NET app. You can harness the modern controls and polish of WinUI 3, which ships as part of the WinAppSDK, or if you have an existing app that uses Win32 such as WPF, you can take advantage of only the parts of the SDK that you need. The WinAppSDK also stays up to date with frequent and OS-independent releases so your app can always access the latest innovations. ↫ Duncan MacMichael at the Windows Blogs There’s actually quite a few nice and welcome updates in version 1.6, most prominently the aforementioned Native AOT. This stands for native Ahead-Of-Time (AOT) compilation, and, as the name suggests, compiles your application ahead of time for the architecture it’s going to run on. This reduces the size of the application package and greatly improves the startup time. Another welcome improvement is that the embedded Edge WebView2 SDK is no longer hard-coded, but a NuGet reference, so developers can choose to use any version of the webview they want, preferably the newest version. There’s a lot more in here, so if you’re a Windows developer trying to use the latest set of tools from Microsoft – this one’s for you.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140682/windows-app-sdk-1-6-released/
White House’s new fix for cyber job gaps: Serve the nation in infosec
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Now do your patriotic duty and fill one of those 500k open roles, please?
The White House has unveiled a new strategy to fill some of the hundreds of thousands of critical cybersecurity vacancies across the US: Pitch cyber as a national service.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/white_house_cyber_jobs/
US imposes new sanctions on Russian Arctic gas as Kremlin struggles to find buyers
date: 2024-09-05, from: VOA News USA
London — The United States announced new sanctions Thursday on ships that transport Russian gas from Moscow’s Arctic LNG 2 terminal in Russia’s Murmansk region.
The measures target the owners of two LNG tankers, the New Energy and the Mulan. The U.S. State Department said the New Energy had used “deceptive shipping practices, including shutting off its automatic identification system, to load cargo from the U.S.-sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project.”
It comes as a new analysis shows Russia appears to be struggling to find buyers for its liquefied natural gas, or LNG, from its flagship Arctic LNG 2 project amid tightening Western sanctions, forcing Moscow to store the gas in a huge container vessel in the Arctic Sea.
The Arctic LNG 2 project was meant to produce almost 19.8 million metric tonnes of LNG every year to sell primarily to Asian markets, potentially earning billions of dollars for Novatek, the private company that runs the project, and the Kremlin.
Instead, Russia is struggling to sell the gas, according to analyst Tom Marzec-Manser, head of gas analytics at Independent Commodity Intelligence Services. He has been using satellite and ship-tracking data to monitor LNG vessels servicing the Arctic LNG 2 facility.
“So far, we’re aware of three cargoes that have been loaded from Arctic LNG 2 … and all of them really have not gone anywhere. In recent days, what we’ve seen is that two of them have had to offload their cargo onto this huge floating storage unit that Russia’s Novatek has had moored up near Murmansk for over a year and never used — it’s also under sanctions. They’re offloading these cargoes into the storage unit because they can’t find a buyer,” Marzec-Manser told VOA.
He said that storage unit, named the Saam, will rapidly fill up if Russia can’t find buyers, creating a bottleneck and potentially forcing Novatek to halt production.
Putin’s flagship
Arctic LNG 2 was a flagship development for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who pledged that it would one day help Russia to become the world’s biggest producer of LNG.
“Production of liquefied natural gas in the Russia Arctic zone will have increased three-fold by 2030, up to 64 million tons per year. … Of course, it will contribute significantly in the development of our northern regions and in the strengthening of Russian technological sovereignty,” Putin told delegates at the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian city of Vladivostok in September 2023.
Earlier sanctions
That goal now seems unlikely. The West, led by the United States, imposed sanctions on Novatek and businesses linked to Arctic LNG 2 following Moscow’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Crucially, according to Marzec-Manser, that included the vessels intended to transport the gas.
“So, there’s a whole fleet of cargo vessels that are sitting in shipyards in Asia, which are specifically designed to flow through the Arctic seas. They’re called ‘ice-class’ vessels, and they’ve not been able to sell them to Novatek because of these sanctions,” Marzec-Manser said.
“What Novatek then did was to say, ‘Right, what we’re going to try and do is buy really old LNG vessels, which aren’t designed for the Arctic waters, but we can at least shuttle them backwards and forwards during the summer months.’ But then the U.S. has sanctioned those vessels, as well,” he told VOA.
Kremlin response
Russia is looking for ways to circumvent the sanctions. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in April that “attempts to squeeze Russia out of energy markets and switch to more expensive markets are continuing,” adding that Moscow “will look for ways to overcome these illegal obstacles, unfair competition and illegal actions.”
Analysts say Russia is assembling a so-called “dark fleet” of LNG vessels that are difficult to track.
“It’s a game of cat and mouse, and as we see, new vessels which are owned by unknown Middle Eastern entities entering Russian waters, it’s only then that you can properly join the dots to say, well, this is clearly being used to service some of these [LNG] projects, and it’s only then that the sanctions come in,” Marzec-Manser told VOA.
Novatek did not respond to VOA requests for comment.
Russia is still able to sell LNG and other hydrocarbon products from oil and gas fields that are not subject to Western sanctions. However, the state-owned gas giant Gazprom recorded a net loss of $6.9 billion in 2023 — its first annual loss in more than 20 years — as Moscow cut supplies to European customers following the invasion of Ukraine and the West’s imposition of sanctions.
The United States is now by far the world’s biggest supplier of LNG, with two-thirds of it exported to Europe.
Raspberry Pi 4 bugs throw wrench in the works for Fedora 41
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Problems also afflict the Pi Pico 2’s chip
Fedora 41 is approaching the home stretch, but is currently beset by problems around Raspberry Pi support.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/pi_and_pico_problems/
Raspberry Pi 4 bugs throw wrench in the works for Fedora 41
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: Liam Proven’s articles at the Register
Problems also afflict the Pi Pico 2’s chip
<p>Fedora 41 is approaching the home stretch, but is currently beset by problems around Raspberry Pi support.</p> https://go.theregister.com/i/cfa/https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/pi_and_pico_problems/
Lenovo’s new Snapdragon X laptops start at $749
date: 2024-09-05, from: Liliputing
The first laptops to ship with Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors earlier this year had a few things in common. They all offered long battery life, powerful NPUs for hardware-accelerated AI features, and processors that were powerful enough to handle most day-to-day tasks (with the possible exception of gaming). But another thing they had in common […]
The post Lenovo’s new Snapdragon X laptops start at $749 appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/lenovos-new-snapdragon-x-laptops-start-at-749/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-05, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Gannett’s ‘AI’ Scandals Result In Closure Of Wirecutter-esque Review Website, Layoffs.
Of course the Internet Archive’s digital lending broke the law, appeals court says
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Sorry, no, you can’t just digitize, share copyrighted books without permission
The US Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday affirmed a lower court ruling that the Internet Archive’s digitization and electronic distribution of copyrighted print books violates American law.…
US warns Russian hackers: ‘We are onto you’
date: 2024-09-05, from: VOA News USA
Washington — The United States has charged five Russian intelligence officers and one Russian civilian in connection with a major cyberattack, described by U.S. prosecutors as the first shot in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.
The Justice Department unsealed the superseding indictment Thursday, accusing the Russians of carrying out the January 2022 “WhisperGate” malware attack that sought to debilitate Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure ahead of the Russian invasion the following month.
“The WhisperGate campaign included the targeting of civilian infrastructure and Ukrainian computer systems wholly unrelated to the military or national defense, that include government agencies responsible for emergency services in Ukraine, the judiciary, food safety and education, seeking to sap the morale of the Ukrainian public,” said U.S. Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen.
The attack “could be considered the first shot of the war,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Bill DelBagno, speaking alongside Olsen during a news conference in Baltimore, Maryland.
DelBagno said the WhisperGate campaign also targeted the United States and dozens of NATO allies, going as far as to infiltrate a U.S. government agency based in Maryland while simultaneously accessing U.S. bank accounts.
“The FBI, along with our law enforcement partners and allies, will relentlessly hunt down and counter these threats,” he said. “This type of cyber warfare will not be tolerated. The scope of Russia’s crimes cannot be ignored.”
Thursday’s superseding indictment, the result of an FBI operation named “Toy Soldier,” builds on charges first filed in June against 22-year-old Russian Amin Stigal, a civilian accused of leveraging malware to aid Russian intelligence ahead of the invasion of Ukraine.
As part of the attack, Stigal and the agents with Unit 21955 of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, or GRU, used the cyberinfrastructure of some U.S.-based companies to launch what first appeared to be ransomware attacks, but which were actually designed to wipe out critical data.
The new indictment names Stigal’s Russian GRU accomplices as Vladislav Borovkov, Denis Denisenko, Yuriy Denisov, Dmitriy Goloshubov and Nikolay Korchagin.
FBI officials said the GRU unit has also operated under the names Cadet Blizzard, Ember Bear and Dev-0586, carrying out cyberattacks on critical infrastructure across Europe, Central America and Asia.
In addition to the new charges, U.S. officials said they are offering a reward of up to $10 million for each of the Russians named in the criminal complaint.
The officials said they are also working with Interpol to serve notices that could help lead to the arrest of the six Russians.
“They are marked people,” Olsen said. “We know who they are. There’s a reward on their head, and we’re going to pursue them relentlessly.”
“The message is clear,” he said. “To the GRU, to the Russians, we are onto you.”
In addition to the charges, the FBI and its partners on Thursday issued a cybersecurity advisory telling organizations and companies to fix known vulnerabilities that could be exploited by the GRU’s Unit 21955.
The Russian Embassy in Washington has yet to respond to a VOA request for comment.
A key Ukrainian official praised the U.S. indictments and the multinational work that helped make it possible.
“This is a very vivid example of how cooperation, international joint work will and actually can facilitate in this effort to struggle with such a strong and unfortunately quite big enemy as Russia,” said Ivan Kalabashkin, the deputy head of Cyber for the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
Kalabaskin, speaking at a cybersecurity conference in Washington Thursday, said Ukraine is suffering from between 10 and 15 major Russian cyberattacks a day, warning the threat is unlikely to diminish.
