News gathered 2024-10-03
(date: 2024-10-03 08:45:58)
Valve powers up Arch Linux – because who needs Windows when you have a Steam Deck?
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Distro behind the handheld console announces corporate sponsorship
Valve is officially sponsoring the Linux distro that powers the gaming giant’s Steam Deck console.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/valve_sponsors_arch/
OpenWrt One WiFi 6 router is now available for $89
date: 2024-10-03, from: Liliputing
The OpenWrt One/AP-24.XY is a WiFi 6 and Ethernet router powered by a 1.3 GHz MediaTek MT7981B (Filogic 820) processor dual-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor. It features support for WiFi 6 and has a Gigabit LAN port and 2.5 GbE WAN port. But what really makes this router stand out is that it was designed by the […]
The post OpenWrt One WiFi 6 router is now available for $89 appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/openwrt-one-wifi-6-router-is-now-available-for-89/
Cobertura de la NASA del lanzamiento de Europa Clipper a una luna de Júpiter
date: 2024-10-03, from: NASA breaking news
Read this release in English here. La NASA ofrecerá cobertura en directo, en inglés y en español, de las actividades previas al lanzamiento y del lanzamiento de Europa Clipper, la misión de la agencia para explorar Europa, una luna helada de Júpiter. La cobertura del lanzamiento se ofrecerá también en español. La NASA prevé que el […]
NASA Sets Coverage for Europa Clipper Launch to Jupiter Moon
date: 2024-10-03, from: NASA breaking news
Lee esta nota de prensa en español aquí. NASA will provide live coverage of prelaunch and launch activities for Europa Clipper, the agency’s mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. NASA is targeting launch at 12:31 p.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 10, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-sets-coverage-for-europa-clipper-launch-to-jupiter-moon/
When Benevolence Fades
date: 2024-10-03, from: Tedium site
The WordPress situation devolves further, which raises an obvious question: What does this mean for every other open-source project?
https://feed.tedium.co/link/15204/16832724/wordpress-wp-engine-lawsuit-open-source-impact
NASA’s Laser Comms Demo Makes Deep Space Record, Completes First Phase
date: 2024-10-03, from: NASA breaking news
The Deep Space Optical Communications tech demo has completed several key milestones, culminating in sending a signal to Mars’ farthest distance from Earth. NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications technology demonstration broke yet another record for laser communications this summer by sending a laser signal from Earth to NASA’s Psyche spacecraft about 290 million miles (460 […]
How the port strike might play out on grocery shelves
date: 2024-10-03, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Will the ongoing port strike lead to food shortages? It depends on both businesses and shoppers. Plus, retailers bet on big consumer spending this holiday season, OpenAI’s massive new valuation, and a “temperature check” on U.S.-China economic relations.
Fujitsu teams up with Supermicro on Arm-based server CPU
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Liquid cooling on the mind
Fujitsu and server maker Supermicro are jointly working on a platform featuring Fujitsu’s upcoming Arm-based high-performance MONAKA processor, as well as liquid cooling systems.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/fujitsu_arm_supermicro1/
How NASA Astronauts Vote from Space Aboard International Space Station
date: 2024-10-03, from: NASA breaking news
NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station have the opportunity to vote in general elections through absentee ballots or early voting in coordination with the county clerk’s office where they live. So, how is voting from space possible? Through NASA’s Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) Program. Similar to most data transmitted between the space station […]
https://www.nasa.gov/general/how-nasa-astronauts-vote-from-space-aboard-international-space-station/
GPM Celebrates Ten Years of Observing Precipitation for Science and Society
date: 2024-10-03, from: NASA breaking news
Introduction On February 27, 2014, the four-ton Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory (CO) spacecraft launched aboard a Japanese H-IIA rocket from Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan. On that day, the GPM mission, a joint Earth-observing mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), began its journey to provide the world with […]
Redox’ progress in September 2024
date: 2024-10-03, from: OS News
Hot on the heels of releasing Redox 0.9.0, the team is back with yet another monthly update. Understandably, it’s not as massive of an update as other months, but there’s still more than enough here. There’s the usual bug fixes and small changes, but also more work on the port to RISC-V, the QEMU port (as in, running QEMU on Redox), a bunch of improvements to Relibc, and a lot more.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140850/redox-progress-in-september-2024/
Russia to try American accused of being Ukrainian mercenary in secret
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
MOSCOW — The trial of a 72-year-old American man whom Russia accuses of working as a mercenary for Ukraine will take place behind closed doors, and the verdict will be announced Monday, Russian state media reported.
Stephen Hubbard is accused of signing a $1,000-per-month contract with a Ukrainian territorial defense unit in the city of Izyum in February 2022. He was captured by Russian forces in April that year, and he faces a sentence of seven to 15 years if convicted.
The RIA news agency said the judge on Thursday accepted a prosecutor’s request to hold the proceedings in secret to ensure the safety of the participants. It was not clear why the prosecutor believed an open trial would have placed them at risk.
RIA said Hubbard himself supported the move, saying he did not want outsiders to be present. RIA reported earlier that he had pleaded guilty to the charges. Another state agency, TASS, said the verdict would come on October 7.
A U.S. embassy spokesperson said: “We are aware of reports of the arrest of an American citizen. Due to privacy restrictions, we are unable to comment any further.”
Prosecutors have said Hubbard was provided with training, weapons and ammunition when he allegedly signed up.
Hubbard’s sister Patricia Fox and another relative have cast doubt on his reported confession, saying he held pro-Russian views and was unlikely to have taken up arms at his age.
“He never had a gun, owned a gun, done any of that. … He’s more of a pacifist,” Fox told Reuters last month.
Hubbard is one of at least 10 U.S. nationals behind bars in Russia.
