(date: 2024-09-22 16:54:17)
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
Sacramento, California — “Paper or plastic” will no longer be a choice at grocery store checkout lines in California under a new law signed Sunday by Gov. Gavin Newsom that bans all plastic shopping bags.
California had already banned thin plastic shopping bags at supermarkets and other stores, but shoppers could purchase bags made with a thicker plastic that purportedly made them reusable and recyclable.
The new measure, approved by state legislators last month, bans all plastic shopping bags starting in 2026. Consumers who don’t bring their own bags will now simply be asked if they want a paper bag.
State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, one of the bill’s supporters, said people were not reusing or recycling any plastic bags. She pointed to a state study that found that the amount of plastic shopping bags trashed per person grew from 3.6 kilograms per year in 2004 to 5 kilograms per year in 2021.
Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas, said the previous bag ban passed a decade ago didn’t reduce the overall use of plastic.
“We are literally choking our planet with plastic waste,” she said in February.
The environmental nonprofit Oceana applauded Newsom for signing the bill and “safeguarding California’s coastline, marine life, and communities from single-use plastic grocery bags.”
Christy Leavitt, Oceana’s plastics campaign director, said Sunday that the new ban on single-use plastic bags at grocery store checkouts “solidifies California as a leader in tackling the global plastic pollution crisis.”
Twelve states, including California, already have some type of statewide plastic bag ban in place, according to the environmental advocacy group Environment America Research & Policy Center. Hundreds of cities across 28 states also have their own plastic bag bans in place.
The California Legislature passed its statewide ban on plastic bags in 2014. The law was later affirmed by voters in a 2016 referendum.
The California Public Interest Research Group said Sunday that the new law finally meets the intent of the original bag ban.
“Plastic bags create pollution in our environment and break into microplastics that contaminate our drinking water and threaten our health,” said the group’s director Jenn Engstrom. “Californians voted to ban plastic grocery bags in our state almost a decade ago, but the law clearly needed a redo. With the governor’s signature, California has finally banned plastic bags in grocery checkout lanes once and for all.”
As San Francisco’s mayor in 2007, Newsom signed the nation’s first plastic bag ban.
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
Washington — Congressional leaders announced an agreement Sunday on a short-term spending bill that will fund federal agencies for about three months, averting a possible partial government shutdown when the new budget year begins Oct. 1 and pushing final decisions until after the November election.
Lawmakers have struggled to get to this point as the current budget year winds to a close at month’s end. At the urging of the most conservative members of his conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson had linked temporary funding with a mandate that would have compelled states to require proof of citizenship when people register to vote.
But Johnson could not get all Republicans on board even as the party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, insisted on that package. Trump said Republican lawmakers should not support a stop-gap measure without the voting requirement, but the bill went down to defeat anyway, with 14 Republicans opposing it.
Bipartisan negotiations began in earnest shortly after that, with leadership agreeing to extend funding into mid-December. That gives the current Congress the ability to fashion a full-year spending bill after the Nov. 5 election, rather than push that responsibility to the next Congress and president.
In a letter to Republican colleagues, Johnson said the budget measure would be “very narrow, bare-bones” and include “only the extensions that are absolutely necessary.”
“While this is not the solution any of us prefer, it is the most prudent path forward under the present circumstances,” Johnson wrote. “As history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice.”
Rep. Tom Cole, the House Appropriations Committee chairman, had said on Friday that talks were going well.
“So far, nothing has come up that we can’t deal with,” said Cole, R-Okla. “Most people don’t want a government shutdown and they don’t want that to interfere with the election. So nobody is like, ‘I’ve got to have this or we’re walking.’ It’s just not that way.”
Johnson’s earlier effort had no chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate and was opposed by the White House, but it did give the speaker a chance to show Trump and conservatives within his conference that he fought for their request.
The final result — government funding effectively on autopilot — was what many had predicted. With the election just weeks away, few lawmakers in either party had any appetite for the brinksmanship that often leads to a shutdown.
Now a bipartisan majority is expected to push the short-term measure over the finish line. Temporary spending bills generally fund agencies at current levels, but some additional money was included to bolster the Secret Service, replenish a disaster relief fund and aid with the presidential transition, among other things.
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
Scranton, Pennsylvania — Under extraordinarily tight security, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday visited the Pennsylvania ammunition factory that is producing one of the most critically needed munitions for his country’s fight to fend off Russian ground forces.
His visit to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant kicked off a busy week in the United States to shore up support for Ukraine in the war. He will speak at the U.N. General Assembly annual gathering in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday and then travel to Washington for talks on Thursday with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
As Zelenskyy’s large motorcade made its way to the ammunition plant on Sunday afternoon, a small contingent of supporters waving Ukrainian flags assembled nearby to show their appreciation for his visit to thank the workers.
The area around the ammunition plant had been sealed off since the morning, with municipal garbage trucks positioned across several roadblocks and a very heavy presence of city, regional and state police, including troopers on horseback.
The Scranton plant is one of the few facilities in the country to manufacture 155 mm artillery shells and has increased production over the past year.
The 155 mm shells are used in howitzer systems, which are towed large guns with long barrels that can fire at various angles. Howitzers can strike targets up to 24 kilometers to 32 kilometers away and are highly valued by ground forces to take out enemy targets from a protected distance.
Ukraine has already received more than 3 million of the 155 mm shells from the U.S.
“It’s unfortunate that we need a plant like this, but it’s here, and it’s here to protect the world,” said Vera Kowal Krewsun, a first-generation Ukrainian American who was among those who greeted Zelenskyy’s motorcade. “And I strongly feel that way.”
She said many of her friends’ parents have worked in the ammunition plant, and she called Zelenskyy’s visit “a wonderful thing.”
Laryssa Salak, 60, whose parents also immigrated from Ukraine, also said she was pleased Zelenskyy came to thank the workers. She said it upsets her that funding for Ukraine’s defense has divided Americans and that even some of her friends oppose the support, saying the money should go to help Americans instead.
“But they don’t understand that that money does not directly go to Ukraine, Salak said.”It goes to American factories that manufacture, like here, like the ammunition. So that money goes to American workers as well. And a lot of people don’t understand that.”
With the war now well into its third year, Zelenskyy has been pushing the U.S. for permission to use longer range missile systems to fire deeper inside of Russia.
So far he has not persuaded the Pentagon or White House to loosen those restrictions.
The Defense Department has emphasized that Ukraine can already hit Moscow with Ukrainian-produced drones, and there is hesitation on the strategic implications of a U.S.-made missile potentially striking the Russian capital.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia would be “at war” with the United States and its NATO allies if they allow Ukraine to use the long-range weapons.
At one point in the war, Ukraine was firing between 6,000 and 8,000 of the 155 mm shells per day. That rate started to deplete U.S. stockpiles and drew concern that the level on hand was not enough to sustain U.S. military needs if another major conventional war broke out, such as in a potential conflict over Taiwan.
In response the U.S. has invested in restarting production lines and is now manufacturing more than 40,000 155 mm rounds a month, with plans to hit 100,000 rounds a month.
Two of the Pentagon leaders who have pushed that increased production through — Doug Bush, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, and Bill LaPlante, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer — were expected to join Zelenskyy at the plant, as was Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
The 155 mm rounds are just one of the scores of ammunition, missile, air defense and advanced weapons systems the U.S. has provided Ukraine — everything from small arms bullets to advanced F-16 fighter jets. The U.S. has been the largest donor to Ukraine, providing more than $56 billion of the more than $106 billion NATO and partner countries have collected to aid in its defense.
Even though Ukraine is not a member of NATO, commitment to its defense is seen by many of the European nations as a must to keep Putin from further military aggression that could threaten bordering NATO-member countries and result in a much larger conflict.
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-22, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
In Mexico we say that there is nothing more dangerous than a “pendejo
con
iniciativa”
https://mastodon.social/@sandofsky/113181384256449181
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113183233672007518
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
Lansing, Michigan — Republican activists in swing states say they have seen little sign of the teams tasked with knocking on doors and turning out infrequent voters on behalf of Donald Trump, raising concerns about the party’s presidential nominee relying on outside groups for an important part of his campaign operations.
Trump and the Republican National Committee he controls opted to share get-out-the-vote duties in key parts of the most competitive states this year with groups such as America PAC, the organization supported by billionaire Elon Musk.
It is difficult to demonstrate that something is not happening. But with fewer than 50 days until the Nov. 5 election, dozens of Republican officials, activists and operatives in Michigan, North Carolina and other battleground states say they have rarely or never witnessed the group’s canvassers. In Arizona and Nevada, the Musk-backed political action committee replaced its door-knocking company just this past week.
“I haven’t seen anybody,” said Nate Wilkowski, field director for the Republican Party in vote-rich Oakland County, Michigan, which includes crucial Detroit suburbs. He was speaking specifically of America PAC. “Nobody’s given me a heads-up that they’re around in Oakland County areas.”
Trump has relied on the loyalty of his fervent base, in an election expected to pivot on turnout. The spotty evidence, however, of what was portrayed as a sophisticated operation has some party activists questioning the operation’s value. Trump’s campaign views the race with Vice President Kamala Harris as a toss-up among likely voters but believes it has the edge among people who stayed away in 2016 and 2020, making it even more essential to reach them.
The work is particularly important in Michigan, where Trump lost by fewer than 160,000 votes in 2020, and where the Republican Party began the year mired in debt and fighting an ugly contest over the rightful state party leader.
Michigan’s Republican chairman, Pete Hoekstra, said he was told that America PAC canvassers had arrived in late August and were at work. A spokesperson for the PAC said canvassers were in Michigan, as well as Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — the seven most competitive states. The spokesperson declined to say how many canvassers there were across the states.
Meghan Reckling, a Republican canvassing firm owner in Michigan, said she spotted two America PAC canvassers Tuesday in Oakland County. Identifiable in blue polo shirts emblazoned with “America,” they were working an area that Reckling’s own data showed to be one with low-propensity voters, she said.
“They had, you could tell, a very pleasant exchange with the lady who answered the door, and probably talked to her for five minutes,” Reckling said. “From what I observed, they were obviously engaging in direct conversations.”
But in interviews with more than two dozen activists and party officials across the seven battleground states, such reports were rare.
“I don’t know what the PACs are doing,” said Mark Forton, the Republican chair in Macomb County, Michigan, a populous, suburban area northeast of Detroit. “I don’t know if they are going door to door.”
Trump aides say the campaign has an estimated 30,000 volunteer captains who are identifying less likely voters at the local level, including through neighborhood canvassing.
Campaign political director James Blair also estimates that close to 2,500 paid canvassers, with America PAC making up a significant chunk, are working in the seven states. The PAC has paid canvassing firms more than $14 million since mid-August for work on the presidential campaign, according to Federal Election Commission spending reports filed by the group.
Blair dismissed the statement that the campaign was ceding work to outside groups. Instead, he said, the campaign was making use of “the resources within those groups to bolster the frequency of contacts and the total coverage within the universe of where we would want them.”
“We very much are focused on low-propensity voters, because it’s what makes strategically the most sense in terms of how the president is going to win these states, and these groups’ efforts have helped reach them,” Blair said.
America PAC is run by former top aides to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ failed presidential campaign. Trump’s team also is sharing the responsibility of reaching less-frequent voters with groups that include Turning Point USA, led by conservative millennial personality Charlie Kirk, and the Faith and Freedom Coalition, headed by Christian conservative figure Ralph Reed.
Part of the reason for the campaign’s move was the result of an FEC ruling this year that a candidate’s campaign and outside groups could coordinate their canvassing efforts with super PACs, and specifically share voter lists and data that they collect door to door. It means campaigns could share much of their labor- and cost-heavy ground efforts with groups that can take unlimited donations.
Harris’ outreach on the ground in the seven states is being led by campaign-paid staff, a number the campaign puts at nearly 2,200 in more than 328 offices. Campaign aides said groups affiliated with labor organizations were canvassing independent of the campaign.
The vast majority of what outside groups that support Harris are doing is advertising. Based on ad reservations for Harris and the leading super PAC supporting her, they are on track to spend nearly $175 million more than Trump’s campaign and the leading super PACs supporting him by Election Day. Harris’ campaign has outspent Trump’s on advertising by 2-to-1 since she entered the race on July 23, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact.
Over the past week, there were complications for America PAC, the most high-profile of the groups helping Trump in 2024.