“The Russians are working very thoroughly on building their offensive [cyber] capacities,” he said. “They are teaching their students at the university, the civil universities, how to attack systems … how to attack infrastructure.”
Meanwhile, some U.S. allies announced their own plans to crack down on Russian intelligence.
Estonia on Thursday announced it has attributed a 2020 cyberattack on three of its government ministries and is seeking the arrest of three members of the GRU’s Unit 21955.
“Russia’s aim was to damage national computer systems, obtain sensitive information and strike a blow against our sense of security,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in a statement.
“Estonia condemns any malign activity, including cyberactivity that threatens our institutions, our citizens and our security,” Tsahkna said.
Thursday’s charges by the U.S. against Russian agents are the latest in a series of measures by Washington to crack down on what it describes as Moscow’s malign activity.
Earlier Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department charged a U.S. television presenter for Channel One Russia and his wife with sanctions evasion.
On Wednesday, the U.S. charged two Russian nationals employed by the Kremlin-backed RT media outlet with funneling almost $10 million to a U.S.-based media company to spread pro-Russian disinformation.
The Justice Department on Wednesday also announced the takedown of 32 internet domains linked to what officials described as a separate Russian operation aimed at influencing the U.S. presidential election.
VOA’s United Nations correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-warns-russian-hackers-we-are-onto-you-/7773057.html
AI-pushing Adobe says AI-shy office workers will love AI if it saves them time
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
knowledge workers, overwhelmed by knowledge tasks? We know what you need
Adobe recently surveyed more than 1,000 employed Americans about their view of AI, and found that they could overcome their concerns about losing their jobs to AI if it saved them a substantial amount of time.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/aishy_office_workers_ignore_concerns/
A Windows Control Panel retrospective amidst a concerning UX shift
date: 2024-09-05, from: OS News
Unsurprisingly, this change has not been met with a lot of enthusiasm by the average Windows user, and with Microsoft now officially recommending users migrate over to the Settings app, it seems that before long we may have to say farewell to what used to be an intrinsic part of the Windows operating system since its first iterations. Yet bizarrely, much of the Control Panel functionality doesn’t exist yet in the Settings app, and it remain an open question how much of it can be translated into the Settings app user experience (UX) paradigm at all. Considering how unusual this kind of control panel used to be beyond quaint touch-centric platforms like Android and iOS, what is Microsoft’s goal here? Have discovered a UX secret that has eluded every other OS developer? ↫ Maya Posch I like the Windows Control Panel, and approaches like it. They’re easy to use, they allow you to have multiple settings panels open at the same time, they can be easily extended by third parties – for better or worse – and they make it easy to find things with colourful, recognisable icons. The current Windows Settings application is a massive regression, as is the change from macOS’ iconic and incredibly user-friendly System Preferences to the new System Settings application. KDE also moved to a sidebar design I’m not a fan of, and GNOME has had a similar unpleasant, monochrome sidebar, too. It’s not big enough of an issue to make a huge deal out of, and the KDE sidebar settings application is at least marginally usable, but I really do wish someone would have the guts to undo this general trend, because it’s getting harder and harder to find the settings I want at a glance, and not allowing you to open multiple settings panels at the same time is a huge loss. And a small note: this article uses the Windows 3.x Control Panel as its starting point, but both Windows 1.x and 2.x had a Control Panel as well. It’s an old concept, for sure.
Paris Mayor Wants to Keep the Olympic Rings on the Eiffel Tower
date: 2024-09-05, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Critics worry that the symbol will tarnish the iconic structure’s historic character
Sols 4295-4296: A Martian Moon and Planet Earth
date: 2024-09-05, from: NASA breaking news
Earth planning date: Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024 Today’s two-sol plan contains the usual science blocks filled with contact science and remote science to observe and assess the geology surrounding us. However, the Mastcam team is hoping to capture a special celestial event above the Martian skyline as one of Mars’ moons, Phobos, will be in […]
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/sols-4295-4296-a-martian-moon-and-planet-earth/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-05, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
JD Vance personifies the joylessness of MAGA.
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/jd-vance-flopping-comedy-schtick
NASA Selects Langley Research Center Support Contractor
date: 2024-09-05, from: NASA breaking news
NASA has awarded the Center, Operations Maintenance, and Engineering II contract to Jacobs Technology Inc. of Tullahoma, Tennessee, to support operations at the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The contract is a cost-plus-fixed-fee indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with a maximum potential value of $973.7 million. Following a phase-in period that starts Tuesday, Oct. 1 and […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-selects-langley-research-center-support-contractor/
Developers’ fireside chat – 7th September
date: 2024-09-05, from: RiscOS Story
People interested in developing on or for RISC OS will have their next opportunity for a friendly, informal (virtual) get together on Saturday, 7th September, at the next friendly fireside chat. Whether you are fully conversant with the inner workings of the WIMP or are trying to work out what the programmers reference manual is saying on a certain page, or whether you are an advanced C programmer or someone whose BASIC is, well, basic, these meetings are for you. They provide a means for beginners and inexperienced programmers to…
https://www.riscository.com/2024/developers-fireside-chat-7th-september/
Humans Pollute the Environment With 57 Million Tons of Plastic Each Year, Study Suggests
date: 2024-09-05, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Scientists used A.I. to model local waste management in 50,000 municipalities worldwide and say the results suggest a need to improve access to waste collection systems
Hachette v. Internet Archive Update: Second Circuit Court of Appeals Rules Against Internet Archive
date: 2024-09-05, from: Authors Union blogs
We got a disappointing decision yesterday from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the long-running Hachette v. Internet Archive (IA) copyright lawsuit about IA’s digitization and lending of books. The Court affirmed the district court’s decision that IA cannot circulate digital copies of books they have legitimately acquired in physical copies, even when only […]
The Internet Archive just lost its appeal over ebook lending
date: 2024-09-05, from: OS News
The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in a fight to lend out scanned ebooks without the approval of publishers. In a decision on Wednesday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that permitting the Internet Archive’s digital library would “allow for widescale copying that deprives creators of compensation and diminishes the incentive to produce new works.” The decision is another blow to the nonprofit in the Hachette v. Internet Archive case. In 2020, four major publishers — Hachette, Penguin Random House, Wiley, and HarperCollins — sued the Internet Archive over claims its digital library constitutes “willful digital piracy on an industrial scale.” ↫ Emma Roth If you’re a library and scan books and offer a lending service, you’re committing “willful digital piracy on an industrial scale”. If you scan the entire goddamn internet without any regard for licensing or copyright and regurgitate chunks of it on command, you’re a visionary, a revolutionary, a genius. Make it make sense.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140678/the-internet-archive-just-lost-its-appeal-over-ebook-lending/
Uncle Sam charges Russian GRU cyber-spies behind ‘WhisperGate intrusions’
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Feds post $10M bounty for each of the six’s whereabouts
The US today charged five Russian military intelligence officers and one civilian for their alleged involvement with the data-wiping WhisperGate campaign conducted against Ukraine in January 2022 before the ground invasion began.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/uncle_sam_charges_russian_gru/
What If We Get Fusion — But Don’t Need It?
date: 2024-09-05, from: Heatmap News
Nuclear fusion, sometimes breathlessly referred to as the “holy grail” of clean energy, capable of providing “near limitless” energy, might actually, finally be on the verge of working. And when that first prototype reactor turns on, the feverish headlines about harnessing the power of the sun and the stars here on Earth will at least be somewhat justified. Fusion is going to be a massive scientific achievement, but in a practical sense, it might not matter.
“We can make it work,” Egemen Kolemen, fusion expert and associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University, told me. “But at what price?”
Figuring out fusion is one thing, penciling out the economics another. There’s a nontrivial chance that fusion could become a scientific reality but remain too expensive to make a dent in the barriers to decarbonization.
How this plays out largely depends on what the grid looks like by the mid-2030s, when the leading fusion startups think we’ll see the first demonstration reactors come online. President Biden wants to fully decarbonize the electricity sector by 2035. And as ambitious — or, as many say, unrealistic — as that may be, how close we get and how we get there will determine what opportunities remain for fusion.
By the mid-2030s, the cost of building new fission reactors could come down significantly; if The Nuclear Company has its way, we’ll have built a 6 gigawatt fleet of standard nuclear plants by then. Or maybe small, modular reactors will finally prove out, squeezing much of the market space for fusion. And then there’s all the other emergent, grid-firming tech in various stages of development. Think long-duration battery storage, enhanced geothermal, and hydrogen for starters.
“Batteries go down in price, hydrogen goes down, you know, two orders of magnitude, whatever. And then you say, we’re okay, we don’t need an extra [energy] source,” Kolemen told me. “So we have to be very clear that that’s an option as well.”
Needless to say, investors know it’s a gamble. “This is venture, of course there’s a chance that it might not be economically feasible,” Gabriel Kra, managing director and co-founder at climate tech VC Prelude Ventures, told me. “That’s not a reason, in any case, not to try.” Prelude Ventures has invested in two fusion companies, Thea Energy and Xcimer Energy, while venture capitalists on the whole have poured $6.7 billion into fusion since 1992, according to the Fusion Industry Association, the vast majority of that in the past three years.
Many of these same venture firms are also placing big bets on other energy solutions that promise to provide many of the same benefits as fusion, such as Fervo’s enhanced geothermal tech, or Koloma’s artificial intelligence-powered geologic hydrogen detection system, or Form Energy’s long-duration iron-air batteries. But because none of these brand new technologies has yet achieved meaningful scale, creating simple price forecasts or cost curve models isn’t possible.
A refrain I heard a few times, however, is that no matter the energy mix of the future, fusion’s viability isn’t simply a matter of dollars and cents. “Even if fusion doesn’t get as cheap as solar or wind, or even if it doesn’t get as cheap as natural gas, there’s still a huge place for it in the grid,” Kra said.