Average North American CISO salary now $565K, mainly thanks to one weird trick
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Best way to boost your package is to leave, or pretend to
A survey of nearly 700 CISOs in the US and Canada has found that salaries have risen over the last year to an average of $565,000 and a median of $403,000, with the top 10 percent of execs pulling in over $1 million.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/ciso_salary_survey/
Windows 11 version 24H2 is now available for download
date: 2024-10-03, from: OS News
Windows 11 2024 Update, also known as version 24H2, is now publicly available. Microsoft announced the rollout alongside the new AI-powered features that are coming soon to Windows Insiders with Copilot+ PCs and Copilot upgrades. Unlike recent Windows 11 updates, version 24H2 is a “full operating system swap,” so updating to it will take more time than usual. What is going as usual is the way the update is being offered to users. Microsoft is gradually rolling out the update to “seekers” with Windows 11 versions 22H2 and 23H2. That means you need to go to the Settings app and manually request the update. ↫ Taras Buria at Neowin I’ve said it a few times before but I completely lost track of how Windows releases and updates work at this point. I thought this version and its features had been available for ages already, but apparently I was wrong, and it’s only being released now. For now, you can get it by opting in through Windows Update, while the update will be pushed to everyone later on. I really wish Microsoft would move to a simpler, more straightforward release model and cadence, but alas. Anyway, this version brings all the AI/ML CoPilot stuff, WiFi 7 support, improvements to File Explorer and the system tray, the addition of the sudo command, and more. The changes to Explorer are kind of hilarious to me, as Microsoft seems to have finally figured out labels are a good thing – the weird copy/cut/paste buttons in the context menu have labels now – but this enhanced context menu still has its own context menu. Explorer now also comes with support for more compression formats, which is a welcome change in 2007. To gain access to the new sudo command, go to Settings > System > For developers and enable the option. For the rest, this isn’t a very impactful release, and will do little to convince the much larger Windows 10 userbase to switch to Windows 11, something that’s going to be a real problem for Microsoft in the coming year.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140848/windows-11-version-24h2-is-now-available-for-download/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
2004: Anatomy of an iPodder.
https://web.archive.org/web/20041126050831/http://secrets.scripting.com/anatomyIpodder
Submer dives into $55.5M funding to cool down hot-blooded AI datacenters
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Tech’s consumption of water and energy driving interest in liquid cooling
Cooling specialist Submer has scored $55.5 million in a fresh funding round to fuel expansion, touting its tech as part of a more sustainable way to operate datacenters – something sorely needed in the era of AI.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/submer_liquid_cooling_funding/
Gateway Stands Tall for Stress Test
date: 2024-10-03, from: NASA breaking news
Gateway space station’s Habitation and Logistics Outpost has successfully completed static load testing in Turin, Italy. With this phase of stress testing complete, the module is one step closer to final outfitting ahead of launch to lunar orbit.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/gateway/gateway-stands-tall-for-stress-test/
NASA’s LRO: Lunar Ice Deposits are Widespread
date: 2024-10-03, from: NASA breaking news
Deposits of ice in lunar dust and rock (regolith) are more extensive than previously thought, according to a new analysis of data from NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) mission. Ice would be a valuable resource for future lunar expeditions. Water could be used for radiation protection and supporting human explorers, or broken into its hydrogen […]
https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/moon/nasas-lro-lunar-ice-deposits-are-widespread/
Improving Search, Removing Dead-Ends
date: 2024-10-03, from: Open Library Blog
Thanks to the work of 2024 Design & Engineering Fellow Meredith White, the Open Library search page now suggests Search Inside results any time a search fails to find books matching by title or author. Before: After: The planning and development of this feature were led by volunteer and 2024 Design & Engineering Fellow, Meredith […]
https://blog.openlibrary.org/2024/10/03/improving-search-removing-dead-ends/
FEMA Is Running Out of Money
date: 2024-10-03, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Typhoon Krathon has made landfall in Tawain with 100 mph wind gusts • Hurricane Kirk became a Category 3 storm but is not yet threatening land • The October heat wave baking California has yet to break.
THE TOP FIVE
- Hurricane Helene recovery drains FEMA funds
The death toll from Hurricane Helene is nearing 200, which makes it the second-deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since 2000. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 killed 1,392 people. President Biden and Vice President Harris toured affected areas yesterday, alongside Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “We have towns that have disappeared, literally,” Mayorkas said. “This is a multi-billion-dollar, multi-year recovery.” Search and rescue operations continue in remote Appalachia, with nearly 5,000 federal personnel on the ground. Mayorkas said the government had shipped “over 8.8 million meals, more than 7.4 million liters of water, 150 generators, and more than 225,000 tarps to the region.” He warned that FEMA “does not have the funds” to get through the rest of hurricane season.
Meanwhile, election officials are working to restore some level of secure voting access in hard-hit North Carolina, a battleground state in the upcoming presidential election. More than 190,000 people in the state had requested mail-in ballots before Helene, but the Postal Service has suspended operations, Grist reported. “The destruction is unprecedented and this level of uncertainty this close to Election Day is daunting,” Karen Brinson Bell, one of North Carolina’s top election officials, told reporters.
2. Report: Tri-state area homes at serious risk of flooding
A new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found more than 1 million homes (and their 4 million occupants) in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut are at serious risk of flooding – ranking among the top 25% of riskiest properties in the country. This includes some inland areas like Buffalo and Newark. In Brooklyn, the number of households at risk exceeds those of anywhere else in the tri-state area. More than 400,000 of the buildings that are at risk of flooding in these states are located in low- or moderate-income communities. “This risk has grown in recent years and is projected to continue increasing,” the report said.