America PAC fired Nevada-based canvassing company September Group, according to two people familiar with the matter. America PAC had paid the company almost $2.7 million a month ago, according to FEC reports. The people familiar with September Group’s dismissal spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private business decisions.
A spokesman for America PAC declined to confirm the move.
Trump is not the first candidate to delegate some typical campaign-managed duties to outside groups. But the arrangement has not gone smoothly for some of the others who have tried it.
Last year, DeSantis entrusted much of the political outreach for his Republican presidential campaign to a super PAC called Never Back Down, with conflict between its board and top campaign personnel late in the lead-up to the Iowa caucuses. Despite starting the campaign with roughly $100 million, DeSantis dropped out after losing the first contest in Iowa.
In his unsuccessful quest for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush attempted something very similar, ceding much of the political infrastructure work to a super PAC called Right to Rise, which raised more than $114 million in 2015.
date: 2024-09-22, from: Chris Coyier blog
https://chriscoyier.net/2024/09/22/media-diet-3/
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
Uniondale, New York — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, continuing a multiday U.S. visit, addressed a cultural celebration on Long Island Sunday, where he praised the United States’ return of nearly 300 antiquities to India and relayed news of his country’s dual win at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary, to an enthusiastic crowd.
“I just got some very good news,” Modi told an estimated 13,000 people inside Nassau Veterans Coliseum for an event billed as a celebration of cultural ties between India and the United States. “In the Chess Olympiad, in both the men’s and women’s tournament, India has won gold medals,” he said to applause in a speech that was translated into English for an online audience.
Modi was reelected in June following a marathon election in which more than 640 million votes were cast over a span of six weeks in the world’s largest democratic exercise.
“This year, 2024, is a very important one for the entire world,” he said. “On the one hand, there are conflicts raging between several countries in the world, there is tension. And on the other, democracy is being celebrated in several countries of the world. India and America are also together in this celebration of democracy.”
Modi’s appearance in New York came a day after he attended a summit hosted by President Joe Biden in Wilmington, Delaware, for leaders of the so-called Quad that also included Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia and Prime Minister Kishida Fumio of Japan.
Also Saturday, Modi accepted the return of 297 antiquities spanning thousands of years that had been stolen or trafficked from India. The U.S. has returned nearly 600 such cultural artifacts to India since 2016, according to India’s Ministry of External Affairs.
On Monday, the prime minister is expected to attend a United Nations summit in advance of this week’s General Assembly.
Sunday’s event was sponsored by the not-for-profit Indo American Community of USA.
https://www.voanews.com/a/on-new-york-visit-india-s-modi-celebrates-cultural-ties/7794129.html
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Dear NYT how about recording the number of times each candidate openly threatens specific races, genders, lifestyles, religions and of course individual people. Keep a page where you tally. Point to it frequently (we will).
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/19/trump-jewish-voters-blame-00180177
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
Washington — The U.S. Commerce Department is expected on Monday to propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous vehicles on American roads due to national security concerns, two sources told Reuters.
The Biden administration has raised serious concerns about the collection of data by Chinese companies on U.S. drivers and infrastructure as well as the potential foreign manipulation of vehicles connected to the internet and navigation systems.
The proposed regulation would ban the import and sale of vehicles from China with key communications or automated driving system software or hardware, said the two sources, who declined to be identified because the decision had not been publicly disclosed.
The move is a significant escalation in the United States’ ongoing restrictions on Chinese vehicles, software and components. Last week, the Biden administration locked in steep tariff hikes on Chinese imports, including a 100% duty on electric vehicles as well as new hikes on EV batteries and key minerals.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in May the risks of Chinese software or hardware in connected U.S. vehicles were significant.
“You can imagine the most catastrophic outcome theoretically if you had a couple million cars on the road and the software were disabled,” she said.
President Joe Biden in February ordered an investigation into whether Chinese vehicle imports pose national security risks over connected-car technology – and if that software and hardware should be banned in all vehicles on U.S. roads.
“China’s policies could flood our market with its vehicles, posing risks to our national security,” Biden said earlier. “I’m not going to let that happen on my watch.”
The Commerce Department plans to give the public 30 days to comment before any finalization of the rules, the sources said. Nearly all newer vehicles on U.S. roads are considered “connected.” Such vehicles have onboard network hardware that allows internet access, allowing them to share data with devices both inside and outside the vehicle.
The department also plans to propose making the prohibitions on software effective in the 2027 model year and the ban on hardware would take effect in January 2029 or the 2030 model year. The prohibitions in question would include vehicles with certain Bluetooth, satellite and wireless features as well as highly autonomous vehicles that could operate without a driver behind the wheel.
A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers in November raised alarm about Chinese auto and tech companies collecting and handling sensitive data while testing autonomous vehicles in the United States.
The prohibitions would extend to other foreign U.S. adversaries, including Russia, the sources said.
A trade group representing major automakers including General Motors, Toyota Motor, Volkswagen, Hyundai and others had warned that changing hardware and software would take time.
The carmakers noted their systems “undergo extensive pre-production engineering, testing, and validation processes and, in general, cannot be easily swapped with systems or components from a different supplier.”
The Commerce Department declined to comment on Saturday. Reuters first reported, in early August, details of a plan that would have the effect of barring the testing of autonomous vehicles by Chinese automakers on U.S. roads. There are relatively few Chinese-made light-duty vehicles imported into the United States.
The White House on Thursday signed off on the final proposal, according to a government website. The rule is aimed at ensuring the security of the supply chain for U.S. connected vehicles. It will apply to all vehicles on U.S. roads, but not for agriculture or mining vehicles, the sources said.
Biden noted that most cars are connected like smartphones on wheels, linked to phones, navigation systems, critical infrastructure and to the companies that made them.
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
Los Angeles — It’s a three-peat for “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”
The Tim Burton legacy sequel to his 1988 horror comedy topped the North American box office charts for the third straight weekend with $26 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
It edged out the animated new release “Transformers: One,” which brought in $25 million. The Optimus Prime origin story from Paramount Pictures features the voices of Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry and Scarlett Johansson.
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” a Warner Bros. release with Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder returning as stars, has earned more than $226 million domestically in its three weeks after a monster opening of $110 million — the third best of the year — and a second weekend of $51.6 million.
Third place went to the James McAvoy horror “Speak No Evil,” which came in at $5.9 million in its second week for a total of $21.5 million.
On the whole, the box office was in a quiet phase that is expected to break when ” Joker: Folie à Deux ” dances its way onto the big screen on Oct. 4.
The year’s second-highest grosser ” Deadpool & Wolverine ” remained in the top 5 in its ninth weekend with another $3.9 million and a domestic total of $627 million. Only Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” has earned more.
The Demi Moore-starring, Coralie Fargeat-directed body horror “The Substance,” which made a splash at the Cannes Film Festival, brought in $3.1 million on limited screens in its first weekend for the sixth spot.
The Daily Wire movie “Am I Racist?” — in which conservative columnist Matt Walsh goes undercover as a “DEI trainee” — stayed in the top 10 after a fourth place finish last week, earning $2.9 million for seventh place and a two-week total of $9 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” $26 million.
“Transformers One,” $25 million.
“Speak No Evil,” $5.9 million.
“Never Let Go,” $4.5 million.
“Deadpool & Wolverine,” $3.9 million.
“The Substance,” $3.1 million.
“Am I Racist?” $2.5 million.
“Reagan,” $1.7 million.
“JUNG KOOK: I AM STILL,” $1.4 million.
“Alien Romulus,” $1.3 million.
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
A business owner in Baltimore, Maryland, who was born in Kyiv has started a charity to help Ukrainian children affected by war. Andriy Borys has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Viacheslav Filiushkin.
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
U.S. lawmakers from both major political parties have called for cooling the nation’s heated political rhetoric six weeks before the November 5th presidential election. This follows a second apparent assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump. And his claims of immigrants eating people’s pets that has an Ohio Haitan community on edge. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has the story.
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — A roaring rally in U.S. stocks will face a gauntlet of economic data, looming political uncertainty and a corporate earnings test in coming weeks as investors navigate one of the most volatile periods of the year for equity markets.
The benchmark S&P 500 .SPX last week hit its first closing all-time high in two months after the Federal Reserve unveiled a hefty 50-basis point rate cut, kicking off the first U.S. monetary easing cycle since 2020.
The index is up 0.8% so far in September, historically the weakest month for stocks, and has gained 19% year-to-date. But the rocky period could carry over until the Nov 5 election, strategists said, leaving the S&P 500 vulnerable to market swings.
“We’re entering that period where seasonality has been a bit less favorable,” said Angelo Kourkafas, senior investment strategist at Edward Jones. “Despite the excitement about the start of the new rate-cutting cycle, it could still be a bumpy road ahead.”
The second half of September is historically the weakest two-week period of the year for the S&P 500, according to a Ned Davis Research analysis of data since 1950.
The index has also logged an average 0.45% decline in October during presidential years, data from CFRA going back to 1945 showed.
Volatility also tends to pick up in October in election years, with the Cboe Market Volatility index .VIX rising to an average level of 25 at the start of the month, as opposed to its long-term average of 19.2, according to an Edward Jones analysis of the past eight presidential election years. The VIX was recently at 16.4.
The market could be particularly sensitive to this year’s close election between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris. Recent polls show a virtually tied race.
“Unless the data deteriorates considerably, we think U.S . elections will start to be more at the forefront,” UBS equity derivative strategists said in a note.
Investors are also looking for data to support expectations that the economy is navigating a “soft landing,” during which inflation moderates without badly hurting growth. Stocks fare much better after the start of rate cuts in such a scenario, as opposed to when the Fed cuts during recessions.
The coming week includes reports on manufacturing, consumer confidence and durable goods, as well as the personal consumption expenditures price index, a key inflation measure.
Attention will be squarely on employment after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank wanted to stay ahead of any weakening in the job market as the Fed announced its cut last week. The closely-watched monthly U.S. jobs report is due on Oct 4.
“We’re going to have hyper-focus on anything that speaks to the strength of the labor force,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B Riley Wealth.
Meanwhile, the rally in stocks has pushed up valuations. The S&P 500 has a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.4 times expected 12-month earnings, well above its long-term average of 15.7, according to LSEG Datastream.
With the scope for valuations to go higher now more limited, investors said that puts a greater burden on corporate earnings to be strong in order to support stock gains.
Third-quarter reporting season kicks off next month. S&P 500 earnings for the period are expected to have climbed 5.4% from the prior year, and then jump nearly 13% in the fourth quarter, according to LSEG IBES.
FedEx FDX.N shares tumbled on Friday after the delivery giant reported a steep quarterly profit drop and lowered its full-year revenue forecast.
“Extended multiples put pressure on macro data and fundamentals to support S&P 500 prices,” Scott Chronert, head of U.S. equity strategy at Citi, said in a report.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
More Than 700 Current and Former National Security Officials Back Harris.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Mets owner Steve Cohen unveils renderings of Citi Field casino and park proposal in Queens.
https://www.amny.com/new-york/queens/mets-steve-cohen-renderings-citi-field-casino-park/
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
President Joe Biden on Saturday hosted the leaders of Australia, India and Japan for his final convening of the so-called Quad, a strategic security grouping focused on the Indo-Pacific. The quartet announced moves they say will boost cooperation between the four democracies and address citizens’ concerns in the massive region – while also emphasizing this is not a club aimed at containing China. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Open question: What are the basic capabilities of a [Bluesky's PDS] explained in terms that would be understood by a person who has run web servers and worked with RSS and OPML.
https://bsky.app/profile/scripting.com/post/3l4qs4l7pkm2t
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
SAN FRANCISCO — Sidewalks once teeming with tents, tarps and people passed out next to heaps of trash have largely disappeared from great swaths of San Francisco, a city widely known for its visible homeless population.
The number of people sleeping outdoors dropped to under 3,000 in January, the lowest the city has recorded in a decade, according to a federal count.
And that figure has likely dropped even lower since Mayor London Breed — a Democrat in a difficult reelection fight this November — started ramping up enforcement of anti-camping laws in August following a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Homelessness in no way has gone away, and in fact grew 7%, to 8,300 in January, according to the same federal count.
But the problem is now notably out of the public eye, raising the question of where people have gone and whether the change marks a turning point in a crisis long associated with San Francisco.