Siting fusion reactors near dense urban areas, for example, could help solve one of the principal issues with renewables. “Even now, it’s becoming difficult to find sites for solar and wind, and we have a fraction of what we would need,” Jacob Schwartz, a staff research physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, told me. “If you really want a lot of firm power that can be much physically denser than these other resources, you might really want to build fusion.” Siting fusion next to demand centers would also reduce the need to permit and build long transmission lines, which can take a decade or more if it happens at all.
Of course, fission reactors have these advantages too. A paper Schwartz and Kolemen published last year, modeling fusion’s place in various net-zero grid scenarios from 2036 to 2050, found that in most of them, fusion plants would be primarily displacing fission. That is, if they made sense at all. The authors (including Princeton energy systems professor and Heatmap contributor Jesse Jenkins) also found that if the price of competing technologies creates at least a moderate market opportunity for fusion, we could wind up with 100 gigawatts or more of fusion capacity, about the size of the current domestic fission fleet. But if other technologies outperform and drop significantly in price, it’s possible that no commercial fusion plants would get built in that timeframe.
Kra, however, disagrees with a core assumption of the paper — that the U.S. will actually meet our carbon-free energy targets. “I don’t want to be a doomer, but I don’t think we’re going to decarbonize the grid by 2035,” Kra told me. “I think the first fusion plant that comes online, maybe between 2035 and 2040, will be displacing a fossil source at that moment in time.”
Looked at that way, the calculus changes. Fusion could become just another player in the renewables mix, slotting in alongside a plethora of other emergent and established carbon-free technologies to supplant fossil fuels in an all-of-the-above march towards zero emissions. It would still need to be cost-effective, of course, but if it’s framed as a possible successor to fossil fuels as opposed to a rival of existing clean energy sources, that’s a much better sales pitch.
That said, it’s going to take more than just reaching cost-parity with fission for fusion to take off. If that’s all we do, Kolemen told me, “it will have the exact same result, which is that nothing is going to be built.”
And even if fusion doesn’t end up penciling out for the U.S. grid, it may still in other areas of the world with less abundant renewable energy resources and rapid load growth. Phil Larochelle, the leader of Breakthrough Energy Ventures fusion investment strategy, told me that it’s really not the West that stands to benefit the most.
“You’ve got the rest of the world — call it, 80% of the world’s population — who are trying to live a life of prosperity, like we do here.” But raising standards of living around the world means a huge increase in energy consumption. “And so then the question is, can you just kind of sneak across the finish line with wind, solar, storage, transmission, geothermal, a bit of natural gas?” Larochelle asked. While he said it should be possible, it wouldn’t allow for the flourishing vision of the future that he hopes to see. “Sustainable abundance for all. That’s, I think, where fusion really shines,” he told me.
https://heatmap.news/technology/fusion-economics
New Hardware for Future Artemis Moon Missions Arrive at NASA Kennedy
date: 2024-09-05, from: NASA breaking news
From across the Atlantic Ocean and through the Gulf of Mexico, two ships converged, delivering key spacecraft and rocket components of NASA’s Artemis campaign to the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On Sept. 3, ESA (European Space Agency) marked a milestone in the Artemis III mission as its European-built service module for NASA’s Orion […]
REDMAGIC Gaming Tablet has a 10.9 inch 144 Hz display and Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor
date: 2024-09-05, from: Liliputing
Chinese phone maker Nubia has been selling smartphones for gamers under its REDMAGIC brand for a while, but this year the company is branching out into new territory. Earlier this summer the company launched the first REDMAGIC-branded gaming laptop, and now the company has introduced the first REDMAGIC tablet. The first-gen REDMAGIC Nova Gaming Tablet […]
The post REDMAGIC Gaming Tablet has a 10.9 inch 144 Hz display and Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor appeared first on Liliputing.
Porting systemd to musl libc-powered Linux
date: 2024-09-05, from: OS News
A. Wilcox, the original creator of Adélie Linux, has ported systemd to musl, the glibc alternative. I have completed an initial new port of systemd to musl. This patch set does not share much in common with the existing OpenEmbedded patchset. I wanted to make a fully updated patch series targeting more current releases of systemd and musl, taking advantage of the latest features and updates in both. I also took a focus on writing patches that could be sent for consideration of inclusion upstream. The final result is a system that appears to be surprisingly reliable considering the newness of the port, and very fast to boot. ↫ A. Wilcox I absolutely adore Adélie Linux as a project, even if I don’t run it myself, since they have a very practical approach to software. Systemd is popular for a reason – it’s fast and capable – and it only makes sense for Adélie to offer it as a potential option, even when using musl. Choice is a core value of the open source and Linux world, and that includes the choice to use systemd, even for a distribution that has traditionally used something else. The port is already quite capable, and Wilcox managed to replace OpenRC on her system with systemd in-place, and it booted up just fine, and it also happened to boot in about a third of the time OpenRC did. It’s not ready for prime time yet, though, and most services are not yet packaged for systemd, an effort for which Adélie Linux intends to rely on upstream and cooperation with systemd experts from Gentoo and Fedora. They’re also working together with systemd, musl, and others to make any switching a user might want to do as easy as possible. A beta or anything like that is still a ways off, but it’s an impressive amount of progress already.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140675/porting-systemd-to-musl-libc-powered-linux/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-05, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
OAK flyers are mistakenly going to SFO following airport rebrand.
https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/sfo-tracks-passenger-confusion-oak-name-change-19742827.php
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-05, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
If democracy depends on journalism, then it's gone.
http://scripting.com/2024/09/05.html#a154056
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-05, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
My most two visited pages while working on Godot for iPad:
https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/typography
https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/color
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113086480759987882
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-05, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Motion to demand an "LOL fuck no" button to this dialog:
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113086471157425373
Default Folder X 6.1
date: 2024-09-05, from: Michael Tsai
I missed reporting on last year’s Default Folder X 6: [Quick Search] gives you keyboard-based access to Recent and Favorite Items, including recently-launched applications and recently-used Finder windows. Note that it does NOT search your whole Mac, it searches the files, folders and apps that Default Folder X remembers for you. In most cases, it […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/05/default-folder-x-6-1/
Spotify Connect Can No Longer Use iPhone Volume Buttons
date: 2024-09-05, from: Michael Tsai
Sarah Perez (MacRumors): Spotify claims Apple may again be in violation of European regulation, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which requires interoperability from big technology companies dubbed “gatekeepers.” This time, the issue isn’t about in-app purchases, links or pricing information, but rather how Apple has discontinued the technology that allows Spotify users to control the […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/05/spotify-connect-can-no-longer-use-iphone-volume-buttons/
Google Drive Blocks Unverified Apps
date: 2024-09-05, from: Michael Tsai
Binarynights: Recently, Google has limited or blocked direct connections to Google Drive through ForkLift. Depending on whether users have previously connected to Google Drive through ForkLift, they may encounter one of two warnings when trying to connect via the Connect Panel. […] Google now requires apps like ForkLift to undergo the Cloud Application Security Assessment […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/05/google-drive-blocks-unverified-apps/
Founder Mode
date: 2024-09-05, from: Michael Tsai
Paul Graham (Hacker News): The theme of Brian’s talk was that the conventional wisdom about how to run larger companies is mistaken. As Airbnb grew, well-meaning people advised him that he had to run the company in a certain way for it to scale. Their advice could be optimistically summarized as “hire good people and […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/05/founder-mode/
Cisco’s Smart Licensing Utility flaws suggest it’s pretty dumb on security
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Two critical holes including hardcoded admin credential
If you’re running Cisco’s supposedly Smart Licensing Utility, there are two flaws you ought to patch right now.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/cisco_smart_licensing_utility_flaws/
Phoenix Shatters Heat Record With 100 Consecutive Days Above 100 Degrees
date: 2024-09-05, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Forecasts show no relief from the extreme heat over the next few weeks, which promises to extend the streak far beyond the previous high of 76 days set in 1993
You Can Stay at the Club Where the Beatles Played Some of Their Earliest Gigs
date: 2024-09-05, from: Smithsonian Magazine
One-time Beatle Pete Best and his brother have turned the legendary Casbah Coffee Club into an Airbnb
Verizon snaps up Frontier in $20B fiber power play
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Marking yet another round of telecom consolidation
Verizon is buying Frontier Communications for $20 billion in an all-cash deal that the Tier 1 carrier says will bolster its fiber network across 31 states and Washington DC, as the industry undergoes yet another round of telecommunications consolidation.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/verizon_acquire_frontier/
Daily Deals (9-05-2024)
date: 2024-09-05, from: Liliputing
The Epic Games Store is giving away two PC games for free this week: Football Manager 2024 and Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts. Meanwhile Amazon has expanded the list of games it’s giving away for free to folks with an Amazon Prime subscription. Some of the latest titles include: Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel, Shadow of the Tomb […]
The post Daily Deals (9-05-2024) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/daily-deals-9-05-2024/
An Ancient Asteroid Smashed Into Jupiter’s Moon Ganymede and Tipped It Over, Study Finds
date: 2024-09-05, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The cataclysmic impactor was 20 times the size of the rock that wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth
Money Is Art in an Exhibition at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum
date: 2024-09-05, from: Smithsonian Magazine
“Money Talks” features currency from around the world spanning thousands of years—from ancient coins and historic banknotes to contemporary NFTs
MOREFINE M11 is a mini PC with a 7 inch touchscreen display and up to an Intel N200 processor
date: 2024-09-05, from: Liliputing
The MOREFINE M11 is a small desktop computer that you can also use as a Windows tablet thanks to a built-in 7 inch HD touchscreen display and 25.8 Wh battery. But it’s a bit on the thick side for a tablet, and has a nice set of full-sized ports, which is why it’s probably best […]
The post MOREFINE M11 is a mini PC with a 7 inch touchscreen display and up to an Intel N200 processor appeared first on Liliputing.
On guns: Harris bets on stricter laws, Trump pledges to roll back restrictions
date: 2024-09-05, from: VOA News USA
A shooting at a Georgia high school on Wednesday was a stark reminder that firearms kill more Americans per capita than in any other large, high-income country, according to health experts. Vice President Kamala Harris wants stricter gun regulation. Her opponent, former President Donald Trump, pledges to roll back gun restrictions. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains.