Federal
Reserve Bank of New York
- Damage at Palisades nuclear plant ‘far exceeded’ estimates
The Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan has damage in its steam generators that “far exceeded” estimates, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The plant shut down in 2022 but is aiming to re-open late next year. This week the Energy Department finalized over $2.8 billion in loans and grants to help restart the plant and generate emissions-free power. The NRC found that 1,163 steam generator tubes showed signs of stress corrosion cracking, which the plant’s owner, Holtec, said it wasn’t surprised given that the plant was not maintained during its shutdown. Holtec said the damage would be repaired and that they’re still on track to re-open next year. “Steam generators are sensitive components that require meticulous maintenance and are among the most expensive units at a nuclear power station,” according to Reuters.
- Illinois CCS facility pauses activity due to possible leak
Over in Illinois, the first large-scale industrial carbon capture and storage facility in the U.S. is reportedly leaking. Archer-Daniels-Midland has paused operations at the site in Decatur after signs of a potential brine fluid leak were detected at the end of September. Some locals are worried the facility could threaten drinking water, a concern ADM has dismissed.
- Study: ‘Climate shocks’ associated with rise in violence against
women
A new study published in the journal PLOS Climate finds that some “climate shocks” – like storms, floods, and landslides – are associated with a rise in violence against women that can linger for two years. The researchers examined data about intimate partner violence taken from 363 surveys across 156 countries between 1993 and 2019. They compared this data to climate shocks and found a significant link. The relationship was exacerbated in poorer countries. Interestingly, climate shocks such as earthquakes and wildfires did not appear connected to higher rates of violence against women, but the researchers can’t figure out exactly why. “We need further work to understand why these disasters impact on violence against women, and climate resilience strategies need to consider how to integrate violence prevention in the future,” said study co-author Dr. Andrew Gibbs, a social psychologist at the University of Exeter.
THE KICKER
Tesla announced third-quarter sales figures yesterday, revealing that global sales were up 6.4%. This marks the first quarterly increase this year, perhaps signaling an EV rebound.
https://heatmap.news/climate/fema-funding-hurricane-helene
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
“Part of being a Mets fan is the pain.”
Two British-Nigerian men sentenced over multimillion-dollar business email scam
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Fraudsters targeted local government, colleges, and construction firms in Texas and North Carolina
Two British-Nigerian men were sentenced for serious business email compromise schemes in the US this week, netting them millions of dollars from local government entities, construction companies, and colleges.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/british_nigerian_scammers_sentenced/
How Climate Change Shaped Hurricane Helene
date: 2024-10-03, from: Heatmap News
This is a special Hurricane Helene edition of Shift Key. Our regular programming will resume next week.
Nearly a week after Hurricane Helene made landfall, we are still coming to terms with the scale of its destruction. The storm killed at least 182 people, making it the deadliest cyclone to make landfall in the continental United States since Katrina. From Tampa Bay to Asheville, North Carolina, it caused the worst hurricane-related damage in a century.
Why was Hurricane Helene so bad? Why did it cause such horrible flooding in western North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia? And did climate change have anything to do with its destruction? To answer these questions, Rob and Jesse speak with Gabriel Vecchi, a Princeton geoscientist and one of the world’s top experts on hurricanes and climate change. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer is the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins is a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.
Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Jesse Jenkins: One of the things that always strikes me, too, about these sorts of events is, you know, think about a dam or a levy, right? It is resilient to the point where it’s not, right? You can have one more inch of rainfall, and that’s what it takes to overtop the dam, or to flood the river banks, or these kinds of things.
And so we have designed so much of our civil infrastructure for these one-in-100-year events, what used to be one-in-100-year events, right? The design specs were for that infrastructure. And now those probability distributions are shifting, and the kinds of events that can overwhelm the design basis of this infrastructure are much more probable.
And you go, it’s not like this event was 20% more intense, and so the damage is 20% more. It’s a binary thing. You go from something that our systems were designed to handle to something that they weren’t, and they break in spectacularly damaging ways. And that’s what I see when I look at these kinds of events. This is not the first flooding that we’ve seen in Appalachia, right? We have built out a flood control system because this happens in river valleys in the mountains, where water gets concentrated.
But this kind of rainfall event was so catastrophic because it just overtopped all of that infrastructure. And like you said, there’s very little you can do, once the infrastructure is fixed, to prepare once you see a storm like this coming. We have to really rethink all of the civil infrastructure planning that we’re doing, and that’s just going to take so much time and so much investment.
Gabriel Vecchi: Well, but I think you’re getting there to the issue of the time scales, right? So the National Weather Service did a phenomenal job of predicting this. But this could only be predicted on time scales of days. In order to change our infrastructure, in order to find an infrastructure that is better, it’s a question of years and decades, and maybe longer. And I think there, we need to be forward-thinking. It is important to see this as a call to think about what can start doing now so that in 10 years, in 20 years, whoever is in this situation is in a better position to handle whatever’s there.
Part of it, of course, is going to be to improve our forecasts, to make them longer range, more reliable, capture the universe of possibilities that a weather event can throw our way. But part of it is going to be relatively … maybe sophisticated is not the right word — build actual things on the ground that are different, right? Put rebar in concrete places, rethink the way that we site our buildings, rethink the way that we, where we take water up from. And one way to look at that is as a challenge. Another way to look at that is an opportunity.
I went to, initially, to college, I wanted to be an engineer. I wanted to build bridges. That was my, coming out of high school, I want to be a part of building things. And as I was in college, I realized, number one, I couldn’t take any electives. I didn’t like that. But number two, we weren’t really building many things. And it was sort of like, I wanted to build things right now.
We’re in a position where we do need to build things. We should be building a lot of things. This is, in a way, a call to opportunity.