“We’re seeing much cleaner sidewalks,” said Terry Asten Bennett, owner of Cliff’s Variety store in the city’s historically gay Castro neighborhood, adding that she hates to see homeless people shuffled around.
“But also, as a business owner, I need clean, inviting streets to encourage people to come and shop and visit our city,” she said.
Advocates for homeless people say encampment sweeps that force people off the streets are an easy way to hide homelessness from public view.
“Shelter should always be transitional,” said Lukas Illa, an organizer with San Francisco’s Coalition on Homelessness. “We shouldn’t have folks be in there as the long-lasting solution.”
Other California cities have also reported a drop in visible homelessness, thanks to improved outreach and more temporary housing. The beach city of Santa Cruz reported a 49% decline in people sleeping unsheltered this year, while Los Angeles recorded a 10% drop.
San Francisco has increased the number of shelter beds and permanent supportive housing units by more than 50% over the past six years. At the same time, city officials are on track to eclipse the nearly 500 sweeps conducted last year, with Breed prioritizing bus tickets out of the city for homeless people and authorizing police to do more to stamp out tents.
San Francisco police have issued at least 150 citations for illegal lodging since Aug. 1, surpassing the 60 citations over the entire previous three years. City crews also have removed more than 1,200 tents and structures.
Tracking homeless people is extremely difficult and where all the people once living on San Francisco’s streets have gone is impossible to know.
There are still people sleeping on sidewalks, some with just a blanket, and tents continue to crop up under freeway overpasses and more isolated corners of the city. But tents that once sprouted outside libraries and subway stations, and went on endlessly for blocks in the Mission, downtown and South of Market districts, are gone. Even the troubled Tenderloin district has seen progress.
Steven Burcell, who became homeless a year ago after a shoulder injury cost him his job, moved into one of 60 new, tiny cabins in May after the car he was living in caught fire.
Mission Cabins is a new type of emergency shelter that offers privacy and allows pets. But like all shelters, it has rules. No drugs, weapons or outside guests are allowed. Residents must consent to their rooms being searched.
“At the beginning, it was rough, you know, going in and just getting adjusted to being searched and having them look through your bags,” acknowledged Burcell, 51.
His tidy 65-square-foot (6-square-meter) room contains a twin bed, pairs of shoes lined by a door that locks and opens onto a sunny courtyard that, on a recent morning, was filled with the voices of children playing at the elementary school next door.
“To have your own space inside here and close the door, not sharing anything with anybody,” he said, “it’s huge.”
But Burcell opposes encampment sweeps. He said two friends rejected beds because they thought — inaccurately, he said — the shelter would be infested with rodents. That did not stop crews from taking their tent and everything inside it.
“Now they have nothing. They don’t have any shelter at all,” he said. “They just kind of wander around and take buses, like a lot of people do.”
Since 2018, San Francisco has added 1,800 emergency shelter beds and nearly 5,000 permanent supportive housing units, where people pay 30% of their income toward rent and the rest is subsidized, bringing the total to more than 4,200 beds and 14,000 units.
Breed, who first won office in June 2018, can claim credit for the expansion, although some plans were in place before she became mayor and her administration had huge financial help.
The money came from the federal government battling the pandemic and a California governor — and onetime San Francisco mayor — who made fighting homelessness and tent encampments his priority. Gov. Gavin Newsom has pumped at least $24 billion into the effort since taking office in 2019, including a program to turn hotels into housing.
San Francisco also benefited from a controversial 2018 wealth tax on the city’s tech titans that Breed opposed, saying companies would leave. There was no exodus and the pandemic overshadowed any fallout.
The funds have helped get people off the streets and tripled the annual budget of the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing from nearly $300 million in 2018 to $850 million this year.
But the department’s budget is expected to dip below $700 million next year, and that worries experts who say more is needed in a city where the median price of a home is $1.4 million.
“We still have a housing market that is way too expensive for way too many people. And as long as that continues to be the case, we’re going to see folks falling into homelessness,” said Alex Visotzky, a policy fellow with the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
Advocates for the homeless say that’s why city officials need to invest in more affordable housing.
One such place is 835 Turk Street, a former hotel the city purchased and reopened two years ago as supportive housing. It’s home to David Labogin, who lost his housing after his mother died.
“Of course, things could be a whole lot better,” he said, sitting on a single bed, “but from where I came from, I got no complaints.”
But housing takes longer to build, and converting old properties is not cheap. The city purchased 835 Turk for $25 million and spent $18 million — twice the estimated amount — rehabilitating it.
Until then, shelters are adapting, accommodating couples and people with pets.
It takes new residents about two weeks to adjust to the rules at Mission Cabins, said Steve Good, CEO of operator Five Keys. “A few rules to keep them safe is better than living on the street, where there aren’t any rules,” he said.
“Amen,” said Patrick Richardson, 54, who stopped by to watch as Good was interviewed. He was on his way to a two-year college in Oakland where he is studying to be an X-ray technician.
Richardson had been sleeping on couches and pavement when an outreach worker offered him a cabin.
His new home, he said, “rescued me.
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-22, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Me: “I like the white background in iOS”
The Internet, every single time: “Android has had that background and also black and grey and blue since 1985”
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113181560416827535
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Throwing a wrench into the already broken wheels of our medical system is the crime. They should go to prison for doing this, the six Supreme Court justices and other Republican assholes who stick their noses where they don't belong.
http://scripting.com/2024/09/21/141315.html
date: 2024-09-22, from: The Lever News
Secret unlimited election spending is on the rise everywhere you look, and more from The Lever this week.
https://www.levernews.com/lever-weekly-dark-money-then-dark-money-now/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-22, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
These dual-language blended keyboards are magical. Finally I have a
fully featured Spanish/English keyboard and bonus, now having an extra
French one doesn’t ruin the
heuristics.
https://mstdn.social/@gxgyang/113178342466595366
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113181286260724445
date: 2024-09-22, updated: 2024-09-22, from: Newsboat News
<p>
Since 2.19, Newsboat treated HTTP code 304 (Not Modified) as
error, and retried the download up to the limit specified by
`download-retries`. The default for that setting is 1, so no
harm done, but if the user changed it, Newsboat turned into a
request-spamming machine.
</p>
<p>
Today’s release fixes that. We’re also making point releases for
everything starting from 2.19 all the way up to the previous
release, 2.36. If you can upgrade to 2.37, great. If you can't,
please, <i>please</i> upgrade to the closest point release you can.
</p>
<p>
There are a bunch of other fixes and improvements in 2.37 as
well, but they’re less important, so find them in the changelog.
<p>
<p>Links:
<ul>
<li>2.37
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.37/newsboat-2.37.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.37/newsboat-2.37.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.37/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.37/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#237---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.36.1
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.36.1/newsboat-2.36.1.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.36.1/newsboat-2.36.1.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.36.1/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.36.1/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2361---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.35.1
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.35.1/newsboat-2.35.1.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.35.1/newsboat-2.35.1.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.35.1/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.35.1/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2351---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.34.1
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.34.1/newsboat-2.34.1.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.34.1/newsboat-2.34.1.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.34.1/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.34.1/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2341---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.33.1
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.33.1/newsboat-2.33.1.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.33.1/newsboat-2.33.1.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.33.1/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.33.1/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2331---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.32.1
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.32.1/newsboat-2.32.1.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.32.1/newsboat-2.32.1.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.32.1/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.32.1/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2321---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.31.1
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.31.1/newsboat-2.31.1.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.31.1/newsboat-2.31.1.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.31.1/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.31.1/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2311---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.30.2
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.30.2/newsboat-2.30.2.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.30.2/newsboat-2.30.2.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.30.2/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.30.2/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2302---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.29.1
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.29.1/newsboat-2.29.1.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.29.1/newsboat-2.29.1.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.29.1/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.29.1/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2291---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.28.1
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.28.1/newsboat-2.28.1.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.28.1/newsboat-2.28.1.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.28.1/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.28.1/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2281---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.27.1
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.27.1/newsboat-2.27.1.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.27.1/newsboat-2.27.1.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.27.1/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.27.1/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2271---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.26.1
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.26.1/newsboat-2.26.1.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.26.1/newsboat-2.26.1.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.26.1/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.26.1/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2261---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.25.1
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.25.1/newsboat-2.25.1.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.25.1/newsboat-2.25.1.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.25.1/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.25.1/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2251---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.24.1
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.24.1/newsboat-2.24.1.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.24.1/newsboat-2.24.1.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.24.1/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.24.1/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2241---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.23.1
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.23.1/newsboat-2.23.1.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.23.1/newsboat-2.23.1.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.23.1/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.23.1/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2231---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.22.2
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.22.2/newsboat-2.22.2.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.22.2/newsboat-2.22.2.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.22.2/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.22.2/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2222---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.21.1
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.21.1/newsboat-2.21.1.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.21.1/newsboat-2.21.1.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.21.1/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.21.1/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2211---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.20.2
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.20.2/newsboat-2.20.2.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.20.2/newsboat-2.20.2.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.20.2/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.20.2/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.orgttps://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2202---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
<li>2.19.1
(<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.19.1/newsboat-2.19.1.tar.xz">tar.xz</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.19.1/newsboat-2.19.1.tar.xz.asc">asc</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.19.1/docs/newsboat.html">docs</a>,
<a href="https://newsboat.org/releases/2.19.1/docs/faq.html">FAQ</a>,
<a href="https://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#2191---2024-09-22">changelog</a>)
</li>
</ul>
</p>
https://newsboat.org/releases/2.37/docs/newsboat.html
date: 2024-09-22, updated: 2024-09-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Comment On Monday, Intel’s share price surged on word it was spinning out its foundry biz as an independent subsidiary and signing AWS and the DoD as customers.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/22/intel_grin_bear_it/
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — Four people were killed and 17 others injured when multiple shooters opened fire Saturday in what police described as a targeted “hit” on one of the people killed at a popular nightlife spot in Birmingham, Alabama.
The shooting happened shortly after 11 p.m. Saturday in Five Points South, a district filled with entertainment venues, restaurants and bars that is often crowded on weekend nights. The mass shooting, one of several this year in the city, unnerved residents in the area and left city officials pleading for help to both solve the crime and address the broader problem of gun violence.
“The priority is to find these shooters and get them off our streets,” Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said at a Sunday press conference.
The shooting occurred outside Hush, a hookah and cigar lounge, in the entertainment district. Blood stains were visible on the sidewalk outside the venue on Sunday morning.
Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond said authorities believe the shooting targeted one of the people who was killed, possibly in a murder-for-hire. He said a vehicle pulled up and “multiple shooters” got out and began firing, then fled the scene.
“We believe that there was a ‘hit,’ if you will, on that particular person,” Thurmond said.
Police said approximately 100 shell casings were recovered at the scene. Thurmond said law enforcement was working to determine what weapons were used, but they believe some of the gunfire was “fully automatic.”
Investigators were also trying to determine whether anyone fired back, creating crossfire.
Police said officers found two men and a woman on a sidewalk with gunshot wounds and they were pronounced dead there. An additional male gunshot victim was pronounced dead at a hospital, according to police.
By early Sunday, after victims began showing up at hospitals, police had identified 17 people with injuries, some of them life-threatening. Four of the surviving victims, in conditions ranging from good to critical, were being treated at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital on Sunday afternoon, according to Alicia Rohan, a UAB spokeswoman.
The area of Birmingham is popular with young adults because of its proximity to the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the plethora of nearby restaurants and bars.
Geoffrey Boshell, a 22-year-old biomedical engineering student who lives nearby, said he was working on a school project when he heard a burst of rapid pops that he said sounded like automatic gunfire.
“I heard it, looked out my window and immediately see people screaming, fleeing the scene,” Boshell said.
The shooting in the bustling and popular area was unnerving, he said. “I’m not sure scared is the right word. Just very disturbed that it was happening right outside where you are living.”
Ashton Mills, 24, who lives in a nearby apartment complex, was headed to work Saturday night when she heard a “bunch of popping sounds.”
“It’s scary, especially as a single woman walking around the city,” she said. “I’m definitely a lot more on guard.”
Woodfin expressed frustration at what he described as an epidemic of gun violence in America.
“We find ourselves in 2024, where gun violence is at an epidemic level, an epidemic crisis in our country. And the city of Birmingham, unfortunately finds itself at the tip of that spear,” he said.