13 days into the outage, will Kaseya’s Traverse trip back to life today?
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
‘Potential issue’ in infrastructure of network monitoring tool results in lengthy, ongoing downtime
Today’s the day. Maybe. Kaseya’s Traverse platform is scheduled to finally be up and running again after a lengthy period of “maintenance.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/traverse_outage_continues/
Lenovo Auto Twist AI laptop concept lets you open, close, and swivel the screen without touching it
date: 2024-09-05, from: Liliputing
Lenovo is showing off a new concept laptop at IFA this week that has a swivel hinge that allows you to twist the screen around so that it faces away from the keyboard. This allows you to turn the PC into a tablet simply by closing the lid with the screen facing up. But that’s […]
The post Lenovo Auto Twist AI laptop concept lets you open, close, and swivel the screen without touching it appeared first on Liliputing.
Global powers sign AI pact promising to preserve human rights, democracy
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
No, Russia and China are not on the list
The US, EU, UK, and other nations have signed up to a legal framework setting out a treaty for the implementation of AI that is underpinned by human rights and democratic values.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/ai_treaty/
Right-Wing Think Tank Pushes States to Ban Guaranteed Income Programs
date: 2024-09-05, from: Capital and Main
Despite widespread support for cash grants, a dark money-funded policy group is influencing GOP lawmakers to prohibit them.
The post Right-Wing Think Tank Pushes States to Ban Guaranteed Income Programs appeared first on .
https://capitalandmain.com/right-wing-think-tank-pushes-states-to-ban-guaranteed-income-programs
Hunter Biden pleads guilty to federal tax charges to spare his family
date: 2024-09-05, from: VOA News USA
Los Angeles — President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, pleaded guilty Thursday to federal tax charges, a surprise move he said was meant to spare his family another painful and embarrassing criminal trial after his gun case conviction just months ago.
Hunter Biden’s decision to plead guilty to misdemeanor and felony charges without the benefits of a deal with prosecutors came hours after jury selection was supposed to begin in the case accusing him of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes.
The president’s son is facing potential prison time after his June conviction on felony gun charges in a trial that aired unflattering and salacious details about his struggles with a crack cocaine addiction. The tax trial was expected to showcase more potentially lurid evidence as well as details about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, which Republicans have seized on to try to paint the Biden family as corrupt.
“I will not subject my family to more pain, more invasions of privacy and needless embarrassment,” Hunter Biden said in an emailed statement after he entered his plea. “For all I have put them through over the years, I can spare them this, and so I have decided to plead guilty.”
Although President Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential election muted the potential political implications of the tax case, the trial was expected to carry a heavy emotional toll for the president in the final months of his five-decade political career.
“Hunter put his family first today, and it was a brave and loving thing for him to do,” defense attorney Abbe Lowell told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Los Angeles.
Hunter Biden, 54, quickly responded “guilty” as the judge read out each of the nine counts. The charges carry up to 17 years behind bars, but federal sentencing guidelines are likely to call for a much shorter sentence. He faces up to $1.35 million in fines.
Sentencing is set for December 16 in front of U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi, who was nominated to the bench by former President Donald Trump.
He faces sentencing in the Delaware case on Nov. 13 — the week after the general election. Those charges are punishable by up to 25 years in prison, though he is likely to get far less time or avoid prison entirely.
Hunter Biden showed no emotion as he walked out of the courthouse holding his wife’s hand. He ignored questions shouted at him by reporters before climbing into an SUV and driving off.
https://www.voanews.com/a/hunter-biden-arrives-at-los-angeles-court-for-tax-trial/7772661.html
US-China rivalry on display at gathering of Pacific Islands leaders
date: 2024-09-05, from: VOA News USA
Washington — Efforts by Beijing to limit Taiwan’s participation in the recently concluded Pacific Islands Forum underscore the intense and ongoing tug-of-war between Western democracies and China for influence in the region, analysts say.
During the Pacific Islands Forum, or PIF, which wrapped up Friday, Beijing ally Solomon Islands tried unsuccessfully to block Taiwan from future participation. Then, on Saturday, the PIF removed a reference to Taiwan in its final communique after Beijing’s top Pacific diplomat expressed outrage at its inclusion.
The communique originally reaffirmed a 30-year-old agreement allowing Taiwan to take part in the PIF. That wording was later removed. Beijing’s communist leaders insist that democratically ruled Taiwan is a part of China and have worked for decades to limit the island’s participation in international organizations.
After the references to Taiwan were removed, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday, “Taiwan issued the strongest condemnation on China’s arbitrary intervention and unreasonable actions that undermine regional peace and stability.”
However, the ministry said the revision did not undermine Taiwan’s status at the forum or prevent it from participating in the future.
Asia Group senior adviser Kathryn Paik, who helped lead the creation of the first U.S.-Pacific Islands Forum Summit while at the U.S. National Security Council, said that while Taiwan’s status as a development partner is still solid, what happened highlights the intensity of Beijing’s efforts in the region.
“China has made gaining access and influence in the Pacific a top priority in recent years, sending savvy diplomats to the region. In fact, China currently has vastly more diplomats on the ground in more countries than the United States, outnumbering the U.S. in almost every location,” Paik told VOA. “The pushback on the Solomon Islands’ attempt — which was transparently an attempt by China — to remove Taiwan as a development partner to the PIF demonstrated the high regard that many nations have for Taiwan’s contributions to Pacific development.”
PIF officials did not explain why Taiwan was removed from the communique but stressed that the PIF would continue to welcome Taiwan at its regional meetings.
Nikkei Asia reported that Chinese Special Envoy for the Pacific Qian Bo told reporters Friday the reference was “a mistake” that “should be corrected.”
“Taiwan is part of China. Taiwan is not a dialogue partner of PIF, so China has the representation on behalf of the whole China, including Taiwan and the mainland,” Qian said.
VOA reached out to the Chinese Embassy in Washington and the Solomon Islands for comment but has yet to receive a response.
Partnership through 2027
On Sunday, Taiwan announced an agreement with the Pacific Islands to extend the development partnership through 2027, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.
The statement also highlighted programs Taiwan has supported in the Pacific Islands, efforts that have focused on areas such as agriculture, education, medical care, communications technology, women’s empowerment and basic infrastructure.
Commenting Tuesday on China’s efforts at the PIF, the U.S. State Department backed Taiwan’s continued right to attend regional meetings.
“The PRC’s efforts to pressure Pacific Island countries to remove this reference fit a pattern of PRC coercion to constrain Taiwan’s international position,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA, using an abbreviation of the country’s formal name, the People’s Republic of China. “Taiwan is a highly capable, engaged, democratic and responsible member of the global community.”
US Pacific territories
While China and the United States maintain status as partner nations in the PIF, U.S. territories Guam and American Samoa were granted status as associate members during last week’s meetings. Although they do not have voting rights, they will be able to provide speakers at plenary sessions and nominate members to PIF working groups.
“The United States supports the U.S. Pacific territories’ increased participation in the PIF and greater connectivity with PIF members,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA.
The Asia Group’s Paik said that having two U.S. territories “more tightly knit into the Pacific community” further reinforces that the U.S. is a Pacific nation and opens opportunities for the U.S. to influence decision-making at the forum.
Ivan Kanapathy, a former deputy senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council, agrees.
“This will provide more allied voices and reduce PRC influence, which often relies on elite capture,” said Kanapathy, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.
He added: “Washington must convince the region that it is willing to impose real costs on Beijing — more than just diplomatic statements.”
Some information for this report came from Reuters.
Age discrimination layoff case against X granted class-action status
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Judge clears path for 149 ex-Twitters over 50 to sue collectively
Thousands of people were caught up in the mass Twitter layoffs following Elon Musk’s acquisition/deconstruction of the platform. Now, according to a judge, 150 of them can collectively sue the social media giant for age discrimination in its decision to lay them off. …
Revisiting the Elm City project
date: 2024-09-05, from: John Udell blog
“Communities that want to build comprehensive public calendars will be able to do so using a hybrid approach that blends existing iCalendar feeds with feeds synthesized from web calendars. It’s not a perfect solution, but with LLM assistance it’s a workable one. And who knows, maybe if people see what’s possible when information silos converge, … Continue reading Revisiting the Elm City project
https://blog.jonudell.net/2024/09/05/revisiting-the-elm-city-project/
NASA’s Boeing Starliner Mission Landing Criteria, Timeline
date: 2024-09-05, from: NASA breaking news
As NASA and Boeing prepare to return the company’s Starliner spacecraft uncrewed from the International Space Station to Earth, safety and mission success remain as top priorities for the teams. Mission managers will complete a series of operational and weather checks before the spacecraft undocks from the orbital complex. The Starliner spacecraft is the first […]
135 released Nicaraguan political prisoners arrive in Guatemala
date: 2024-09-05, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-secures-release-of-135-nicaraguan-political-prisoners/7772560.html
Join the Eclipsing Binary Patrol and Spot Rare Stellar Pairs!
date: 2024-09-05, from: NASA breaking news
Eclipsing binaries are special pairs of stars that cross in front of one another as they orbit—stars that take turns blocking one another from our view. At Eclipsing Binary Patrol, the newest NASA-funded citizen science project, you’ll have a chance to help discover these unusual pairs of objects. In Eclipsing Binary Patrol, you’ll work with real data […]
Ames Wind Tunnel
date: 2024-09-05, from: NASA breaking news
Construction of the Ames wind tunnel and its original 40- by 80-foot test section. A later expansion created an additional 80- by 120-foot test section. A Navy blimp, which would have been based at Hangars 2 and 3 at Moffett Field, patrols in the background. Image Credit: NACA
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/ames-wind-tunnel/
The ice is thinning, economically speaking
date: 2024-09-05, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Private payroll company ADP reports that 99,000 jobs were added to the economy in August, less than in July. This continual cooling in demand for workers can be considered a good thing — as long as we don’t go through the ice. But first, Nordstrom’s department stores could go private. Plus: what we know about how former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris want to change our tax bills.