This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …
Watershed’s climate data engine helps companies measure and reduce their emissions, turning the data they already have into an audit-ready carbon footprint backed by the latest climate science. Get the sustainability data you need in weeks, not months. Learn more at watershed.com.
As a global leader in PV and ESS solutions, Sungrow invests heavily in research and development, constantly pushing the boundaries of solar and battery inverter technology. Discover why Sungrow is the essential component of the clean energy transition by visiting sungrowpower.com.
Intersolar & Energy Storage North America is the premier U.S.-based conference and trade show focused on solar, energy storage, and EV charging infrastructure. To learn more, visit intersolar.us.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.
https://heatmap.news/podcast/shift-key-s2-hurricane-helene
The Ritual Without the Alcohol
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/10/03/the-ritual-without-the-alcohol/
NASA switches off instrument on Voyager 2 spacecraft to save power
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
A Junk Dealer Discovered a ‘Horrible’ Painting in a Cellar 60 Years Ago. It Might Be a $6.6 Million Picasso
date: 2024-10-03, from: Smithsonian Magazine
For years, the owner’s son had wondered about the artwork, which features the Spanish painter’s signature. Now, some experts think it’s the real deal
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
John Roberts' Sordid Legacy: 14 Pages of Mean Tweets.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/10/03/john-roberts-sordid-legacy-14-pages-of-mean-tweets/
NASA switches off Voyager 2 plasma instrument to stretch out juice
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Veteran probe set to score a half-century while still doing science
Engineers have turned off Voyager 2’s plasma science instrument in an effort to eke out the veteran probe’s dwindling power supply.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/voyager_2_plasma_instrument/
West Coast ports kick into high gear
date: 2024-10-03, from: Marketplace Morning Report
As we enter day three of port strikes along the East and Gulf Coasts, ports on the West Coast are fielding record high amounts of diverted cargo. Plus, reassessing the legality of election betting, and the knock-on effects of stricter new SNAP requirements for older adults.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/west-coast-ports-kick-into-high-gear
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
I'm still waiting for the podcast client that can subscribe to OPML lists, so I can subscribe to shows from my desktop. If one of them did, we could start curated lists of feeds put together by smart people and influencers.
http://scripting.com/2024/10/01.html#a145535
Hurricane Helene Shutters ‘Critical’ Quartz Mines That Power the World’s Electronics, Solar Panels and A.I.
date: 2024-10-03, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The small town of Spruce Pine, North Carolina, is one of the only sources of high-purity quartz on Earth, but it has been left battered by the storm’s heavy rains
Dockworkers join other unions in trying to fend off automation, or minimize impact
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
The force is strong in Iceberg: Are the table format wars entering the final chapter?
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Former Apple engineer and Apache PMC member Russell Spitzer describes efforts to unite around a single format
Interview In June, Databricks shelled out $1 billion for Tabular, a startup backer of the open source Apache Iceberg table format, signalling just how important the rather niche topic had become. It was a move which shocked the Iceberg community.…
Nikkei 225 soars on interest rate comments
date: 2024-10-03, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: The Japanese stock market gains followed Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba saying the time wasn’t right for further increases in borrowing costs. Elsewhere, a court in Singapore has sentenced former transport minister S. Iswaran to 12 months in prison for corruption and obstruction of justice; he’s the first former or sitting cabinet minister in the city-state to be jailed. And in order to combat droughts which disrupt the workings of the Panama Canal, the Canal Authority is planning to build a new reservoir — but opponents say it’ll displace thousands of people.
Ransomware crew infects 100+ orgs monthly with new MedusaLocker variant
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Crooks ‘like a sysadmin, with a malicious slant’
Exclusive An extortionist armed with a new variant of MedusaLocker ransomware has infected more than 100 organizations a month since at least 2022, according to Cisco Talos, which recently discovered a “substantial” Windows credential data dump that sheds light on the criminal and their victims.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/ransomware_spree_infects_100_orgs/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The Making of Mork and Mindy.
https://gizmodo.com/everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-the-making-o-1745756292
Brits hate how big tech handles their data, but can’t be bothered to do much about it
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Managing the endless stream of cookie banners leaves little energy for anything else
Fewer than one in five Brits report being happy with the way their personal data is handled by big tech companies, yet the furthest many will go is to reject optional cookies on the web.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/dsit_web_tracking_survey/
Mega supermarket spots stock discrepancy of tens of millions amid ERP system migration
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
British retailer Asda admits tech divorce from former owner Walmart has been delayed again
Exclusive Asda, the UK’s third largest retailer, discovered a multi-million pound discrepancy between its distribution system and SAP ERP tech installed earlier this year, according to an internal Major Incident report seen by The Register.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/asda_21m_discrepancy_erp/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trump election interference trial: Jack Smith's big new Jan. 6 brief is a major indictment of the Supreme Court.
MongoDB rebuts claims it’s not ready for business critical workloads
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Shifting battle-hardened systems to document model – are your skills and tools ready?
MongoDB has used the release of version 8.0 to defend its viability as the underpinning of business-critical transactional systems.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/mongodb_business_critical_critics/
In India, pride in Harris’s run for US presidency, but excitement missing
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
NEW DELHI — In the small South Indian village of Thulasendrapuram, where U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s maternal grandfather once lived, locals and priests have prayed to the local deity at a Hindu temple for her victory as she runs for the U.S. presidency.
In the capital, New Delhi, many express pride that one of the candidates for the world’s most powerful office has Indian roots – she is the daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father.
But Harris has failed to enthuse others who feel she never built on her Indian connection during her vice presidency.
“It’s quite exciting for someone like me who is a common girl around town,” said New Delhi resident, Simran Singh.