The Birmingham mayor also urged state and federal officials to give cities more tools to address gun violence. He put both hands behind his back to illustrate what it is like for cities to combat crime. Alabama last year abolished the requirement to get a permit to carry a concealed handgun in public.
Woodfun said there is an “element” in the city that is too comfortable carrying Glock switches — which convert semi-automatic handguns to deliver more rapid fire — and assault-style rifles with the intent of doing harm.
“Elected officials locally, statewide and nationally have a duty to solve this American crisis, this American epidemic of gun violence,” the mayor said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/alabama-shooting-leaves-4-dead-police-say/7793779.html
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — On his first day of school at Newcomer Academy, Maikel Tejeda was whisked to the school library. The 7th grader didn’t know why.
He soon got the point: He was being given make-up vaccinations. Five of them.
“I don’t have a problem with that,” said the 12-year-old, who moved from Cuba early this year.
Across the library, a group of city, state and federal officials gathered to celebrate the school clinic, and the city. With U.S. childhood vaccination rates below their goals, Louisville and the state were being praised as success stories: Kentucky’s vaccination rate for kindergarteners rose 2 percentage points in the 2022-23 school year compared with the year before. The rate for Jefferson County — which is Louisville — was up 4 percentage points.
“Progress is success,” said Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But that progress didn’t last. Kentucky’s school entry vaccination rate slipped last year. Jefferson County’s rate slid, too. And the rates for both the county and state remain well below the target thresholds.
It raises the question: If this is what success looks like, what does it say about the nation’s ability to stop imported infections from turning into community outbreaks?
Local officials believe they can get to herd immunity thresholds, but they acknowledge challenges that includes tight funding, misinformation and well-intended bureaucratic rules that can discourage doctors from giving kids shots.
“We’re closing the gap,” said Eva Stone, who has managed the county school system’s health services since 2018. “We’re not closing the gap very quickly.”
Falling vaccination rates
Public health experts focus on vaccination rates for kindergartners because schools can be cauldrons for germs and the launching pad for community outbreaks.
For years, those rates were high, thanks largely to mandates that required key vaccinations as a condition of school attendance.
But they have slid in recent years. When COVID-19 started hitting the U.S. hard in 2020, schools were closed, visits to pediatricians declined and vaccination record-keeping fell off. Meanwhile, more parents questioned routine childhood vaccinations that they used to automatically accept, an effect that experts attribute to misinformation and the political schism that emerged around COVID-19 vaccines.
A Gallup survey released last month found that 40% of Americans said it is extremely important for parents to have their children vaccinated, down from 58% in 2019. Meanwhile, a recent University of Pennsylvania survey of 1,500 people found that about 1 in 4 U.S. adults think the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes autism — despite no medical evidence for it.
All that has led more parents to seek exemptions to school entry vaccinations. The CDC has not yet reported national data for the 2023-24 school year, but the proportion of U.S. kindergartners exempted from school vaccination requirements the year before hit a record 3%.
Overall, 93% of kindergartners got their required shots for the 2022-23 school year. The rate was 95% in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Officials worry slipping vaccination rates will lead to disease outbreaks.
The roughly 250 U.S. measles cases reported so far this year are the most since 2019, and Oregon is seeing its largest outbreak in more than 30 years.
Kentucky has been experiencing its worst outbreak of whooping cough — another vaccine-preventable disease — since 2017. Nationally, nearly 14,000 cases have been reported this year, the most since 2019.
Persuading parents
The whooping cough surge is a warning sign but also an opportunity, said Kim Tolley, a California-based historian who wrote a book last year on the vaccination of American schoolchildren. She called for a public relations campaign to “get everybody behind” improving immunizations.
Much of the discussion about raising vaccination rates centers on campaigns designed to educate parents about the importance of vaccinating children — especially those on the fence about getting shots for their kids.
But experts are still hashing out what kind of messaging work best: Is it better, for example, to say “vaccinate” or “immunize’’?
A lot of the messaging is influenced by feedback from small focus groups. One takeaway is some people have less trust in health officials and even their own doctors than they once did. Another is that they strongly trust their own feelings about vaccines and what they’ve seen in Internet searches or heard from other sources.
“Their overconfidence is hard to shake. It’s hard to poke holes in it,” said Mike Perry, who ran focus groups on behalf of a group called the Public Health Communications Collaborative.
But many people seem more trusting of older vaccines. And they do seem to be at least curious about information they didn’t know, including the history of research behind vaccines and the dangers of the diseases they were created to fight, he said.
Improving access
Dolores Albarracin has studied vaccination improvement strategies in 17 countries, and repeatedly found that the most effective strategy is to make it easier for kids to get vaccinated.
“In practice, most people are not vaccinating simply because they don’t have money to take the bus” or have other troubles getting to appointments, said Albarracin, director of the communication science division within Penn’s Annenberg Public Policy Center.
That’s a problem in Louisville, where officials say few doctors were providing vaccinations to children enrolled in Medicaid and fewer still were providing shots to kids without any health insurance. An analysis a few years ago indicated 1 in 5 children — about 20,000 kids — were not current on their vaccinations, and most of them were poor, said Stone, the county school health manager.
A 30-year-old federal program called Vaccines for Children pays for vaccinations for children who Medicaid-eligible or lack the insurance to cover it.
But in a meeting with the CDC director last month, Louisville health officials lamented that most local doctors don’t participate in the program because of paperwork and other administrative headaches. And it can be tough for patients to get the time and transportation to get to those few dozen Louisville providers who do take part.
The school system has tried to fill the gap. In 2019, it applied to become a VFC provider, and gradually established vaccine clinics.
Last year, it held clinics at nearly all 160 schools, and it’s doing the same thing this year. The first was at Newcomer Academy, where many immigrant students behind on their vaccinations are started in the school system.
It’s been challenging, Stone said. Funding is very limited. There are bureaucratic obstacles, and a growing influx of children from other countries who need shots. It takes multiple trips to a doctor or clinic to complete some vaccine series. And then there’s the opposition — vaccination clinic announcements tend to draw hateful social media comments.
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
DUNBARTON, New Hampshire — It’s harvest time in central New Hampshire, and one farm there appears to have been transplanted from a distant continent.
Farmers balance large crates laden with vegetables on their heads while chatting in Somali and other languages. As the sun burns away the early morning mist, the farmers pick American staples like corn and tomatoes as well as crops they grew up with, like okra and sorrel. Many of the women wear vibrant orange, red and blue fabrics.
Most workers at this Dunbarton farm are refugees who have escaped harrowing wars and persecution. They come from the African nations of Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia and Congo, and they now run their own small businesses, selling their crops to local markets as well as to friends and connections in their ethnic communities. Farming provides them with both an income and a taste of home.
“I like it in the USA. I have my own job,” says Somali refugee and farmer Khadija Aliow as she hams it up by sashaying past a reporter, using one hand to steady the crate of crops on her head and the other to give a thumbs-up. “Happy. I’m so happy.”
The farm is owned by a New Hampshire-based nonprofit, the Organization for Refugee and Immigrant Success, which lets the farmers use plots of land and provides them with training and support. The organization runs similar farms in Concord and the nearby town of Boscawen.
In all, 36 people from five African countries, including South Sudan, and the Asian nation of Nepal work on the farms. Many were farmers in their home countries before coming to the U.S. or had previous experience with agriculture, said Tom McGee, a program director with the nonprofit.
“These are farmers who are basically independent business owners, who are working in partnership with our organization to be able to bring this produce to life in this country,” he said. “And to have another sense of purpose, and a way that they can bring themselves into the community and belong. And really participate in the American dream.”
The nonprofit runs a food market in Manchester, where people can buy fresh produce or sign up to have boxes delivered. McGee said there are a few other programs with similar aims scattered throughout the U.S. but that the model remains relatively rare. He said his organization relies on state and federal funding, as well as private donations.
Farmer Sylvain Bukasa said he escaped in 2000 from the decades-long conflict in Congo that has resulted in millions of deaths. He spent six years with his wife and son in a refugee camp in Tanzania before being accepted into the U.S. in 2006.
“I was worried for my safety,” he said. “I decided to just go somewhere where it’s a little bit safer.”
Bukasa said he has worked hard since arriving in the U.S. and relishes his new life. But at first he missed the foods he grew up with. He could only find them in specialized markets, where they tended to be expensive and of poor quality.
“Back home we ate more vegetables and less meat,” he said. “When we came here, it’s more chicken, more pizza, things like that. They taste good, but it’s not good for you.”
Bukasa started growing crops on the farm in 2011. The initial plan on the Dunbarton farm was to allow migrants like him to grow traditional crops for themselves and their families. But demand grew, particularly during the pandemic, prompting the farm’s evolution into a commercial operation.
For a few of the farmers, the harvest provides their primary income. For most, like Bukasa, it’s a side gig. He works fulltime as a service agent for a rental car company and travels whenever he can to tend his plot of just over 0.4 hectares. The biggest challenges are making sure his crops are adequately watered and stopping the weeds from taking over, he said.
Mondays are harvest days, and on a recent Monday, Bukasa listed the crops he was picking: tomatoes, summer squash, zucchini, kale, corn, okra, and the leaves from pumpkins and sorrel — which he and the other migrants call sour-sour because of its taste.
He said there’s a surprisingly large Congolese community throughout New England, and they appreciate what he grows.
“It’s a hard job, but hard work is good work,” Bukasa said. “It’s fun and it helps people. I like when I satisfy people with the food that they eat.”
His dream is to one day buy his own farm with a couple of acres of land, so he can walk out his front door to tend to his crops rather than driving 20 minutes like he does now. A more immediate challenge, he said, is to work on the marketing side of his business.
He’s got to the point where he now grows more food than he’s able to sell, and he hates seeing any of it go to waste. One idea is to buy a van, so he can deliver more produce himself.
“You see the competition in there,” he says with a grin, motioning toward the tent where other refugee farmers wash and pack their crops. “See how many farmers are trying to sell their produce.”
date: 2024-09-22, from: Jeff Geerling blog
They stole my voice with AI
<div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Listen to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHfPH-Kr9XU">this clip</a>:</p>Your browser does not support the video tag.
I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty familiar. I mean I would like you to subscribe to my YouTube channel. But that’s the Jeff Geerling channel, not Elecrow, where the clip above is from. I never said the words that are in that video.
Someone emailed me a link to Elecrow’s video and said it sounded off. I’m guessing at least some of the thousands of people who watched the video thought I agreed to voice some Elecrow videos, since I talk about some of the same topics on my channel.
<span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Jeff Geerling</span></span>
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/they-stole-my-voice-ai
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
WILMINGTON, DELAWARE/WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday hosted the leaders of Australia, India and Japan at his private home in the U.S. state of Delaware for his final convening of the Quad, a strategic security grouping focused on the Indo-Pacific.
But it was Biden’s comments, unintentionally heard by the press, that illuminated the main topic at this unusually private meeting – and that topic was China.
Biden said his administration reads Beijing’s recent actions, including flexing its territorial muscles, as a “change in tactic, not a change in strategy.”
“We believe [Chinese President] Xi Jinping is looking to focus on domestic economic challenges and minimize the turbulence in China’s diplomatic relationships, and he’s also looking to buy himself some diplomatic space, in my view, to aggressively pursue China’s interests,” Biden told the other three leaders in what he said were prepared remarks.
“China continues to behave aggressively, testing this all across the region, and it’s true in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, South China, South Asia and the Taiwan Straits. It’s true across the scope of our relationship, including in economic and technology issues,” he added.
Beijing claims almost all of the South China Sea, including territory claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. It also claims territories in the East China Sea contested by Japan and Taiwan. It views democratically governed Taiwan as part of China.
Publicly, Biden’s message was shorter, simpler – “The Quad is here to stay.”
Those six words were also the final sentence of a lengthy joint statement from Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The group issued their nearly 5,700-word missive after a day of meetings so cloistered that the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association called the lack of access “unacceptable.”
In their statement, the quartet announced moves they say will boost cooperation among the four democracies and address concerns beyond their borders in the massive region, home to more than half of the world’s population and two-thirds of its economy. While they used the word “China” sparingly – only three times, and all three times in reference to the South China Sea – they made very clear how their stance differs from Beijing’s.
“As four leading maritime democracies in the Indo-Pacific, we unequivocally stand for the maintenance of peace and stability across this dynamic region, as an indispensable element of global security and prosperity,” they said.