Security boom is over, with over a third of CISOs reporting flat or falling budgets
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Good news? Security is still getting a growing part of IT budget
It looks like security budgets are coming up against belt-tightening policies, with chief security officers reporting budgets rising more slowly than ever and over a third saying their spending this year will be flat or even reduced.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/security_spending_boom_slowing/
NASA to Support DARPA Robotic Satellite Servicing Program
date: 2024-09-05, from: NASA breaking news
NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have signed an interagency agreement to collaborate on a satellite servicing demonstration in geosynchronous Earth orbit, where hundreds of satellites provide communications, meteorological, national security, and other vital functions. Under this agreement, NASA will provide subject matter expertise to DARPA’s Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) […]
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/nasa-to-support-darpa-robotic-satellite-servicing-program/
NASA’s Hubble, MAVEN Help Solve the Mystery of Mars’ Escaping Water
date: 2024-09-05, from: NASA breaking news
Mars was once a very wet planet as is evident in its surface geological features. Scientists know that over the last 3 billion years, at least some water went deep underground, but what happened to the rest? Now, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) missions are helping unlock that mystery. […]
Digitizing Tutor Observations: A Look into Self-Observations of Asynchronous Tutoring
date: 2024-09-05, from: Digital Humanities Quarterly News
Before accepting my role as Assistant Director of the California State University, Channel Islands Writing & Multiliteracy Center (WMC), I understood asynchronous tutoring as additional support for students to utilize when the incentive to attend a synchronous session was unavailable (either because of their schedules or other personal reasons). Writing centers in the past have […]OpenAI co-founder’s Safe Superintelligence startup inhales $1B in funding
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
No product? No problem!
Wondering if the AI bubble is set to pop? Safe Superintelligence (SSI) has just scored more than $1 billion in investor funding.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/ssi_funding/
AI (kind of) in the Writing Center
date: 2024-09-05, from: Digital Humanities Quarterly News
We were ahead of the curve. In the summer of 2022, four months before ChatGPT burst onto the scene, we sent out our usual July message to tutors at UConn’s Writing Center, reminding them about August orientation dates and that everyone would need to bring a draft essay based on a pair of readings. Here’s […]How My Role at the Writing Center Shaped My Digital Literacies
date: 2024-09-05, from: Digital Humanities Quarterly News
During my formal education as an English and Portuguese language and literature undergraduate major in Brazil, I learned English through traditional methods like timed exams, grammar drills, and textbooks, and was mostly discouraged from using technology. This approach left me feeling inadequate, and I soon internalized that “writing in English was not for me.” Despite […]Britain halts criminal proceedings against movie producer Weinstein
date: 2024-09-05, from: VOA News USA
LONDON — Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein won’t face charges of indecent assault in Britain, prosecutors announced on Thursday.
The Crown Prosecution Service, which in 2022 authorized two charges of indecent assault against Weinstein, said it decided to discontinue proceedings because there was “no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.’’
“We have explained our decision to all parties,’’ the CPS said in a statement. ’’We would always encourage any potential victims of sexual assault to come forward and report to police, and we will prosecute wherever our legal test is met.”
Weinstein became the most prominent villain of the #MeToo movement in 2017 when women began to go public with accounts of his behavior. After the revelations emerged, British police said they were investigating multiple allegations of sexual assault that reportedly took place between the 1980s and 2015.
In June 2022, the Crown Prosecution Service said it had authorized London’s Metropolitan Police Service to file two charges of indecent assault against Weinstein in relation to an alleged incident that occurred in London in 1996. The victim was in her 50s at the time of the announcement.
Unlike many other countries, Britain does not have a statute of limitations for rape or sexual assault.
Weinstein, who has denied that he raped or sexually assaulted anyone, remains in custody in New York while awaiting retrial in Manhattan, prosecutors said in August.
After the retrial, he is due to start serving a 16-year sentence in California for a separate rape conviction in Los Angeles, authorities said. Weinstein was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 while already serving a 23-year sentence in New York.
His 2020 conviction in Manhattan was thrown out earlier this year when the state’s top court ruled that the judge in the original trial unfairly allowed testimony against Weinstein based on allegations that weren’t part of the case.
Weinstein, the co-founder of the Miramax entertainment company and The Weinstein Company film studio, was once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, having produced films such as “Pulp Fiction” and “The Crying Game.”
Beyond the Hype: Writing Centers and the AI Revolution in Higher Education
date: 2024-09-05, from: Digital Humanities Quarterly News
Although I’m genuinely tired of hearing this phrase, I have to start with it because it’s an undeniable fact: The launch of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022 marked a seismic shift in the landscape of higher education. I consider myself lucky to have had a front-row seat when witnessing the transformative impact of AI on […]Eclipses Create Atmospheric Gravity Waves, NASA Student Teams Confirm
date: 2024-09-05, from: NASA breaking news
Student teams from three U.S. universities became the first to measure what scientists have long predicted: eclipses can generate ripples in Earth’s atmosphere called atmospheric gravity waves. The waves’ telltale signature emerged in data captured during the North American annular solar eclipse on Oct. 14, 2023, as part of the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project (NEBP) […]
https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/eclipses-create-atmospheric-gravity-waves/
Intel Arrow Lake to be made elsewhere as 20A process node canned
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Meanwhile, Broadcom reportedly displeased with 18A wafers
Surprising news about Intel continues to emerge with the chipmaker vowing to use an external foundry in place of its own 20A process to make the upcoming Arrow Lake processors, amid talk that Broadcom has rejected Intel’s 18A process as not ready for mass production.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/intel_arrow_lake/
Volvo Is Watering Down Its 2030 All-Electric Pledge
date: 2024-09-05, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Thunderstorms brought widespread flooding to Tampa Bay, Florida • The famous Constantine Arch in Rome was damaged by lightning • Super Typhoon Yagi is now the second-most powerful storm of 2024 and is expected to hit China on Friday.
THE TOP FIVE
- Biden to announce $7.3 billion in rural clean energy grants
The Biden administration today is expected to announce $7.3 billion in grants for rural electric cooperatives to finance clean energy projects aimed at bringing reliable, affordable energy to rural Americans. The infusion, which comes from the Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program of the Inflation Reduction Act, is “the largest investment in rural electrification since FDR’s administration,” said White House Deputy Chief of Staff Natalie Quillian. The 16 cooperatives will have projects dotted across 23 states. The projects are expected to create 4,500 permanent jobs and prevent more than 43 million tons of greenhouse gas pollution each year. Biden will announce the news at the Dairyland Power Cooperative in Wisconsin. Dairyland will receive $573 million for solar and wind installations across Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois. “One in five rural Americans will benefit from these clean energy investments, thanks to partnerships with rural electric cooperatives like Dairyland,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a statement. “Put simply, this is rural power, for rural America.”
- Volvo walks back 2030 all-electric pledge
Volvo is watering down its commitment to sell only electric vehicles by 2030, aiming instead to have at least 90% of its sales be electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles by that year. CEO Jim Rowan blamed market forces, lack of EV charging infrastructure, and lower-than-expected customer demand for the change. The company said it will invest in plug-in hybrids for growth. “We are resolute in our belief that our future is electric,” Rowan said. “However, it is clear that the transition to electrification will not be linear, and customers and markets are moving at different speeds.” The walk-back follows similar moves from other carmakers including Ford. Volvo was one of the first legacy automakers to commit to a fully-electric future, and as the Financial Times noted, it “remains the most bullish about the transition.”
- Parts of L.A. could hit 118 degrees this week
The intense heat wave positioned over the West Coast is bringing dangerously hot temperatures to Southern California. In some areas, temperatures will be 20 degrees above normal for this time of year. Los Angeles will see triple-digit highs through the end of the week. Palm Springs will hit 114 degrees Fahrenheit today. The Woodland Hills neighborhood of L.A. could reach 118 degrees by Friday. “In terms of this summer, it’s going to be the hottest we’ve seen or close to it,” Mike Wofford, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told the Los Angeles Times. Cooling centers are open across the state and are listed here. According to the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, average annual temperatures in the state have risen by about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1895. Seven of the past eight years have been the warmest on record.
Get Heatmap AM directly in your inbox every morning:
- Ultium battery plant in Tennessee votes to unionize
The Ultium electric vehicle battery plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, has joined the United Auto Workers union. The plant, which employs 1,000 people, is a joint venture between General Motors and LG Energy Solution. The UAW said in a statement that “the workers organized without facing threats or intimidation and won their union once a majority of workers signed cards.” This is the second Ultium plant to unionize, but the first in the South. The other, in Ohio, joined the UAW in 2022. “It could be a big deal,” wrote Jameson Dow at Electrek, “given the developing ‘battery belt’ in the U.S. South, where many companies have decided to build battery plants, with hundreds of billions of dollars in investment and hundreds of thousands of jobs on the docket. If other factories see the success at GM, they might start getting their own ideas and unionization could spread through the industry.”
- YouGov poll finds rampant misinformation about EVs
The results of a new YouGov survey show that drivers are terribly misinformed about the costs, safety, and functionality of electric vehicles. In the survey, 1,000 people who currently drive gas-powered cars were asked to read 10 statements about EVs and identify whether they were true or false. The majority (90%) of participants answered just five or fewer questions correctly, and more than half (57%) of participants scored no higher than two out of 10. In other words, if this test had been scored on an A-F grading scale, nearly everyone would have failed. Sixty-two percent of them said EVs are more expensive to run than internal combustion engine cars (they’re not), 41% thought EVs are more likely to catch fire (they’re not), and 35% believed EVs emit about the same CO2 over their lifetime as ICE vehicles (they don’t).
“This is affecting drivers’ car choices, with people displaying a poor understanding of EVs being less likely to want their next car to be an EV,” concluded the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, the nonprofit that commissioned the survey. “Drivers who scored two or less out of 10 were 11 times less likely to want their next car to be an EV than those who scored eight or more out of 10.”
The survey was conducted in the U.K., but many of these myths are common among U.S. drivers, too.