Another city resident, Nandita Soni, and her husband watched Harris debate her opponent, former U.S. President Donald Trump, last month.
“I think she won hands down. Of course, there is a sense of pride for us. That she is, firstly, a woman and then of Indian heritage, feels really good,” Soni said.
Harris is not the only Indian connection to the American presidential race. Usha Vance, the wife of Republican vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance, is also the daughter of Indian immigrants.
Not many in India have heard of Usha Vance. Those who have, see it as a tribute to a country where immigrants can make a mark.
“I think both of them having a role in the elections is a very good thing for our Indian heritage and diaspora, but I think it is much more important for the American system,” said Shyam Bajpai, a retired professional. He praises Harris for “reviving the Democrat Party’s energy after a very difficult moment with Mr. Biden.”
However, the euphoria witnessed in India four years ago when Harris became vice president is missing. She hosted a luncheon for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year during his state visit to Washington, where she spoke of her deep personal connection to India. In interviews she has said that her introduction to the concepts of equality, freedom and democracy came from her Indian grandfather during her visits to her maternal family’s hometown, Chennai, when she was young.
But some point out that she neither visited India during her tenure as vice president nor emphasized her Indian identity much while in office.
“To be honest we did not hear much of her in India, because as vice president, her connections with India were not all that great,” said Pradeep Bhargava, a New Delhi resident. “We were not getting much news about her.”
That may be why many young Indians ask: Who is Kamala Harris?
“I think she is not on social media,” said Simar Kaur, an undergraduate student in Delhi University. “I get most of the news from social media only.”
But IT professionals who have long eyed the United States for career opportunities are excited about the possibility of an American president with roots in India. “I am sure this will help in more job opportunities for Indians in the future,” said software engineer Vishal Chabra. “It will be good for India as well.”
Those who are tracking the U.S. race see Harris’s bid as another huge milestone for its diaspora in Western countries – Rishi Sunak, who became British Prime Minister in 2022 but lost in July, was also of Indian origin. They also point to the success of Indian Americans who have risen to the top of the corporate ladder in the U.S., heading companies like Google.
“With UK also and now America, Indians are all the way, and it is the way to go from them,” said Soni.
MASTER PLAN Bonus: The Federalist Society’s “Pipeline For Power”
date: 2024-10-03, from: The Lever News
How the former campus law organization dug its claws into the federal judiciary.
https://www.levernews.com/master-plan-bonus-the-federalist-societys-pipeline-for-power/
Fujitsu, Supermicro, team for Arm-based servers
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
MONAKA processor due in 2027 to be worked into liquid-cooled rackscale hardware
Fujitsu on Wednesday announced a collaboration that Supermicro to build liquid-cooled servers based on the Japanese giant’s forthcoming Arm-based MONAKA processor.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/fujitsu_arm_supermicro/
Microsoft lifts the price of System Center by ten percent
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
For version 2025, out on November 1st and adding various modern goodies
Microsoft has revealed that the 2025 edition of its System Center management tool will debut on November 1st, at prices ten percent higher that it charged for its predecessor.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/system_center_2025_price_rise/
How I Use This Site
date: 2024-10-03, from: Jessica Smith’s blog
I wanted to write a blog post with some thoughts I’ve been having about how I’ve been using this site in recent times, and how that’s likely to change (or not) in the short to medium-term. Basically, as you may have noticed, I’ve been posting much less this year (and even last year) than I used to, in the early years of me having this site. There are a couple of reasons for that, which mainly boil down to me just not being in a frame of mind to blog so much. I’ve been pregnant for most of the year, which has sapped me of a lot of the energy I used to have. I also kind of don’t want to blog about being pregnant all the time, but it’s been such a big thing going on in my life that it’s like I have no ideas for anything else to blog about! It’s just… a weird time. What else can I say?
Another thing that’s been going on is that I’ve been posting much more on Mastodon in the first instance, and then copying posts back here – often in a big batch – when I find the energy at some point down the line. In IndieWeb parlance, I’ve been PESOSing, not POSSEing (and often, like I say, significantly after I first posted the posts on Mastodon). I feel like the whole “IndieWeb” approach to online socialising, which appealed to me so much when I first came across the idea, worked really well for so long as I had the enthusiasm to keep up with janky multi-step publication workflows… but as time has gone on, it’s come to feel like a hassle. It’s so much easier to post on Mastodon than it is to post on my own site, especially from my phone. I do have an Indiekit server which is supposed to make posting on this site just as hassle-free, but see “janky multi-step publication workflows”… it’s not the fault of Indiekit itself but it feels like there’s always some reason why it doesn’t work. The server (deployed on fly.io) crashes for no good reason. The authentication to GitLab somehow breaks. I make a mistake not escaping an apostrophe in an image’s alt text and then the Hugo rebuild fails and I can’t fix it until I get back on my computer. Considering I feel like the vast majority of people who read my posts read them via Mastodon anyway, I just can’t be bothered any more! There are some things I do post here exclusively (mainly link posts), or here simultaneously with Mastodon, but I can only do that from my computer, which I’m not using 100% of the time. Otherwise it’s a lot easier to post first there, and use this site to archive those posts.
And I mean, as I suggested, I am currently very pregnant. I’m anticipating that once Baby is here, an even larger proportion of the “internet time” that I have will be via my phone, rather than via my computer, and I’ll probably have less “internet time” overall too. So… that suggests to me that I’m not going to get back to using this site as a “home base”, and POSSEing out from here, any time soon.
Which is not to say that I’m “giving up” on having a personal site, by
any means. Certainly, even if I do post first on Mastodon, I like that
archiving posts here means I’m way more able to find them again later.