“We strongly oppose any destabilizing or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion. We condemn recent illicit missile launches in the region that violate U.N. Security Council resolutions. We express serious concern over recent dangerous and aggressive actions in the maritime domain. We seek a region where no country dominates and no country is dominated — one where all countries are free from coercion and can exercise their agency to determine their futures.”
China has previously called out the Quad for its thinly veiled criticisms of China, with a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson in July comparing the grouping to “exclusive clubs that undermine trust and cooperation among regional countries.”
Biden spoke briefly to tout the major steps, including one that aims to strengthen maritime security, and that will inevitably affect China’s maritime presence in others’ waters.
“We’re announcing a series of initiatives to deliver real, positive impact for the Indo-Pacific that includes providing new maritime technologies to our regional partners, so they know what’s happening in their waters, launching cooperation between coast guards for the first time, and expanding the Quad fellowship to include students from Southeast Asia,” Biden said.
That includes, the leaders’ statement said, a 2025 joint mission by the four nations’ coast guards. That step is also something that Japanese officials presented as a big summit takeaway when briefing reporters earlier in the day. Earlier in the week, when a top U.S. officials previewed the summit, he said the aim is to counter illegal fishing – adding, tellingly, that the vast majority of illegal fishing vessels are Chinese.
VOA asked the Japanese officials about a point of contention between Washington and Tokyo: Biden’s opposition, on national security grounds, to a proposed takeover of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel. Biden administration officials appeared to play down the matter, noting that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States recently extended its review into the deal, pushing any decision past November.
“The president will obviously allow that process to run its course because that’s what’s required from the law, and then we will see what happens,” Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, told reporters Saturday.
The American steel company is headquartered in Pennsylvania, an electorally critical state in the fast-approaching U.S. presidential election.
VOA asked the Japanese government to share Toyko’s position on the politically sensitive merger. Japanese officials would not say whether Biden and Kishida even planned to speak on this topic in any of their meetings.
“As a government we refrain from commenting on that,” replied a Foreign Affairs Ministry official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. The official quickly added that Japan is the No. 1 investor in the U.S., and that Tokyo hopes the countries’ cooperation will continue.
Australia’s leader said it matters that the four “like-minded countries,” all democracies, work together.
“We assert the view that national sovereignty is important, that security and stability is something that we strive for, as well as shared prosperity in our region,” Albanese said.
Analysts had predicted China discussion would dominate behind the scenes, but the leaders would refrain from publicly poking Beijing.
“That doesn’t show up in the readouts,” Rafiq Dossani, a longtime Asia scholar, told VOA ahead of the summit.
The four leaders began to meet yearly, in person, under Biden’s presidency. Much of their effort, said analyst Kathryn Paik of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is directed at bread-and-butter governance issues such as health, infrastructure, maritime security and resources, and people-to-people ties.
“This is certainly not a Contain-China club,” she told VOA.
But, said Dossani, who is a senior economist at the Rand research corporation and a professor of policy analysis, there is room for the Quad to evolve.
“The question is as the competition, or the rivalry, between China and the U.S. evolves, how will that at that time affect the deliberations?” he said. “As the Chinese economy recovers and they become more assertive, then you’ll see a different context for the dialogue.”
In the present, though, Biden sees this dialogue among the four leaders as important to his legacy, Paik said.
“It was a central piece to the Indo-Pacific strategy, and elevating the Quad to the leader level has been a significant piece of that strategy,” she said. “Just the fact that the Quad has met annually at the leader level every year of Biden’s administration is quite significant.”
VOA’s Celia Mendoza in Wilmington, Delaware, and Paris Huang and Kim Lewis, in Washington, contributed to this report.
date: 2024-09-22, from: VOA News USA
BALTIMORE — Federal agents on Saturday boarded a vessel managed by the same company that managed a cargo ship that caused a deadly bridge collapse in Baltimore, Maryland, the FBI confirmed.
In statements, spokespeople for the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland confirmed that authorities boarded the Maersk Saltoro. The ship is managed by Synergy Marine Group.
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division and Coast Guard Investigative Services are present aboard the Maersk Saltoro conducting court authorized law enforcement activity,” statements from both the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office said Saturday morning.
Authorities did not offer further specifics. The Washington Post first reported on federal authorities boarding the ship.
The raid came several months after investigators conducted a similar search of the Dali, the cargo ship that crashed into the bridge.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the U.S. Justice Department alleged that Dali owner Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and manager Synergy Marine, both of Singapore, recklessly cut corners and ignored known electrical problems on the vessel, which lost power multiple times minutes before it crashed into a support column on the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March.
The Justice Department said mechanical and electrical systems on the massive ship had been “jury-rigged” and improperly maintained, culminating in the power outages and a cascade of other failures that left its pilots and crew helpless in the face of looming disaster. The ship was leaving Baltimore for Sri Lanka when its steering failed because of the power loss.
Six members of a road work crew were killed when the bridge crumbled into the water. The collapse also snarled commercial shipping traffic through the Port of Baltimore for months before the channel was fully reopened in June.
The Justice Department is seeking to recover more than $100 million the government spent to clear the underwater debris and reopen the city’s port.
The companies filed a court petition days after the collapse seeking to limit their legal liability in what could become the most expensive marine casualty case in history.
Justice Department officials said there is no legal support for that bid to limit liability and pledged to vigorously contest it.
In its lawsuit, which also seeks punitive damages, the Justice Department argued that vessel owners and operators need to be “deterred from engaging in such reckless and exceedingly harmful behavior.”
That includes Grace Ocean and Synergy themselves because the Dali has a “sister ship,” authorities wrote in the claim.
The two companies “need to be deterred because they continue to operate their vessels, including a sister ship to the Dali, in U.S. waters and benefit economically from those activities,” the lawsuit says.
Darrell Wilson, a Grace Ocean spokesperson, confirmed that the FBI and Coast Guard boarded the Maersk Saltoro in the Port of Baltimore on Saturday morning. Wilson has previously said the owner and manager “look forward to our day in court to set the record straight.”
Like the Dali, the Singapore-flagged Saltoro was built by Hyundai in 2015.
According to the Justice Department lawsuit, major issues with the Dali’s electrical system might have resulted from excessive vibrations on the ship that can loosen wires and damage connections. A prior captain of the vessel had reported “heavy vibration” in his handover notes in May 2023, saying he had made similar reports to Synergy in the past, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit noted cracked equipment in the engine room and pieces of cargo shaken loose. The ship’s electrical equipment was in such bad condition that an independent agency stopped further electrical testing because of safety concerns, according to the lawsuit.
The ship had also experienced power outages while it was still docked in Baltimore. Those blackouts are considered “reportable marine casualties” that must be reported to the U.S. Coast Guard, which authorities say never happened.
The Dali, which was stuck amid the wreckage of the collapse for months before it could be extricated and refloated, departed Norfolk, Virginia, on Thursday afternoon en route to China on its first international voyage since the March 26 disaster.
Justice Department officials refused to answer questions Wednesday about whether a criminal investigation into the bridge collapse remains ongoing. FBI agents boarded the Dali in April.
date: 2024-09-22, from: Marginallia log
I’ve been on a bit of a frustration-driven quest to solve a problem I frequently encounter working on the search engine, that is, reading data from disk. You’d think this would be a pretty basic thing, but doing this in a way that is half-way performant is surprisingly hard and requires avoiding basically all the high level tools at your disposal. There’s a common sentiment that modern hardware is fast, so this may not matter, but we aren’t speaking a 30% performance hit, the the question is how many orders of magnitude you’re willing to forego.
https://www.marginalia.nu/log/a_110_java_io/
date: 2024-09-22, from: PostgreSQL News
Summary: Coroot, an open-source monitoring and observability tool, has been further optimized for PostgreSQL in version 1.4. This release offers seamless integration for better performance, security, and cost monitoring. No extra configuration needed.
Here’s what Coroot 1.4 offers:
Additional Benefits:
Links:
Contact:
For more information, please visit the Coroot website ( https://coroot.com ) or contact us directly.
https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/coroot-14-simplify-postgresql-monitoring-open-source-2915/
date: 2024-09-22, from: PostgreSQL News
Our love for PostgreSQL runs deep. We built our products on PostgreSQL, are proud members of the PostgreSQL community, and wouldn’t exist without it and the extensibility it provides.
In 2019, Timescale launched the first State of PostgreSQL report, advancing our desire to provide more significant insights into the specificities and features applicable to the PostgreSQL community. Thanks to your contribution as a community, we have continually delivered this report.
The 2024 survey is open for submissions until September 30, 2024! Questions involve everything from how you use PostgreSQL for work and personal projects, how you deploy it, how you interact with the community, and how collectively we can help improve the complete developer and user experience.
Please help us contribute valuable insights back to the PostgreSQL community, and turn them into actionable steps to enable positive change. No matter whether you’re rather inexperienced with PostgreSQL, or have been using the technology for decades, your feedback will help make a difference. We will share our report (as well as give you full and unrestricted access to the survey’s anonymized raw data) once available. Thank you all for being a part of the community!
Take the 2024 State of Postgres Survey. Click here!
Alternatively, interested in seeing last year’s results? Download the 2023 State of PostgreSQL full report, here.
date: 2024-09-22, from: PostgreSQL News
pgEdge has just released the latest version of its flagship product, pgEdge Platform v24.7, known as the Constellation Release. This update brings a host of new features designed to enhance the capabilities of distributed PostgreSQL databases. Building on its foundation as the only fully distributed PostgreSQL that is open (source code available) and based on standard PostgreSQL, pgEdge continues to lead the way in providing ultra-high availability and reduced latency across geographic regions. The Constellation Release introduces significant improvements, including advanced logical replication features, large object support, and enhanced error handling. These enhancements make pgEdge an even more powerful alternative for legacy multi-master replication technologies, offering greater throughput, flexibility, and control for users.
Key Enhancements in the Constellation Release 1. Large Object Logical Replication (LOLOR): With the new Large Object Logical Replication (LOLOR) feature, pgEdge ensures seamless integration for applications that store media assets and large files in PostgreSQL databases. This extension allows large objects to be compatible with logical replication, facilitating smoother transitions from legacy databases to PostgreSQL without requiring application modifications. See blog for more details.
Replication Exception Handling and Logging: The latest update includes an advanced error handling and logging mechanism. Replication errors are logged into a new exception table, preventing disruptions in replication processes. This enhancement ensures a robust user experience, offering greater visibility and control over replication errors and making troubleshooting more straightforward.
Replication Repair Mode: pgEdge now allows users to enable or disable “repair mode,” providing the flexibility to manage replication processes without affecting the entire database cluster. This feature is particularly useful for controlling replication changes during error resolution or node-specific modifications.
Automatic Replication of DDL Commands: Updating the database schema has never been easier. With the automatic replication of DDL commands, any changes made to a single node are propagated across all nodes in the cluster. This feature simplifies the management of distributed PostgreSQL applications, especially during active development or maintenance. See blog for more details.
Snowflake Sequence in Postgres Extension: To enhance sequence management in multi-master replication scenarios, pgEdge integrates Snowflake sequences within PostgreSQL. This extension ensures unique sequence numbers across different regions without needing application code or schema modifications, streamlining sequence management and improving scalability. See blog for details and examples.
Looking Ahead: High Performance Parallel Replication pgEdge is set to introduce Parallel Replication in Q4 of this year. This feature will leverage multiple replication slots to enable parallel processing within distributed PostgreSQL clusters, significantly boosting replication throughput. It promises to reduce replication lag, ensuring timely data synchronization across nodes and maintaining data consistency even in high-demand environments.
Availability and Support The pgEdge Platform can be self-hosted on-premise or self-managed in the cloud with providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. The new Constellation Release is available for download at https://www.pgedge.com/get-started/platform or can be accessed via GitHub. pgEdge also offers enterprise-class support. Additionally, pgEdge Cloud, a fully managed service based on the pgEdge Platform, is available in beta and will be generally available in Q3.
View the full press release here: https://www.pgedge.com/press-releases/pgedge-announces-pgedge-platform-constellation-release-v24-7, or visit www.pgedge.com for more information about pgEdge distributed PostgreSQL.
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-21, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
The slaughter of the Palestinians at the hands of American high-end weapons continues.