THE KICKER
🙌 The Fight, a new Heatmap Plus weekly newsletter from senior reporter Jael Holzman, just launched. It will deliver must-read exclusive scoops and analysis on the local battles and national trends shaping the future of climate action. Check it out. 🙌
https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/volvo-2030-electric-pledge
Judge permits prosecutors to share fresh evidence in Trump election interference case
date: 2024-09-05, from: VOA News USA
Washington — The federal election interference case against Donald Trump inched forward Thursday, with a judge permitting prosecutors to file court documents later this month that could detail unflattering allegations about the former president as the Republican nominee enters the final weeks of his White House run.
The order came hours after a court hearing, the first in the case in nearly a year, in which U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan sparred with a Trump lawyer who accused the government of trying to rush ahead with an “illegitimate” indictment in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election. Chutkan made clear she would not let the upcoming election affect how she proceeds, turning aside defense efforts to delay the process while also acknowledging that the case is nowhere close to a trial date.
“There’s no rush to judgment here,” Chutkan said.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers are at odds over the next steps in the case after the Supreme Court narrowed the scope of the prosecution by ruling that former presidents are entitled to broad immunity from criminal charges. The dueling proposals and testy courtroom exchanges Thursday reflected the extent to which the justices’ July opinion had upended the path of the case that charges Trump with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
By day’s end, the judge permitted prosecutors to file by September 26 a legal brief that could include fresh details about Trump’s failed efforts to cling to power four years ago. The brief is meant to defend a revised and stripped-down Trump indictment that special counsel Jack Smith’s team filed last week to comply with the Supreme Court’s immunity opinion. The filing is expected to include detailed allegations from the investigation, said Thomas Windom, a member of Smith’s team.
Trump lawyer John Lauro objected to the filing of the brief before the defense team has had a chance to seek the indictment’s dismissal — and during the “sensitive time” before the election.
“This process is inherently unfair, particularly during this sensitive time that we’re in,” Lauro said.
That comment drew a rebuke from Chutkan, who said that the timing of the election was “not relevant” to how the case should proceed.
“This court is not concerned with the electoral schedule,” the judge said. At another point, she suggested that the defense was trying to delay the case because of the forthcoming election, cautioning, “That’s not going to be a factor I consider at all.”
Trump lawyer suggests indictment ‘illegitimate’
The new indictment filed by Smith’s team last week removed allegations related to Trump’s attempts to use the Justice Department’s law enforcement powers to undo the election results, conduct for which the Supreme Court said he enjoyed immunity. But the Trump team believes the new indictment did not go far enough to comply with the 6-3 ruling, in part because it left intact allegations that Trump badgered his vice president, Mike Pence, to refuse to certify the counting of the electoral votes, Lauro said.
“We may be dealing with an illegitimate indictment from the get-go,” Lauro said.
He told Chutkan that the Supreme Court’s opinion required the outright dismissal of the case, a position the judge made clear she did not accept. She bristled again when he suggested that prosecutors were guilty of a “rush to judgment.”
“This case has been pending for over a year,” Chutkan said, referencing the fact that the matter has been frozen since last December while Trump pursued his immunity appeal. “We’re hardly sprinting to the finish here.”
She added, “We all know — we all know — that whatever my ruling on immunity is, it’s going to be appealed. And the taking of that appeal will again stay this case. So, no one here is under any illusion that we’re sprinting towards any particular trial date.”
Judge to determine which acts are ‘official’
The Supreme Court held that former presidents are immune from prosecution for the exercise of their core constitutional functions and are presumptively immune for all other official duties. It now falls to Chutkan to determine which of the acts in the four-count indictment are official or not and which can remain part of the case in light of the opinion.
Neither side envisions a trial happening before Election Day, especially given the amount of work ahead.
Pushing back on the defense’s claims that the special counsel wants to move too quickly, Windom noted that Trump’s lawyers filed a lengthy brief seeking to overturn his New York hush money conviction and dismiss the case less than two weeks after the Supreme Court’s ruling in July.
“The defense can move comprehensively, quickly and well,” said Windom. “So can we.”
Lauro told Chutkan that the case concerned momentous issues. “We are talking about the presidency of the United States,” he said. Chutkan shot back: “I’m not talking about the presidency of the United States. I’m talking about a four-count indictment.”
The hearing ended without the judge issuing an order about future dates in the case.
Trump was not in the courtroom and gave an economic speech in New York, though Smith was present. A not guilty plea was entered on his behalf for the revised indictment.
Defense lawyers said they intend to file multiple motions to dismiss the case, including one that piggybacks off a Florida judge’s ruling that said Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.
The case is one of two federal prosecutions against Trump. The other, charging him with illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, was dismissed in July by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who said Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unlawful.
Smith’s team has appealed that ruling. Trump’s lawyers say they intend to ask Chutkan to dismiss the election case on the same grounds, though Chutkan noted in court Thursday that she did not find Cannon’s opinion “particularly persuasive.”
In politics, a shared emphasis on the care economy
date: 2024-09-05, from: Marketplace Morning Report
As divisive as politics can be, especially this election season, you can actually find some small areas of common ground. That currently includes some limited bipartisan focus on policies that aim to support families raising children. Today, we’ll look at some of the latest research regarding support for care proposals. Also on the show: the economy as an Impressionist painting and trends in the subscription economy.
Vega rocket’s last blast hurls Sentinel-2C satellite into orbit
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
ESA and Arianespace now twiddling thumbs until Vega-C returns to flight
The European Space Agency (ESA) has bid a fond farewell to the Vega rocket with the successful launch of the Copernicus Sentinel-2C spacecraft.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/final_vega_launch/
NASA Tunnel Generates Decades of Icy Aircraft Safety Data
date: 2024-09-05, from: NASA breaking news
On Sept. 13, 1944, researchers subjected a Bell P-39L Airacobra to frigid temperatures and a freezing water spray in the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)’s new Icing Research Tunnel (IRT) to study inflight ice buildup. Since that first run at the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory (now NASA’s Glenn Research Center) in Cleveland, the facility […]
Doing the Least Work Possible
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/09/05/doing-the-least-work-possible/
Investigating the Impact of Multimodality in the Writing Center
date: 2024-09-05, from: Digital Humanities Quarterly News
As a new graduate student at Northeastern University in the 2010s, I remember attending several professional development workshops on multimodal writing. Touted as a more accessible, creative, and enjoyable approach to teaching writing, the assignments that the speaker shared looked like shadowboxes filled with visual and textual content. I sat with other graduate students and […]Amazon congratulates itself for AI code that mostly works
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Web services souk celebrates ‘leader’ designation for Q Developer
Amazon Web Services on Tuesday took a moment to pat itself on the back for being thought of inside the box, specifically, the upper right-hand square that’s part of Gartner’s trademarked Magic Quadrant.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/amazon_q_developer_gartner/
US, Britain, EU to sign first international AI treaty
date: 2024-09-05, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-britain-eu-to-sign-first-international-ai-treaty-/7772325.html
On Building (and Leaving) a Multiliteracy Center
date: 2024-09-05, from: Digital Humanities Quarterly News
My context for developing a multiliteracy center was unique and rather complicated. When I was tasked in fall 2017 with building a new student support center for UMass Dartmouth’s campus, I was prohibited from using the word “writing” in the name of this center. I will not go at length into the reasons for this, […]China expands its Africa investment
date: 2024-09-05, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: China’s President Xi Jinping has announced almost $51 billion in new funding for the continent — in projects including infrastructure and clean energy, with a promise to create a million jobs. But there are warnings about the debt burden facing some countries. Also: An inquiry into an apartment block fire in the United Kingdom is heavily critical of cladding manufacturers, successive governments and regulators.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/china-expands-its-africa-investment
Of Paywalls and Algorithms: Confronting Challenges to Digital Literacy in the Writing Center
date: 2024-09-05, from: Digital Humanities Quarterly News
As a writing center practitioner and digital media scholar, I’ve observed with great interest the increasing entanglement of digital technologies in students’ writing processes. I’ve assisted students who struggle to get their words down on paper by setting up voice-to-text tools, allowing them to compose a first draft verbally. I’ve learned about mind-mapping programs like […]More than Watergate: The Nixon-Sampson Agreement
date: 2024-09-05, from: National Archives, Pieces of History blog
Today’s post comes from Laurel Gray, a processing intern with the Textual Division at the National Archives in Washington, DC. It’s the first in a series on the archival ramifications of the Watergate scandal. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Watergate. Many are familiar with the scandal that resulted in President Richard Nixon resigning … Continue reading More than Watergate: The Nixon-Sampson Agreement
https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2024/09/05/more-than-watergate-the-nixon-sampson-agreement/
Artemis IV: Gateway Gadget Fuels Deep Space Dining
date: 2024-09-05, from: NASA breaking news
Learn about the handy device NASA is developing to help astronauts rehydrate their meals aboard the Gateway Lunar Space Station during the ambitious Artemis IV mission.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/artemis-iv-gateway-gadget-fuels-deep-space-dining/
If every PC is going to be an AI PC, they better be as good at all the things trad PCs can do
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Microsoft’s Copilot+ machines suck at one of computing’s oldest use cases
Comment A significant cadre of computer users is waking up to the fact that Microsoft’s first volley of Copilot+ machines – notebooks capable of local AI processing – simply aren’t very good at a bog-standard use case.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/ai_pc_gaming/
Teen charged with killing 4 at Georgia high school had been focus of earlier tips about threats
date: 2024-09-05, from: VOA News USA
WINDER, Ga. — More than a year ago, tips about online posts threatening a school shooting led Georgia police to interview a 13-year-old boy, but investigators didn’t have enough evidence for an arrest. On Wednesday, that boy opened fire at his high school outside Atlanta and killed four people and wounded nine, officials said.
The teen has been charged as an adult in the deaths of Apalachee High School students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and instructors Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said at a news conference.
At least nine other people — eight students and one teacher at the school in Winder, about an hour’s drive northeast of Atlanta — were taken to hospitals with injuries. All were expected to survive, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said.