If I want to browse all the Gidget pics I’ve posted, or the thoughts
I’ve posted about pretty much any specific topic, I can do so using the
tag archive pages here (or the search function). Mastodon makes it a lot
harder to browse old posts. Mastodon is also not a place to post
full-length blog posts (like this one) so if and when I have one of
those to put out there, those’ll be going up here first. I also like
having a personal wiki
(even if I’ve found that pages on anything topical are freaking
impossible to keep updated), dedicated “sections” for link posts and
book reviews, the ability to create alternate language versions to
further my
auxlanging
hobby, and so forth… I mean, I could solve a lot of my own problems by
migrating back to
Micro.blog
if all I wanted was a blog (micro + macro combined), but I like having
the freedom to keep adding stuff to this site beyond the standard blog
posts. I just don’t always have the energy to keep them updated once I
do. But the good thing about using
Hugo
is that a deployed static website isn’t going to break if I don’t update
it. (That said, the bad thing about Hugo is that sometimes a
new version of Hugo itself comes out that fucks up something I’ve been
doing with this website. That’s generally not fun to try to resolve when
I’m lacking the energy for website workflow debugging in the first
place. So, I have to be careful not to cavalierly run brew
upgrade on my computer unless I’m prepared to risk losing the
ability to locally preview stuff, haha.) So you know, this post isn’t
really to say I’m going to be changing anything about this site. It’s
more to acknowledge the way I’ve already been using it, over the last
few months.
I do wish the IndieWeb would be easier for people who aren’t professional-tier web developers who can code their own CMSes and admin their own servers. Or maybe I’m just in an awkward place where my wants are too “advanced” for a ready-made solution like Micro.blog but I also don’t have the skills (or consistent enthusiasm) to maintain something bespoke. And honestly, I feel like I’m seeing this loss of enthusiasm among other “IndieWeb but not diehards about it” people that I used to follow on Micro.blog… and still do follow on Micro.blog, technically, but I so rarely even open my Micro.blog timeline any more (instead following Micro.blog accounts on Mastodon, if not the person’s Mastodon account). People are using federated social media more, and trying other blogging platforms like Bear and Pika (or continuing with their own blogging setups like me, but pulling away from more specific “IndieWeb” stuff like POSSEing or webmentions). This just seems easier, or more pleasant or something for a lot of people. I don’t know. I mean, it’s a hobby, right, so we’ve got to do what we have to to make it enjoyable for ourselves, or else there’s no point.
So, how do I even wrap this up now? I guess, if you want to follow my updates online, your best bet is to follow my Mastodon account . Feel free to follow whichever of this site’s RSS feeds you like, too – there’s likely to be some stuff (mainly link posts) that I don’t also post on Mastodon – but just be warned that microblog posts are likely to come in batches some time down the track from when they were actually written (but the timestamps should be accurate for the original time of writing). My life is changing, and I don’t have the energy to keep on top of this site the way I used to, but it’s not going anywhere! And it’s totally possible that one day I’ll have more capacity for it all again. At any rate… in the meantime, keep up with you all over there!
https://www.jayeless.net/2024/10/how-i-use-this-site.html
‘Undigestible rate of change’ sees vendor supergroup create ‘The Open Compute of AI’
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
It’s called ‘Cosmos’ and Nvidia, Cisco, X, SuperMicro and VAST Data all think it will help – them and you
A group of top enterprise vendors feel that AI is changing so fast it’s “undigestible” to many, so they’ve created an org they hope will function like the Open Compute Project so you don’t make a meal of it.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/cosmos_ai_community_vast_data/
Biden, Harris tour hurricane-affected states
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday visited areas hit hard by Hurricane Helene, where more than a million people remain without power and the death toll is climbing. Biden offered as many as 1,000 active-duty soldiers to support the response effort. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Washington.
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-harris-tour-hurricane-affected-states/7808691.html
OpenStack Dalmatian debuts with a new dashboard, better security and GPU-wrangling
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
If you think VMware has gone to the dogs, maybe check it out?
OpenStack Dalmatian, the 30th edition of the open source cloud stack, has bounded out of the kennel.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/openstack_dalmatian/
Conservative think tank pushes US to continue engagement in Pacific
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
washington — U.S. engagement with a string of Pacific Island nations must continue, regardless of which party wins the White House, the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation said in a newly published report.
The islands, situated between Hawaii and Australia, are the latest front of competition between Washington and Beijing.
In the 45-page report, Andrew Harding, a research assistant in the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, argues that it’s time to make the case to taxpayers and Washington policymakers that investing in the Pacific Islands is money well-spent because it “counters Chinese ambitions” and denies Beijing a foothold “that can threaten U.S. national security interests and complicate possible future military operations in Asia.”
That argument appears convincing to some China hawks in the Republican Party.
Alexander Velez-Green, former national security adviser to Republican Senator Josh Hawley, called the report “a compelling vision,” telling VOA in a statement, “The Pacific Islands are key terrain in America’s efforts to balance power against China.”
Likewise, former Asia adviser in the Trump administration Alexander Gray said the Heritage report would benefit “whoever is president in January 2025.”
“I expect a Trump 2.0 would only expand on this important work,” Gray wrote in response to VOA’s emailed questions.
The Heritage Foundation now employs many former Trump administration officials. Last year it released Project 2025, a controversial series of proposals to staff and shape policy for a second Trump White House. Former President Donald Trump has sought to distance himself from the effort, even as his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, claims it defines his policies.
John Hennessey-Niland, who served as U.S. ambassador to Palau from 2020 to 2022, argues that Harding’s message may convince policymakers in Washington but addresses only one of the region’s problems.