119 Palestinians dead in the last 72 hours, countless more maimed for life and the videos and photos continue to stream without end.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113178104510022138
date: 2024-09-21, from: VOA News USA
washington — President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida discussed diplomacy with China and their shared concerns over “coercive and destabilizing activities” in the South China Sea during a meeting on Saturday at the Quad Leaders Summit in Wilmington, Delaware, the White House said.
Biden and Kishida also reiterated their resolve to maintain peace across the Taiwan strait and commitment to developing and protecting technologies such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors, the White House said.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-21, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Pregnancy deaths rose by 56% in Texas after 2021 abortion ban, analysis finds.
date: 2024-09-21, from: VOA News USA
WILMINGTON, Delaware — U.S. President Joe Biden is showcasing the Indo-Pacific partnership he has nurtured since taking office as he hosts the leaders of Australia, Japan and India in his hometown Saturday with an eye on his legacy as well.
When Biden entered the White House, he looked to elevate the so-called Quad, which until then had only met at the foreign minister level, to a leader-level partnership as he tried to pivot U.S. foreign policy away from conflicts in the Middle East and toward threats and opportunities in the Indo-Pacific. This weekend’s summit is the fourth in-person and sixth overall gathering of the leaders since 2021.
Biden put a personal touch on the engagement — potentially the last of the group before he leaves office on January 20 — by opening his home in Wilmington, Delaware, to each of the leaders and hosting a joint meeting and formal dinner at the high school he attended more than 60 years ago.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida came for the meetings before their appearances at the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week.
“You guys have heard the president say many times that all politics is personal, all diplomacy is personal,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters as meetings were set to get underway.
“And developing personal relationships has been core to his approach to foreign policy as president. So, opening his home to the leaders of India, Japan and Australia is a way of him showing, not just saying, but these leaders matter to him.”
Biden welcomes Albanese to his home
On Friday afternoon, Biden welcomed Albanese to his home on a pond in a wooded area several miles west of downtown. Saturday’s agenda included hosting Kishida and Modi and bringing all the leaders together for talks at Archmere Academy in nearby Claymont.
Sullivan described the vibe of the meeting with Albanese as “two guys — one at the other guy’s home — talking in broad strokes about where they see the state of the world.” He said Biden and Albanese also swapped stories about their political careers.
Reporters and photographers were prohibited from covering Biden’s individual meetings with the leaders, and Biden does not plan to do a news conference — a question-and-answer appearance that is typical at such international summits.
As part of the summit, the leaders were set to announce new initiatives to bolster maritime security in the region — with enhanced coast guard collaboration through the Pacific and Indian oceans — and improve cooperation on humanitarian response missions. The measures are meant to serve as a counterweight to an increasingly assertive China.
Sullivan said he expected Biden and Modi would discuss Modi’s recent visits to Russia and Ukraine as well as economic and security concerns about China. Modi is the most prominent leader from a nation that maintains a neutral position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sullivan said Biden would underscore “that countries like India should step up and support the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity” and that “every country, everywhere, should refrain from supplying inputs to Russia’s war machine.”
Biden, Kishida say farewell
The gathering was also an opportunity for Biden and Japan’s Kishida to bid each other farewell. Biden and Kishida, who are both stepping away from office amid sliding public support, count the tightening of security and economic ties among the U.S., Japan and South Korea as one of their most significant accomplishments. The two leaders sat down for their wide-ranging, one-on-one conversation on Saturday morning.
The improved relations between Japan and South Korea, two nations with a deep and complicated history that have struggled to stay on speaking terms, have come amid worrying developments in the Pacific, including strides made by North Korea in its nuclear program and increasing Chinese assertiveness.
Biden commended Kishida for demonstrating “courage and conviction in strengthening ties” with South Korea, according to the White House. They also discussed China’s “coercive and destabilizing activities” in the Pacific, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and emerging technology issues.
The U.S. and Japan are negotiating through a rare moment of tension in the relationship. Biden, as well as presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, have opposed a $15 billion bid by Japan’s Nippon Steel to take over American-owned U.S. Steel.
Biden administration officials indicated this week that a U.S. government committee’s formal assessment of the proposed deal has yet to be submitted to the White House and may not come until after the November 5 election.
Sullivan pushed back against speculation that the expected timing of the report could suggest Biden is having second thoughts about his opposition to the deal.
The Biden administration promised that the leaders would issue a joint statement containing the strongest-ever language on China and North Korea to be agreed upon by the four countries.
The White House said the leaders would also roll out an announcement related to Biden’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative, a long-running passion project of the president and his wife, Jill Biden, aimed at reducing cancer deaths. The Bidens’ son Beau died in 2015 at age 46 of brain cancer.
White House officials said the leaders will unveil details about a new collaboration aimed at reducing cervical cancer in the Indo-Pacific.
As Biden’s time in office draws down, the White House also was celebrating the bipartisan, bicameral formation of a “Quad Caucus” in Congress meant to ensure the longevity of the partnership regardless of the outcome of the November election.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-21, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trump: “If I win, you will no longer be thinking about abortion.”
https://www.threads.net/@kamalahq/post/DAMO1WqK2eY
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-21, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Cheney suggests conservative party split from Trump.
https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/4892415-liz-cheney-new-republican-party/
date: 2024-09-21, from: VOA News USA
washington — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday will visit the U.S. ammunition factory that is producing one of the most critically needed munitions for Ukraine’s fight to fend off Russian ground forces.
Zelenskyy is expected to go to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in the state of Pennsylvania to kick off a busy week in the United States shoring up support for Ukraine in the war, according to two U.S. officials and a third familiar with Zelenskyy’s schedule who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that were not yet public.
The Ukrainian leader also will address the United Nations General Assembly annual gathering in New York and travel to Washington for talks on Thursday with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Scranton plant is one of the few facilities in the country to manufacture 155 mm artillery shells. They are used in howitzer systems, which are towed large guns with long barrels that can fire at various angles. Howitzers can strike targets up to 15- 20 miles (24-32 kilometers) away and are highly valued by ground forces to take out enemy targets from a protected distance.
Ukraine has already received more than 3 million of the 155 mm shells from the U.S.
Still pushing for permission
With the war now well into its third year, Zelenskyy has been pushing the U.S. for permission to use longer range missile systems to fire deeper inside of Russia.
So far he has not persuaded the Pentagon or White House to loosen those restrictions. The Defense Department has emphasized that Ukraine can already hit Moscow with Ukrainian-produced drones, and there is hesitation on the strategic implications of a U.S.-made missile potentially striking the Russian capital.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia would be “at war” with the United States and its NATO allies if they allow Ukraine to use the long-range weapons.
At one point in the war, Ukraine was firing between 6,000 and 8,000 of the 155 mm shells per day. That rate started to deplete U.S. stockpiles and drew concern that the level on hand was not enough to sustain U.S. military needs if another major conventional war broke out, such as a potential conflict over Taiwan.
In response, the U.S. has invested in restarting production lines and is now manufacturing more than 40,000 155 mm rounds a month, with plans to hit 100,000 rounds a month. During his visit, Zelenskyy is expected meet and thank workers who have increased production of the 155 mm rounds over the past year.
Two of the Pentagon leaders who have pushed that increased production through — Doug Bush, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, and Bill LaPlante, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer — are also expected to join Zelenskyy at the plant, as is Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania.
US largest donor of aid
The 155 mm rounds are among the scores of ammunition, missile, air defense and advanced weapons systems the U.S. has provided Ukraine — everything from small arms bullets to advanced F-16 fighter jets. The U.S. has been the largest donor to Ukraine, providing more than $56 billion of the more than $106 billion NATO and partner countries have collected to aid in its defense.
Even though Ukraine is not a member of NATO, commitment to its defense is seen by many European nations as a must to keep Putin from further military aggression that could threaten bordering NATO-member countries and result in a much larger conflict.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-21, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Liz Cheney says GOP needs to 'recognize what it's done.'
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-21, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
"We're not taking them from infested countries." – hard to believe this is someone who many people feel is qualified to be president of the United States.
date: 2024-09-21, from: Internet Archive Blog
On Sept 4, 2024, the US Court of Appeals in New York affirmed the lower court ruling in the lawsuit filed against us by Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, John […]
https://blog.archive.org/2024/09/21/lending-of-digitized-books/
date: 2024-09-21, from: VOA News USA
SACRAMENTO, California — California will make it illegal for social media platforms to knowingly provide addictive feeds to children without parental consent beginning in 2027 under a new law Governor Gavin Newsom signed Friday.
California follows New York state, which passed a law earlier this year allowing parents to block their kids from getting social media posts suggested by a platform’s algorithm. Utah has passed laws in recent years aimed at limiting children’s access to social media, but those have faced challenges in court.
The California law will take effect in a state home to some of the largest technology companies in the world. Similar proposals have failed to pass in recent years, but Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law in 2022 barring online platforms from using users’ personal information in ways that could harm children.
It is part of a growing push in states across the country to try to address the impact of social media on the well-being of children.
“Every parent knows the harm social media addiction can inflict on their children — isolation from human contact, stress and anxiety, and endless hours wasted late into the night,” Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement. “With this bill, California is helping protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits.”
The law bans platforms from sending notifications without permission from parents to minors between midnight and 6 a.m., and between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays from September through May, when children are typically in school. The legislation also makes platforms set children’s accounts to private by default.
Opponents of the legislation say it could inadvertently prevent adults from accessing content if they cannot verify their age. Some argue it would threaten online privacy by making platforms collect more information on users.
The law defines an “addictive feed” as a website or app “in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users are, either concurrently or sequentially, recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information provided by the user, or otherwise associated with the user or the user’s device,” with some exceptions.
The subject garnered renewed attention in June when U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms and their impacts on young people. Attorneys general in 42 states endorsed the plan in a letter sent to Congress last week.
State Senator Nancy Skinner, a Democrat representing Berkeley who wrote the California law, said that “social media companies have designed their platforms to addict users, especially our kids.”
“With the passage of SB 976, the California Legislature has sent a clear message: When social media companies won’t act, it’s our responsibility to protect our kids,” she said in a statement.
date: 2024-09-21, from: VOA News USA
PORTLAND, Maine — Fall is back, and bringing with it jack-o’-lanterns, football, pumpkin spice everything and — in some parts of the country — especially vibrant foliage.
Leaves around the northern United States are starting to turn orange, yellow and red, inspiring legions of leaf lovers to hop in their cars and travel to the countryside for the best look at fall’s fireworks. Leaf peeping — the act of traveling to witness nature’s annual kaleidoscope — contributes billions of dollars to the economy, especially in New England and New York.
But this year, some of the most colorful displays could be in the Midwest. AccuWeather, the commercial forecasting service, said in early September that it expects especially vibrant foliage in states such as Michigan and Illinois.
The service also said powerful, popping colors are expected in upstate New York and parts of Pennsylvania, while New England will follow a more typical color pattern. But that doesn’t mean New England travelers will miss out.
Maine, the most forested state in the country, had “an abundance of daily sunshine with just the right amount of rainfall to set the stage for a breathtaking foliage season,” said Gale Ross, the state’s fall foliage spokesperson. Color change and timing depend on the weather in the fall, but cooler nighttime temperatures and shorter days should enhance the colors, Ross said.
“The growing season of 2024 has been excellent for trees, supporting tree health and resilience that should lead to brilliant fall colors throughout Maine,” said Aaron Bergdahl, the state’s forest pathologist.
Fall colors peak at different times around the U.S., with the foliage season sometimes starting not long after Labor Day in the far northern reaches of the country and extending into November further to the south. In Maine alone, peak foliage can arrive in the northern part of the state in late September and not arrive in coastal areas until close to Halloween.
Leaf turn happens when summer yields to fall and temperatures drop and the amount of sunlight decreases. Chlorophyll in leaves then breaks down, and that allows their fall colors to shine through before leaf drop.
However, weather conditions associated with climate change have disrupted some recent leaf peeping seasons. A warming planet has brought drought that causes leaves to turn brown and wither before reaching peak colors.
Other enemies of leaf peeping include heat waves that cause leaves to fall before autumn arrives and extreme weather events like hurricanes that strip trees of their leaves. A summer heatwave in the Pacific Northwest in 2021 caused a condition called “foliage scorch” that prematurely browned leaves.
This year in Maine, leaf turn was still very sparse in most of the state as late September approached, but the state office of tourism was already gearing up for an influx of tourists. Northern Maine was already experiencing moderate color change. And neighboring New Hampshire was expecting about 3.7 million visitors — more than twice the state’s population.