The teen, now 14, was to be taken to a regional youth detention facility on Thursday.
Armed with an assault-style rifle, the teen turned the gun on students in a hallway at the school when classmates refused to open the door for him to return to his algebra classroom, classmate Lyela Sayarath said.
The teen earlier left the second period algebra classroom, and Sayarath figured the quiet student who recently transferred was skipping school again.
But he returned later and wanted back in the classroom. Some students went to open the locked door but instead backed away.
“I’m guessing they saw something, but for some reason they didn’t open the door,” Sayarath said.
When she looked at him through a window in the door, she saw the student turn and heard a barrage of gunshots.
“It was about 10 or 15 of them at once, back-to-back,” she said.
The math students ducked onto the floor and sporadically crawled around, looking for a safe corner to hide.
Two school resource officers encountered the shooter within minutes after a report of shots fired went out, Hosey said. The teen immediately surrendered and was taken into custody.
The teen had been interviewed after the FBI received anonymous tips in May 2023 about online threats to commit an unspecified school shooting, the agency said in a statement.
The FBI narrowed the threats down and referred the case to the sheriff’s department in Jackson County, which is adjacent to Barrow County.
The sheriff’s office interviewed the then-13-year-old and his father, who said there were hunting guns in the house but the teen did not have unsupervised access to them. The teen also denied making any online threats.
The sheriff’s office alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the teen, but there was no probable cause for arrest or additional action, the FBI said.
Hosey said the state Division of Family and Children’s Services also had previous contact with the teen and will investigate whether that has any connection with the shooting. Local news outlets reported that law enforcement on Wednesday searched the teen’s family home in Bethlehem, Georgia, east of the high school.
“All the students that had to watch their teachers and their fellow classmates die, the ones that had to walk out of the school limping, that looked traumatized,” Sayarath said, “that’s the consequence of the action of not taking control.”
Authorities were still looking into how the teen obtained the gun used in the shooting and got it into the school with about 1,900 students in Barrow County, a rapidly suburbanizing area on the edge of metro Atlanta’s ever-expanding sprawl.
It was the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut, Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas. The classroom killings have set off fervent debates about gun control and frayed the nerves of parents whose children are growing up accustomed to active shooter drills in classrooms. But they have done little to move the needle on national gun laws.
Before Wednesday, there had been 29 mass killings in the U.S. so far this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. At least 127 people have died in those killings, which are defined as incidents in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer — the same definition used by the FBI.
On Wednesday evening, hundreds gathered in Jug Tavern Park in downtown Winder for a vigil. Volunteers handed out candles and also water, pizza and tissues. Some knelt as a Methodist minister led the crowd in prayer after a Barrow County commissioner read a Jewish prayer of mourning.
Christopher Vasquez, 15, said he attended the vigil because he needed to feel grounded and be in a safe place.
He was in band practice when the lockdown order was issued. He said it felt like a regular drill as students lined up to hide in the band closet.
“Once we heard banging at the door and the SWAT (team) came to take us out, that’s when I knew that it was serious,” he said. “I just started shaking and crying.”
He finally settled down once he was at the football stadium. “I just was praying that everyone I love was safe,” he said.
Kamala Harris Has Other Things to Talk About Than Fracking
date: 2024-09-05, from: Heatmap News
Fracking is just about the last thing Kamala Harris wants to talk about right now, which may be understandable. In a CNN interview last week — her first major sit-down since becoming the Democratic Party’s official nominee for president — she changed her earlier campaign position on whether the technique used to extract oil and natural gas should be banned. Cries of “Flip-flopper!” are a staple of shallow campaign coverage. The issue is a bit complicated, and could prove awkward in at least one battleground state. And she’d rather spend her limited time attacking Donald Trump on abortion and other issues where she has a clearer advantage.
But when the fracking issue comes up again — and it will — Harris has a great story to tell, one that most Americans are probably unaware of. There’s a green energy revolution underway, but rather than celebrate it, Harris and many other Democratic politicians tend to tiptoe around the issue, apparently terrified that a single infelicitous sentence could turn the supposedly large numbers of pro-fossil fuel voters against them.
We saw that dynamic in action on CNN, when interviewer Dana Bash homed right in on the fact that, running in the presidential primaries in 2020, Harris said she favored a ban on fracking. “Fracking, as you know, is a pretty big issue, particularly in your must-win state of Pennsylvania,” Bash said. “Do you still want to ban fracking?” Like almost every political reporter, Bash has no interest in the benefits and problems fracking presents, or whether banning it is a good or bad idea. The point is to zing Harris for her apparent flip-flop and speculate on whether it will move votes in one of the few swing states.
Harris was determined to allay the concerns of any pro-fracking voters tuning in. “I would not ban fracking,” she said. “As vice president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking.” Loud and clear!
She did go on to argue that a fracking ban is unnecessary because the Inflation Reduction Act is creating large numbers of green energy jobs, so “we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.” To the casual viewer, it probably seemed like a perfectly good answer, but it was also somewhat beside the point. The reason many would like to ban fracking isn’t that it holds back the creation of green jobs. It’s that it entrenches our reliance on fossil fuels and creates environmental and health problems in the areas where it is deployed.
Of course, all those considerations — jobs, the environment, and where we’re getting our energy now and in the future — are interrelated. Which is why there is an opportunity for Harris to use that question to focus voters’ attention on the transformation now taking place.
With one party saying the only thing that matters in energy is drilling for more fossil fuels and the other telling people not to worry because they won’t stop us drilling for more fossil fuels, how many Americans know about the dramatic increase in renewable energy, especially solar, that is now underway? According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, nearly 50 gigawatts of solar power will be added to the grid this year, accounting for 59% of all new electricity generation:
Wind and solar now generate more electricity than coal. Even more remarkable is how inexpensive solar power has become. Since 1990, the price per kilowatt hour of a solar panel has dropped by 98%, and solar has become the least expensive type of new energy to generate. With all the innovation taking place in the renewable energy world — a good deal of it spurred by the investments made by the Biden administration — energy prices are likely to keep coming down as more and more of our power is generated by renewables.
This is a triumphant story of human ingenuity, thoughtful government action, and the operation of the free market. Harris could use it to describe a glorious future of power that is cheap, clean, and nearly limitless, one she is trying to create and Trump is trying to impede. Given that “We won’t go back” is one of her campaign slogans, it would seem like a perfect fit for her. But like many Democrats, she seems wary of saying anything that might spook the relatively small number of people whose livelihoods depend on fracking.
Consider Pennsylvania, the only swing state where this issue is supposed to matter. From the discussion in the political press, you might think the state’s voters are almost unanimous in their devotion to fracking, but that’s just not true. Even there, the public is closely divided on the issue: Some polls have found majorities of Pennsylvanians opposed to fracking, while others show them split down the middle. And while Pennsylvania produces a lot of natural gas that way, the number of people who actually work in fracking in the state is extremely modest, in the low five figures. Yet the assumption of news coverage is that the contrast between the Biden administration’s emphasis on clean energy and Trump’s opposite “Drill, baby, drill” approach can only redound to Trump’s benefit; as one Wall Street Journal article in April was headlined, “A Pennsylvania Fracking Boom Weighs on Biden’s Re-Election Chances.” The Pennsylvanians who are opposed to fracking because of its environmental impacts — or simply see it as something their state no longer needs — are shoved to the periphery of that kind of coverage.
So what if the next time she is asked about why she changed her mind about a fracking ban, Harris took the opportunity to explain to people what the future of energy is actually going to look like, and why it’s so encouraging? She’ll have to do that over the objection (or at the very least the indifference) of the reporters covering her campaign, who neither know nor care about the substance of the climate issue or energy policy. But she should do it anyway. Not only would it be right on the merits, it might even be good politics.
https://heatmap.news/politics/harris-campaign-pennsylvania-fracking
The fingerpointing starts as cyber incident at London transport body continues
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Network admins take a ride on the Fright Bus
The Transport for London (TfL) “cyber incident” is heading into its third day amid claims that a popular appliance might have been the gateway for criminals to gain access to the organization’s network.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/the_fingerpointing_starts_as_the/
30,000 badges and still no hack?
date: 2024-09-05, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
No one has managed to hack our new chip yet. Are you interested in collecting a bounty?
The post 30,000 badges and still no hack? appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/30000-badges-and-still-no-hack/
Key aspects of Palantir’s Federated Data Platform lack legal basis, lawyers tell NHS England
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-06, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Unless solution found, patients must be allowed to opt out
Exclusive NHS England has received advice from lawyers saying key aspects of its controversial Federated Data Platform (FDP) lack a legal basis, meaning that unless a solution is found, it must allow citizens to opt out of sharing their data.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/fdp_lacks_legal_basis/
AI’s thirst for water is alarming, but may solve itself
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Its energy addiction, on the other hand, only seems to get worse
Comment Once an abstract subject of science fiction and academic research, the concept of artificial intelligence has become the topic of dinner table conversations over the past two years.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/ai_water_energy/
Cross-format poetry
date: 2024-09-05, from: Status-Q blog
Continuing the theme of Good Stuff Spotted on Mastodon, this comes from Natasha Jay: There was a young man From Cork who got limericks And Haikus confused.
https://statusq.org/archives/2024/09/05/12171/
Wahlsoftware: Offene Quellen – Weniger Missverständnisse
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: Chaos Computer Club Updates
Der Chaos Computer Club fordert erneut öffentliche und transparente Wahl- und Auswertungssoftware. Die vorläufige Sitzverteilung im sächsischen Landtag musste nachträglich korrigiert werden, weil die eingesetzte Auswertungssoftware versagt hat. Der Vorgang nährt Misstrauen in das Wahlsystem und führt zur Verbreitung wilder Verschwörungstheorien. Die seit jeher gepflegte Intransparenz gießt Öl in dieses Feuer.