“The Pacific Islands are concerned about PRC interference and coercion, but it is not the only threat they face. Other concerns include climate and their own capacity to provide for their people,” Hennessey-Niland told VOA via a statement, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China.
Kathryn Paik agrees. She served as director for the Pacific and Southeast Asia at the National Security Council under President Joe Biden and now works as a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“Making U.S. Pacific engagement ‘all about China’ neglects precisely what can enable the U.S.-Pacific relationship to grow deeper than anything China could ever hope to have — our history, our culture and our shared values,” she told VOA in response to emailed questions.
Harding said he is just saying the quiet part out loud.
“America’s primary driver is U.S.-China competition and the threats that it poses to America’s national interests and the security of its people,” he told VOA Tuesday in an interview.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has traveled to the Pacific Islands to meet one on one with the leaders of Fiji and Papua New Guinea. He also has hosted numerous other Pacific Islands heads of state in Beijing.
In contrast, the White House has only held joint meetings with Pacific Islands leaders, and Biden has not traveled to the nations.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.
While analysts differ over the report’s rationale for deeper engagement in the Pacific, they say many of the 31 policy recommendations have bipartisan appeal, including appointing a special envoy for the Pacific Islands, creating more positions at key departments to oversee outreach and planning a presidential visit to a Pacific Islands state.
Greg Brown, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said the appointment of a special envoy is vital to sustained U.S. engagement.
He said the real challenge is convincing the 535 members of the U.S. Congress to increase foreign assistance to the Pacific Islands when few American voters even know where they are, much less why they’re important to U.S. national security.
“Anything requiring funding from Congress will be a chore — not because the demands are large or fiscal-burden heavy, but because members and staffs need constant reminders why securing U.S. interests in this region are imperative,” Brown told VOA in an interview.
He added that the special envoy should be a “heavyweight appointment … with the ear of the president” and the “diplomatic skill to navigate and drive changes” across Washington.
Israel-Iran escalation heightens fears of widening war, direct US involvement
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
For months, U.S. President Joe Biden has warned Israel against allowing its war with Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza to spread against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran itself. But with Israel fighting in Lebanon and vowing retaliation for Tehran’s missile attacks, many fear that moment has come. VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara looks at the potential for further escalation and the possibility of U.S. direct involvement.
Get ready: US port strike likely to snarl tech supply chains
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Time to see if industry learned anything from the last shortage crisis
Dockworkers at American ports from Maine to Texas have gone on strike, and experts are warning it won’t be long before the tech sector feels a supply chain pinch that could easily stretch into the beginning of next year. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/us_port_strike_tech_impact/
Tribes celebrate end of largest dam removal project in US history
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
Cybersecurity head says there’s no chance a foreign adversary can change US election results
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Nearly a month out from Election Day, the head of the nation’s cybersecurity agency is forcefully reassuring Americans who have been swept into the chaotic churn of election disinformation and distrust that they will be able to feel confident in the outcome.
State and local election officials have made so much progress in securing voting, ballot-counting and other election infrastructure that the system is more robust than it has ever been, said Jen Easterly, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. As a result, she said, there is no way Russia, Iran or any other foreign adversary will be able to alter the results.
“Malicious actors, even if they tried, could not have an impact at scale such that there would be a material effect on the outcome of the election,” Easterly told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday.
Easterly’s trust in the election process comes as intelligence officials have warned of escalating efforts by foreign adversaries to influence voters, deepen partisan divides and undermine faith in U.S. elections.
Her comments stand in contrast to the doubts millions of Americans, especially Republicans, have held since the 2020 election when former President Donald Trump refused to accept his loss. He has built on his false claims of vote rigging since then, setting the stage to claim the election has been stolen if he loses again this November.
Easterly touched on a range of election-related concerns — including misinformation, her agency’s role in interacting with social media companies and ongoing threats to election workers — during the 40-minute interview, which came as mail ballots are being sent out and some states have started early in-person voting. She also said her agency is in touch with election officials throughout the regions of the Southeast that have been ravaged by Hurricane Helene and praised those workers for “displaying enormous and admirable resilience” as they try to ensure that voters are able to cast their ballots despite the devastation.
Recognizing that many Americans’ confidence in elections “has been shaken,” Easterly emphasized how prepared election officials are for emergencies, simple mistakes and attacks — and how motivated they are to protect Americans’ votes.
Election officials have worked in recent years to boost cybersecurity defenses around the nation’s voting systems, implementing procedures ranging from access controls to regular testing to identify potential vulnerabilities. Officials also test voting equipment before every election to ensure it works properly.
Easterly pointed to layers of security and transparency — such as the paper record of votes in more than 97% of voting jurisdictions — as protections that will help verify the results.
“Things will go wrong. There could be another storm. There could be a ransomware attack, a distributed denial of service attack,” she said. “These disruptions will create effects, but they will not impact the ability and the votes being cast or those votes being counted.”
U.S. officials have spent recent months warning through criminal charges, sanctions and public advisories that foreign adversaries are ramping up their efforts to influence voters in the race for the White House.
The Biden administration last month seized more than two dozen Kremlin-run fake websites and charged two Russian state media employees in a scheme to covertly fund right-wing influencers. Last week, three Iranian operatives were charged with hacking the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Intelligence agencies and tech companies have tracked both Russian and Iranian actors using fake websites and social media profiles to spread misinformation, stoke division and potentially sway American voters. Iran and Russia have sought to influence past U.S. elections through online disinformation and hacking. Easterly noted that China also was “very interested” in influencing the 2024 election.
Beyond the influence campaigns, she said her agency had not detected any activity targeting election systems.
“We have not seen specific cyber activity designed to interfere with actual election infrastructure or processes,” Easterly said.