“It’s no surprise people travel from all over the world to catch the incredible color,” said New Hampshire Travel and Tourism Director Lori Harnois.
https://www.voanews.com/a/parts-of-us-midwest-could-offer-fall-s-most-vibrant-foliage/7793339.html
date: 2024-09-21, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — Six years after a teenage Greta Thunberg walked out of school in a solitary climate protest outside of the Swedish parliament, people around a warming globe marched in youth-led protest, saying their voices are being heard but not sufficiently acted upon.
Emissions of heat-trapping gases and temperatures have been rising and oil and gas drilling has continued, even as the protests that kicked off major weeklong climate events in New York City have become annual events. This year, they come days before the United Nations convenes two special summits, one concentrating on sea level rise and the other on the future.
The young people who organized these marches with Fridays for Future said there is frustration with inaction but also hope. People marched in Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, New Delhi and elsewhere, but the focus often is in New York City because of Climate Week NYC. Diplomats, business leaders and activists are concentrating their discussions on the money end of fighting climate change — something not lost on protesters.
“We hope that the government and the financial sector make polluters pay for the damage that they have imposed on our environment,” said Uganda Fridays for Future founder Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, who was among a few hundred marching in New York Friday, a far cry from the tens of thousands that protested in a multigroup mega-rally in 2023.
The New York protest wants to take aim at “the pillars of fossil fuels” — companies that pollute, banks that fund them and leaders who are failing on climate, said Helen Mancini, an organizer and a senior at the city’s Stuyvesant High School.
“A lot of older people want to make sure the economy is intact, and that’s their main concern,” said Julia Demairo, a sophomore at Pace University. “I think worrying about the future and the environment is worrying about the economy.”
On a day that was at least 8 degrees warmer than average, protest signs included “This is not what we mean by Hot Girl Summer,” while others focused on the theme of fighting the coal, oil and gas industries: “Youth Didn’t Vote for Fossil Fuels,” “Don’t Be a Fossil Fool” and “Climate Crisis = Extermination By Capitalism.”
Nakabuye said she was in New York to represent Uganda “that is bearing the brunt of the climate crisis.”
“We feel like we are creating an impact in the community. However, we are not listened to enough; there is more that needs to be done, especially right now when the climate catastrophes are intensifying,” said Nakabuye. “We need to even raise our voices more to demand change and to demand that fuels should end.”
In the six years since Thunberg founded what became Fridays for Future, global carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have increased by about 2.15%, according to Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists who monitor carbon pollution.
The growth of emissions has slowed compared with previous decades and experts anticipate peaking soon, but that’s a far cry from the 43% reduction that a U.N. report said is needed to keep temperature increases to an agreed-upon limit.
Since 2019, carbon dioxide emissions from coal have increased by nearly 900 million metric tons, while natural gas emissions have increased slightly and oil pollution has dropped a tiny amount, according to the International Energy Agency, or IEA. That growth has been driven by China, India and developing nations.
But emissions from advanced or industrialized economies have been falling and in 2023 were the lowest in more than 50 years, according to the IEA. Coal emissions in rich countries are down to levels seen around the year 1900, and the United Kingdom next month is set to shutter its last coal plant.
In the past five years, clean energy sources have grown twice as fast as fossil fuels, with solar and wind individually growing faster than fossil fuel-based electricity, according to the IEA. Developing countries — where more than 80% of the world population lives — say that they need financial help to curb their increasing use of fossil fuels.
Since 2018, the globe has warmed more than 0.29 degrees Celsius, with last year setting a record for the hottest year and this year poised to break that mark, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the European climate agency Copernicus.
“We’re making progress, even if it’s slow progress,” said 17-year-old Ashen Harper of Connecticut, a veteran protester turned organizer. “Our job right now is to accelerate that progress.”
In Berlin, hundreds of people took to the streets, although in fewer numbers than in previous years. Activists held up signs saying, “Save the Climate” and “Coal is Over!” as they watched a gig put on outside the German Chancellor’s Office. Protesters in London held up letters spelling out “Pay Up,” calling for the country to pay more to adapt to climate change and transition away from fossil fuels.
https://www.voanews.com/a/climate-protesters-say-pace-of-change-isn-t-fast-enough/7793326.html
date: 2024-09-21, updated: 2024-09-21, from: Robin Rendle Essays
https://robinrendle.com/notes/hire-html-people/
date: 2024-09-21, from: VOA News USA
U.S. presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have focused their campaigns mainly on hot-button issues such as immigration, abortion and the economy. But the culture clash over how to handle gender identity matters in elementary and secondary schools is also a campaign issue, with loud voices on all sides. VOA’s Laurel Bowman reports. Videographer: Saqib Ul Islam
https://www.voanews.com/a/culture-war-in-us-education-lurks-as-election-issue/7793292.html
date: 2024-09-21, from: Dave Karpf’s blog
A book review of On the Edge, in Foreign Policy
https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/what-nate-silver-gets-wrong-about
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-21, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Jules Feiffer was just interviewed on NPR. He's 95 years old, and sharp as can be. Born the same year as my father, 1929 – he died in 2009.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Feiffer
date: 2024-09-21, updated: 2024-09-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Whether or not some future entity will want to bring humanity back after its eventual extinction is now a theoretical if improbable option, thanks to boffins at the University of Southampton in the UK.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/21/human_genome_5d_memory_crystal/
date: 2024-09-21, from: 404 Media Group
Also in The Abstract this week: world-vaporizing cosmic jets and “assisted sexual recruits” are fortifying coral reefs against heat waves.
https://www.404media.co/the-lost-isle-of-moo-deng-sized-hippos-3/
date: 2024-09-21, from: Liliputing
Mini PC makers have been packing a lot of powerful hardware into small computers in recent years, allowing you to get performance close to what you’d see from a full-size computer from a system that takes up much less space on your desk. But PC makers still have to contend with the age-old issue of […]
The post MINISFORUM UM890 Pro Review: A versatile, high-performance, and nearly silent mini PC appeared first on Liliputing.
<code>mkfs.fat</code> on Linux vs. OS/2 2.1
date: 2024-09-21, updated: 2024-09-21, from: Uninformative blog
https://www.uninformativ.de/blog/postings/2024-09-21/0/POSTING-en.html
date: 2024-09-21, from: The Markup blog
A conversation with agroecologist Maywa Montenegro
https://themarkup.org/hello-world/2024/09/21/maywa-montenegro-agroecology-pegagogy-ai
date: 2024-09-21, from: The Lever News
Plus, the hearing-aid cartel gets muted, the country’s busiest streets are going fossil-free, and interest rates sink while spirits rise.
https://www.levernews.com/you-love-to-see-it-a-school-lending-bully-gets-expelled/
date: 2024-09-21, updated: 2024-09-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Fryers of bacon who hope enhanced technology will stop alarms going off over the slightest whiff of smoking oil will have to wait a while longer.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/21/nist_new_smoke_alarms_are/
date: 2024-09-21, from: The Lever News
David Sirota and the team behind the hit podcast detail their two-year reporting process and ponder the future of campaign finance reform.
https://www.levernews.com/behind-the-scenes-of-master-plan/
date: 2024-09-21, updated: 2024-09-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
For most of us, a calculator might have been superseded by Excel or an app on a phone, yet there remains a die-hard contingent with a passion for the push-button marvels. So the shocking discovery of an apparently rogue HP-12C has sent tremors through the calculator aficionado world.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/21/hp_12c_calculator_mystery/
date: 2024-09-21, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — They may be Tigrinya speakers fleeing the authoritarian Eritrean government’s indefinite military service policy. Or Rohingya people escaping ethnic violence in Myanmar. But refugees navigating resettlement often face a shared hurdle: poor machine translations and a short supply of interpreters knowledgeable in their less-serviced languages.
Tarjimly, a Google-backed nonprofit described as “Uber for translators,” aims to help asylum seekers clear that hurdle. Through a new artificial intelligence partnership, Tarjimly trains outside large language models while allowing its volunteers to respond more urgently to needs for translators. It’s a feedback loop where humans teach the nuances of each language to the machines by sharing data from one-on-one calls and correcting automated translations.
And it’s this uniquely human realm of language that Tarjimly co-founder Atif Javed believes exemplifies the ever-tricky balance between individuals’ ingenuity and technological advancement. He says it’s the needed personal touch that shows why AI’s rapid development shouldn’t generally stoke widespread fears.
Languages popular in the Global South — such as the Dari and Pashto commonly spoken in Afghanistan, home to one of the world’s largest protracted refugee crises — have the worst quality coverage, according to Javed. He feels well positioned to supplement the internet’s English-dominated information troves that train services like Google Translate with his mobile app’s more diverse data sets.
Tarjimly connects refugees with on-demand interpreters, who can communicate during meetings with social workers, immigration officials and doctors, and records the encounters for AI training. To comply with patient privacy protections, Tarjimly anonymizes the conversations on its app. Javed said the nonprofit also has on option for “no record” sessions where none of the data is stored for alternative uses.
Many of its 60,000 volunteers are multilingual refugees themselves who more intimately understand not only their counterpart’s native tongue but also the crisis that brought them there, according to Javed.
Among them is Roza Tesfazion, a 26-year-old Eritrean refugee who works professionally as an interpreter for the United Kingdom’s government. Fluent in Amharic and Tigrinya, she studied English and Swahili to help her immigrant family overcome language barriers when they first moved to Kenya.
Tesfazion said she translates at no cost because she knows “how emotional it is” for the people on the other side of her sessions.
“You have to have that touch of human emotions to it,” she said.
Tarjimly’s founders say their mission’s sensitive nature lends itself to nonprofit status more than a corporate structure. Users arrive in very vulnerable positions, and the nonprofit works with established humanitarian groups including Catholic Charities, the International Rescue Committee and the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration.
The work requires a level of trust that would have been difficult to earn in a “for-profit, competitive world,” according to Javed. “The underlying engine of our success is the community we’ve built.”
That community, however, also has room for artificial intelligence. A $1.3 million grant from Google.org has enabled a “First Pass” tool that gives an instantly generated translation for human volunteers to revise. A new information hub will open up its language data for partners, including Google, in early 2025.
But refining a more diverse library of languages will require conversational data at a scale much broader than Tarjimly can likely provide on its own, according to Data & Society researcher Ranjit Singh.
Singh, who studies the social implications of automation and inclusive digital solutions, said translation services will always need a “real person in the middle.”
“There is one part of it which is translation and another part of it which is just trying to understand somebody’s life situation,” he said. “Technologies help us do some of this work. But at the same time, it’s also fairly social.”
Tarjimly was inspired by Javed’s time volunteering with Arabic speakers at refugee camps in Greece and Turkey after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and working in Silicon Valley. A Muslim American whose family immigrated to the United States in 2001, Javed said he was reminded of his own childhood translating for his refugee grandmother.
His lived experience is one reason why Elevate Prize Foundation CEO Carolina Garcìa Jayaram said her organization awarded $300,000 last year to Tarjimly. That “proximate leadership” helps nonprofits better understand developments like artificial intelligence that “can be both cause for excitement and trepidation,” Jayaram said. The risk-averse philanthropic sector may be slow to catch up with disruptive new technologies, she noted, but shouldn’t ignore their positive applications.
“It’s a great example of how not to get stuck in that bogeyman complex about AI,” she said. “To go to leaders who are closest to those issues and say, ‘How would AI unlock the possibilities and opportunities for your organization?’”
date: 2024-09-21, from: VOA News USA
date: 2024-09-21, from: VOA News USA
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — In the quiet corners of Springfield, Ohio — out of sight of the drumbeat of politicians and journalists, troopers and newly installed security cameras — the people who live here are taking a breath, praying and attempting to carry on.
Between the morning bomb sweeps of Springfield’s schools and the near daily afternoon media briefings, a hush comes over the city of 58,000 that residents say is uncanny, haunting even. It’s fear. It’s confusion — dismay at being transformed overnight into a target for the nation’s vitriol.
Pastor Andy Mobley, who runs the Family Needs Inc. food pantry on the city’s south side, said people are hunkered down out of the public eye. He said they’re hoping the attention sparked by former President Donald Trump spreading unsubstantiated rumors about the city’s legal Haitian immigrants eating house pets during last week’s presidential debate will blow over.