https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2024/wahlsoftware-offene-quellen-weniger-missverstandnisse
Apple accused of hoodwinking UK antitrust cops
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Mac maker denial of Safari self-preferencing called out by OWA
Apple appears to have misled the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in a regulatory filing that attempts to downplay competition concerns, according to Open Web Advocacy (OWA).…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/apple_safari_uk_cma/
MASTER PLAN Bonus: Ralph Nader Vs. The Master Plan
date: 2024-09-05, from: The Lever News
David Sirota talks with the man whose legislative successes prompted a corporate backlash and Lewis Powell’s infamous memo.
https://www.levernews.com/master-plan-bonus-ralph-nader-vs-the-master-plan/
AT&T sues Broadcom for ‘breaking’ VMware support extension contract
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Telco giant slams silicon-and-software shop for trying to bully it into buying software it doesn’t want or need, at huge prices
US telecoms giant AT&T has alleged Broadcom reneged on an extended support deal it struck with VMware, and warned the consequences could be massive outages for customer support operations – and even the US president’s office.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/att_sues_broadcom_vmware_support/
Sol 4294: Return to McDonald Pass
date: 2024-09-05, from: NASA breaking news
Earth planning date: Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024 Curiosity has returned to “McDonald Pass,” a block within Gediz Vallis that we first spotted about a month ago (as seen in the above Front Hazcam image). The block shows some interesting zonation — the distribution of textures and colors into different areas, or zones. We’re hoping that […]
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/sol-4294-return-to-mcdonald-pass/
Sols 4291-4293: Fairview Dome, the Sequel
date: 2024-09-05, from: NASA breaking news
Earth planning date: Friday, Aug. 30, 2024 Our backwards drive to “McDonald Pass” got hung up on the steep slopes of “Fairview Dome,” but unlike a lot of movie sequels, our inadvertent return visit to Fairview Dome was at least as good as the original. We took full advantage of the chance to investigate this […]
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/sols-4291-4293-fairview-dome-the-sequel/
Is it cheaper to drive, fly, or take the train?
date: 2024-09-05, from: Hannah Richie at Substack
Peak train tickets are far more expensive than driving.
https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/travel-prices
Security biz Verkada to pay $3M penalty under deal that also enforces infosec upgrade
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-06, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Allowed access to 150K cameras, some in sensitive spots, but has been done for spamming
Physical security biz Verkada has agreed to cough up $2.95 million following an investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) – but the payment won’t make good its past security failings, including a blunder that led to CCTV footage being snooped on by miscreants. Instead, the fine is about spam.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/verkada_ftc_settlement/
The Long, Strange Journey of Language Models
date: 2024-09-05, from: Peter Warden
Have you ever wondered why ChatGPT and similar advanced AI systems are known as Large Language Models? What are “language models”, even? To answer that, and understand how remarkable the current state of the art is, I need to jump back a few decades. Understanding language has always been a goal for artificial intelligence researchers, […]
https://petewarden.com/2024/09/05/the-long-strange-journey-of-language-models/
White House seizes 32 domains, issues criminal charges in massive election-meddling crackdown
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Russia has seemingly decided who it wants Putin the Oval Office
The Biden administration on Wednesday seized 32 websites and charged two employees of a state-owned media outlet connected to a $10 million scheme to distribute pro-Kremlin propaganda, and claimed the actions were necessary to counter Russia’s attempts to influence the upcoming US presidential election.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/biden_cracks_down_on_putins/
White House signals it may block sale of US Steel to Nippon Steel
date: 2024-09-05, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The White House is signaling an openness to blocking the acquisition of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel, as a government review of the proposed takeover by the Japanese company is wrapping up.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that President Joe Biden plans to stop the deal from going forward. A White House official, insisting on anonymity to discuss the matter, did not deny the report and said Biden still needs to receive the official recommendation from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). That review could end as soon as this month.
Biden had voiced his objections to the merger, backing his supporters in the United Steelworkers union who oppose the deal. The objection carries weight as U.S. Steel is headquartered in the swing state of Pennsylvania and is a symbol of Pittsburgh’s industrial might in an election year when Republicans and Democrats alike are promising more domestic manufacturing jobs.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, came out against the deal this week. Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has said he would block the merger if he were still in the White House.
Stock in U.S. Steel fell roughly 17% on the news that Biden would stop the merger.
The CFIUS review process generally pertains to business issues with national security implications. U.S. Steel spokesperson Amanda Malkowski said in an email that the company had not received any update on the process and that the company sees “no national security issues associated with this transaction, as Japan is one of our most staunch allies.”
“We fully expect to pursue all possible options under the law to ensure this transaction, which is best future for Pennsylvania, American steelmaking, and all of our stakeholders, closes,” Malkowski said.
A spokesman representing Nippon Steel said the company had not received any updates from the federal government on the review process.
U.S. Steel on Wednesday hosted a rally in support of the acquisition. It said in a statement that without the Nippon Steel deal the company would “largely pivot away from its blast furnace facilities, putting thousands of good-paying union jobs at risk, negatively impacting numerous communities across the locations where its facilities exist, and depriving the American steel industry of an opportunity to better compete on the global stage.”
China’s envoy not expelled; he left because term ended, says US
date: 2024-09-05, from: VOA News USA
washington — China’s consul general in New York left his post as scheduled after completing his posting last month, the State Department said on Wednesday, hours after New York’s governor said she asked for his expulsion in the aftermath of the arrest of a former aide who was accused of secretly acting as a Chinese agent.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that Consul General Huang Ping “was not expelled.”
“Our understanding is that the consul general reached the end of a regular scheduled rotation in August, and so rotated out of the position, but was not expelled,” Miller said.
“But of course, when it comes to the status of particular employees of a foreign mission, I would refer you to the foreign country to speak to it. But there was no expulsion action.”
China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Huang Ping’s status.
Governor asked for envoy’s expulsion
Earlier on Wednesday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul told an event that she spoke by phone at the request of Secretary of State Antony Blinken to a high-ranking State Department official “and I had conveyed my desire to have the consul general from the People’s Republic of China in the New York mission expelled.”
“And I’ve been informed that the consul general is no longer in the New York mission,” she said.
Miller said Hochul had spoken on Wednesday to Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell.
Asked by an audience member if she had been interviewed by investigators, including the FBI, Hochul said: “They asked me one question.”
“I’m not able to talk about it but it had something to do with identifying whether or not something was my signature and that was it,” she said.
Former aide charged
Linda Sun, 41, a former aide to Hochul, was charged on Tuesday with secretly acting as an agent of the Chinese government in exchange for millions of dollars in compensation and gifts, including meals of gourmet duck.
Sun and her husband, Chris Hu, 40, pleaded not guilty to criminal charges before U.S. Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo in Brooklyn, after being arrested on Tuesday morning.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said that while working in state government, Sun blocked representatives of the Taiwanese government from meeting with officials and sought to arrange for a high-level New York state official to visit China. In exchange, Chinese government representatives allegedly arranged for millions of dollars in transactions for Hu, who had business activities in China.
Prosecutors said Sun and Hu used the money to buy a 2024 Ferrari Roma sports car, as well as property on New York’s Long Island and in Honolulu worth about $6 million.
Hochul was not accused of any wrongdoing. Her office fired Sun in March 2023 after discovering evidence of misconduct and reported Sun’s actions immediately to authorities. Her office also has assisted law enforcement throughout the process, a spokesperson for the governor said.
According to the website of China’s consulate in New York, Huang Ping had been the consul general since November 2018. Prior to that, Huang, 61, served as a Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe and did stints as an official at the embassy in Washington and China’s consulate in Chicago.
https://www.voanews.com/a/china-s-envoy-not-expelled-he-left-because-term-ended-says-us/7772092.html
North Korean scammers plan wave of stealth attacks on crypto companies, FBI warns
date: 2024-09-05, updated: 2024-09-05, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Feds warn of ‘highly tailored, difficult-to-detect social engineering campaigns’
The FBI has warned that North Korean operatives are plotting “complex and elaborate” social engineering attacks against employees of decentralized finance (DeFi) organizations, as part of ongoing efforts to steal cryptocurrency.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/fbi_north_korean_scammers_prepping/
Trump, Harris offer different futures for Ukraine as they vie for US presidency
date: 2024-09-05, from: VOA News USA
Ukraine faces wildly different prospects under a potential Donald Trump or Kamala Harris U.S. presidency. But as their campaigns race to the finish line, neither candidate has laid out exactly how they plan to deal with Russia’s war on Ukraine. Experts say in that same space of time, the battlefield in Ukraine has itself radically changed, giving more power to Ukraine in determining its own fate. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington.
PostgreSQL 17 RC1 Released!
date: 2024-09-05, from: PostgreSQL News
The PostgreSQL Global Development Group announces that the first release candidate of PostgreSQL 17 is now available for download. As a release candidate, PostgreSQL 17 RC 1 will be mostly identical to the initial release of PostgreSQL 17, though some more fixes may be applied prior to the general availability of PostgreSQL 17.
The planned date for the general availability of PostgreSQL 17 is September 26, 2024. Please see the “Release Schedule” section for more details.
Upgrading to PostgreSQL 17 RC 1
To upgrade to PostgreSQL 17 RC 1 from earlier versions of PostgreSQL,
you will need to use a major version upgrade strategy,
e.g. pg_upgrade or pg_dump /
pg_restore. For more information, please visit the
documentation section on
upgrading:
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/upgrading.html
Changes Since 17 Beta 3
Several bug fixes were applied for PostgreSQL 17 during the Beta 3 period. These include:
- Revert the MERGE/SPLIT partition feature.
- Fix for feature that improves performance around logical decoding of subtransactions.
For a detailed list of fixes, please visit the open items page.
Release Schedule
This is the first release candidate for PostgreSQL 17. Unless an issue is discovered that warrants a delay or to produce an additional release candidate, PostgreSQL 17 should be made generally available on September 26, 2024.
For further information please see the Beta Testing page.
Links
- Download
- Beta Testing Information
- PostgreSQL 17 Beta Release Notes
- PostgreSQL 17 Open Issues
- Feature Matrix
- Submit a Bug
- Follow @postgresql on X/Twitter
- Donate
https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-17-rc1-released-2926/