Trump and his vice presidential running mate, Ohio’s junior Sen. JD Vance, have used the cat-eating rumors to draw attention to the city’s 15,000 Haitian immigrants, whose arrival to fill manufacturing, distribution and warehouse jobs has put a severe strain on local resources.
Since the Republican candidates’ initial comments, more than two dozen bomb threats — mostly from foreign actors seeking to sow discord — have prompted the state to send in additional state troopers and install surveillance cameras around the city in order to reopen schools and government buildings.
“We’ve got good people here. Republican, Democrat. They’re good people,” Mobley said Tuesday, as the pantry tended to a steady stream of clients seeking clothing and food.
Resident Josh Valle said the situation is unsettling.
“We definitely need answers,” said the 35-year-old tool and die repairman, who has lived in Springfield for decades. “It’s affecting my kids and my community and my neighbors. With the bomb threats and the influx, it’s something new every day. And this used to be a really chill town, you know, it used to be just a small town Ohio.”
The area around Springfield City Hall, where Valle spoke, sat largely silent Tuesday afternoon, until a news conference with state and local officials prompted a brief swarm of activity. Local families are avoiding schools in the wake of earlier bomb threats, even though dozens of troopers have fanned out across the Springfield City School District to stand guard. Some 200 of 500 students were absent Tuesday from a single elementary school, officials said.
Still, there are signs of hope.
“Home Sweet Springfield” tea towels adorn the window of Champion City Guide & Supply on a downtown block that bustles with activity over the lunch hour. One line of mugs and clothing items reads: “Speak a Good Word for Springfield — or say nothing.”
Across town, a small group of kids whose parents kept them home on Tuesday horsed around together at a makeshift lemonade stand they set up to make a few bucks. They delighted in the revving motor of a passing muscle car and, when sales were slow, swigged back the merchandise.
David Graham, who visits communities in crisis as The Praying Cowboy, positioned himself in Springfield this week to show support. “Agenda: Pray, worship, witness, smile, honor, esteem,” he wrote in a Facebook post from the city, accompanied by his hands holding an open Bible with a newly installed surveillance platform in the background. He added lines with black electrical tape to a small heart placard he posted nearby, to represent Springfield hearts being broken.
He wasn’t the only one trying to help. A bipartisan group of area mayors met with Springfield Mayor Rob Rue on Monday to figure out how they can help — including with resources to address the traffic, health care, social services and housing needs prompted by the increase in the Haitian population and their language barrier.
Andrew Ginther, the Democratic mayor of Ohio’s capital, Columbus, and president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said in a statement: “Mayors across America will continue to stand by Springfield and all cities working to responsibly address an increased number of migrants, which we can do without losing sight of our shared humanity.”
Years ago, Family Needs Inc. was designated one of President George H.W. Bush’s “thousand points of light,” honoring its dedication to volunteerism. The organization has helped Haitians arriving in Springfield for years now, Mobley said — providing them translation services and co-signing their rental agreements.
He recalled working with Haitian immigrants as far back as 2016, the year Trump was elected — though census figures show the population remained at only about 400 until a few years ago.
“In 2016, we started signing contracts. Through the pandemic, we were doing things for the Haitian community,” he said. “Has that all been forgotten? They have been here, and we’ve been dealing with this, and we’ve been asking for help through two different administrations. And no administration has helped us, until now this thing has become public.”
As she walked downtown, one resident who declined to give her name said she’s not letting the situation get her down.
“It’s childish. It’s stupid. It took one stupid person to get on a debate and ruin the reputation of a community. I think you know exactly who I’m talking about,” she said.
“He should never have said that. There’s no truth to those allegations whatsoever. I was born and raised in this town, I’m staying here, and I have no problem with nobody.”
date: 2024-09-21, from: VOA News USA
KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo — A military court in Democratic Republic of Congo, one of Africa’s largest countries, has convicted three Americans and dozens of others of taking part in a coup attempt and imposed “the harshest penalty, that of death.”
The court convicted the 37 defendants, including the three Americans and imposed the death penalty in a verdict delivered by presiding judge Maj. Freddy Ehuma at an open-air military court proceeding.
The defendants, a majority of them Congolese but also including a Briton, a Belgian and a Canadian, were charged with terrorism, murder, criminal association and illegal possession of weapons, among other charges.
The lawyer who defended the six foreigners said they would appeal the verdicts.
The U.S. State Department strongly discourages travel to Congo, warning of violent crime and civil unrest. Here’s how the three Americans ended up in the middle of the coup attempt.
What happened during the coup attempt in May?
In Congo’s capital Kinshasa, a ragtag group including three Americans tried to unseat the country’s President Felix Tshisekedi. They were led by a little-known opposition figure, Christian Malanga, who sold used cars and dabbled in gold mining before persuading his Utah-born son to join in the foiled coup.
The coup attempt began at the Kinshasa residence of Tshisekedi’s close ally, Vital Kamerhe, a federal legislator and a candidate for Speaker of the National Assembly of Congo. His guards killed some of the attackers, officials said.
Christian Malanga, meanwhile, was live-streaming video from the presidential palace in which he is seen surrounded by several armed men in military uniforms wandering around in the middle of the night. He was later killed while resisting arrest, Congolese authorities said.
Dozens, including Malanga’s son and two other Americans, were arrested and brought to a high-security military prison in Kinshasa. Family members said the young men have been sleeping on the floor, struggling with health issues and have had to pay for food and hygiene products.
Christian Malanga, the unlikely coup leader
Malanga, who was born in Kinshasa, had described himself as a refugee who thrived after settling in the U.S. with his family in the 1990s. He said he became a leader of a Congolese opposition political party and met high-level officials in Washington and the Vatican. He also described himself as a devoted husband and father of eight.
Court records and interviews paint another picture. In 2001, the year he turned 18, Malanga was convicted in Utah of assault with a firearm, which resulted in a 30-day jail sentence and three years of probation. That same year, he was charged with domestic violence assault in one incident and battery and disturbing the peace in another, but he pleaded not guilty and all counts in both cases were dismissed.
In 2004, he was charged with domestic violence with threat of using a dangerous weapon, but he pleaded not guilty and the charges were again dismissed. Since 2004, records show several cases related to a custody dispute and a child support dispute.
How three young Americans got involved in a coup attempt
The three imprisoned Americans are Malanga’s 21-year-old son Marcel Malanga, Tyler Thompson Jr., 21, who flew to Africa from Utah with the younger Malanga for what his family believed was a free vacation, and Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, 36, who is reported to have known Christian Malanga through a gold mining company.
Marcel Malanga is a U.S. citizen and was born in Utah. He told the court his father had threatened to kill him and Thompson if they did not take part in the attack.
His mother, Brittney Sawyer, has said her son is innocent and was simply following his father, who considered himself president of a shadow government in exile.
Thompson was his high school friend and football teammate in the Salt Lake City suburb of West Jordan. He was the only former teammate to accept Marcel Malanga’s invitation to travel to Congo, according to several other players who told The Associated Press they had been invited to what the younger Malanga pitched interchangeably as a family vacation or as a service trip to build wells. Other teammates alleged that Marcel Malanga had offered up to $100,000 to join him on a “security job” in Congo.
Thompson’s family maintains he had no knowledge of the elder Malanga’s intentions, no plans for political activism and didn’t even plan to enter Congo. He and the Malangas were meant to travel only to South Africa and Eswatini, his stepmother, Miranda Thompson, said.
Here’s what happens next
All of those convicted have five days to appeal the verdict. Richard Bondo, the lawyer who defended the Americans and three other foreigners, said he plans to do so.
Congo reinstated the death penalty earlier this year, lifting a more than two-decade-old moratorium, as authorities struggle to curb violence and militant attacks in the country. The men convicted in the coup attempt would likely be executed by firing squad.
The U.S. State Department has not declared the Americans wrongfully detained, making it unlikely that U.S. officials would try to negotiate their return.
date: 2024-09-21, from: VOA News USA
date: 2024-09-21, from: Tedium site
The rumor mill is picking up steam that Intel might become the target of a takeover by Qualcomm. Which, honestly, would be the most dramatic shift in the history of the PC industry.
https://feed.tedium.co/link/15204/16815684/intel-qualcomm-acquisition-rumors
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-21, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Microsoft deal would reopen Three Mile Island nuclear plant to power AI.
date: 2024-09-21, from: VOA News USA
Wilmington, Delaware — President Joe Biden hosted Australia’s prime minister at his Delaware home Friday at the start of a weekend summit with the “Quad” group he has pushed as a counterweight to China.
Biden chose Wilmington for a summit of leaders from Australia, India and Japan — the last of his presidency after he dropped out of the 2024 election against Donald Trump and handed the Democratic campaign reins to Vice President Kamala Harris.
After a one-on-one meeting at his property with Australia’s Anthony Albanese on Friday night, he will welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at his home on Saturday.
Biden will then host an “intimate” dinner and full four-way summit that day at his former high school in the city.
“This will be President Biden’s first time hosting foreign leaders in Wilmington as president — a reflection of his deep personal relationships with each of the Quad leaders,” said press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Harris will not be attending, the White House said.
The Quad grouping dates to 2007, but Biden has strongly pushed it as part of an emphasis on international alliances after the isolationist Trump years.
China was expected to feature heavily in their discussions amid tensions with Beijing, particularly a series of recent confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels in the disputed South China Sea.
“It will certainly be high on the agenda,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said, adding that the four leaders had a “common understanding about the challenges that the PRC [People’s Republic of China] is posing.”
The White House, however, faced criticism for giving only limited access to the press throughout the weekend, with reporters questioning whether it was at the request of the media-shy Modi.
The prime minister was coaxed to take two questions during a state visit to the White House in 2023 but had not held an open press conference at home in his previous nine years in power.
The White House insisted Biden would not shy away from addressing rights issues with Modi, who has faced accusations of growing authoritarianism.
“There’s not a conversation that he has with foreign leaders where he doesn’t talk about the importance of respecting human and civil rights, and that includes with Prime Minister Modi,” Kirby said.
India is to host the next Quad summit in 2025.
Biden is famously proud of his home in Wilmington, about 176 kilometers from Washington, and he frequently spends weekends there away from the White House.
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-opens-home-to-quad-leaders-for-farewell-summit/7793023.html
date: 2024-09-21, from: VOA News USA
Washington — A U.S. soldier who crossed into North Korea last year pleaded guilty to desertion on Friday as part of a plea agreement and was sentenced to 12 months of confinement, his lawyer said.
Because of good behavior and time served, the soldier was released, according to the lawyer.
Travis King was facing 14 charges related to him fleeing across the border from South Korea into the North in July 2023 while on a sightseeing tour of the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Korean Peninsula, and for prior incidents.
But he pleaded guilty to just five — desertion, assault on a noncommissioned officer, and three counts of disobeying an officer — as part of a deal that was accepted on Friday by a military judge.
“The judge, under the terms of the plea deal, sentenced Travis to one year of confinement, reduction in rank to private (E-1), forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a dishonorable discharge,” a statement from King’s attorney Franklin Rosenblatt said.
“With time already served and credit for good behavior, Travis is now free and will return home,” the statement said.
“Travis King has faced significant challenges throughout his life, including a difficult upbringing, exposure to criminal environments, and struggles with mental health,” Rosenblatt said. “All these factors have compounded the hardships he faced in the military.”
In a statement, the U.S. Army’s Office of Special Trial Counsel confirmed King’s guilty plea as part of a deal and said that “pursuant to the terms of the plea agreement, all other charges and specifications were dismissed.”
“The outcome of today’s court martial is a fair and just result that reflects the seriousness of the offenses committed by Pvt. King,” prosecutor Major Allyson Montgomery said in the statement.
At the time of the incident, King had been stationed in South Korea, and after a drunken bar fight and a stay in South Korean jail, he was supposed to fly back to Texas to face disciplinary hearings.
Instead, he walked out of the Seoul-area airport, joined a DMZ sightseeing trip and slipped over the fortified border where he was detained by the communist North’s authorities.
Pyongyang had said that King had defected to North Korea to escape “mistreatment and racial discrimination in the U.S. Army.”
But after completing its investigation, North Korea “decided to expel” King in September for illegally intruding into its territory.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-soldier-who-entered-north-korea-pleads-guilty-to-desertion/7793010.html
date: 2024-09-21, updated: 2024-09-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
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