The prevalence of election misinformation has become a widespread concern. One consequence is what Easterly described as a troubling uptick in physical threats against election officials of both parties and, in some cases, their families, often based on false claims about the 2020 election. She called it “corrosive” to democracy and said it’s something the public needs to collectively fight.
“Those election officials, they are not faceless bureaucrats,” Easterly said. “They’re folks we see in the community every single day. And they’re not doing this for pay. They’re not doing it for glory. They are doing it because they believe in the process of democracy.”
Many secretaries of state and some larger local election offices have established specific efforts to combat the misinformation.
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee, last week wrote a letter to Easterly that urged the agency to take further steps against election misinformation and disinformation, including coordinating with social media platforms to combat false claims.
In the interview, Easterly acknowledged “a very convoluted, very confusing information environment,” and said her agency works with election officials to promote accurate information. However, she also made it clear that her agency does not monitor social media sites or attempt to moderate their content.
“That is not our role,” she said.
On the heels of Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance, accusing the federal government of “censorship” in Tuesday night’s debate between the vice presidential candidates, Easterly strongly defended her agency, known as CISA.
“CISA does not censor, has never censored,” she said. “And allegations against CISA are riddled with factual inaccuracies.”
CISA, along with other federal agencies, was part of a lawsuit filed by Republican-led states claiming the federal government had applied “unrelenting pressure” to coerce changes in online content on social media platforms. In a 6-3 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court said the states did not have a legal right to sue.
Easterly encouraged voters who question how elections are run to contact their local election office and even volunteer to serve as poll workers so they understand the process and the safeguards already in place. She also warned that foreign adversaries almost certainly will seek to take advantage of the vote-counting process after Election Day as a way to undermine confidence in the results. She urged voters to be patient, emphasizing that it could take several days for a presidential winner to be determined.
“We need to come together as Americans to protect and preserve what is most precious,” she said. “And that is the foundation of our democracy — fair, free, safe and secure elections.”
US bans new types of goods from China over allegations of forced labor
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
washington — The Department of Homeland Security announced Wednesday that it would ban the import of goods from a Chinese steel manufacturer and a Chinese maker of artificial sweetener, accusing both of being involved in the use of forced labor from China’s far-west region of Xinjiang.
The action broadens the scope of the U.S. effort to stop products from entering the country that the government says are tied to human rights abuses.
The additions to the entity list under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act marked the first time a China-based steel company or aspartame sweetener business had been targeted by U.S. law enforcement, DHS said.
“Today’s actions reaffirm our commitment to eliminating forced labor from U.S. supply chains and upholding our values of human rights for all,” said Robert Silvers, undersecretary of homeland security for policy. “No sector is off-limits. We will continue to identify entities across industries and hold accountable those who seek to profit from exploitation and abuse.”
The federal law that President Joe Biden signed at the end of 2021 followed allegations of human rights abuses by Beijing against members of the ethnic Uyghur group and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. The Chinese government has rejected the claims as lies and has defended its practice and policy in Xinjiang as fighting terror and ensuring stability.
The new approach marked a shift in the U.S. trade relationship with China to increasingly take into account national security and human rights. Beijing has accused the U.S. of using human rights as a pretext to suppress China’s economic growth.
Enforcement of the law initially targeted solar products, tomatoes, cotton and apparel, but over the last several months, the U.S. government has identified new sectors for enforcement, including aluminum and seafood.
“That’s just a reflection of the fact that, sadly, forced labor continues to taint all too many supply chains,” Silvers told a trade group in June when marking the two-year anniversary of the creation of the entity list. “So our enforcement net has actually been quite wide from an industry-sector perspective.”
He said the law “changed the dynamic in terms of putting the onus on importers to know their own supply chains” and that its enforcement had shown that the U.S. could “do the right thing” without halting normal trade.
Since June 2022, the entity list has grown to 75 companies accused of using forced labor in Xinjiang or sourcing materials tied to that forced labor, Homeland Security said.
Baowu Group Xinjiang Bayi Iron and Steel Co. Ltd. and Changzhou Guanghui Food Ingredients Co. Ltd. were the Chinese companies newly added to the list.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Jack Smith Lays Out New Evidence in Trump’s Jan. 6 Case.
Army returns remains of 9 Indigenous children who died at boarding school over a century ago
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
Carlisle, Pa. — The remains of nine more Native American children who died at a notorious government-run boarding school in Pennsylvania over a century ago were disinterred from a small Army cemetery and returned to families, authorities said Wednesday.
The remains were buried on the grounds of the Carlisle Barracks, home of the U.S. Army War College. The children attended the former Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their families and forced to assimilate to white society as a matter of U.S. policy.
The Office of Army Cemeteries said it concluded the remains of nine children found in the graves were “biologically consistent” with information contained in their student and burial records. The remains were transferred to the children’s families. Most have already been reburied on Native lands, Army officials said Wednesday.
Workers also disinterred a grave thought to have belonged to a Wichita tribe child named Alfred Charko, but the remains weren’t consistent with those of a 15-year-old boy, the Army said. The remains were reburied in the same grave, and the grave was marked unknown. Army officials said they would try to locate Alfred’s gravesite.
“The Army team extends our deepest condolences to the Wichita and Affiliated Tribe,” Karen Durham-Aguilera, executive director of the Office of Army Cemeteries, said in a statement. “The Army is committed to seeking all resources that could lead us to more information on where Alfred may be located and to help us identify and return the unknown children in the Carlisle Barracks Post Cemetery.”
The nine children whose remains were returned were identified Wednesday as Fanny Chargingshield, James Cornman and Samuel Flying Horse, from the Oglala Sioux Tribe; Almeda Heavy Hair, Bishop L. Shield and John Bull, from the Gros Ventre Tribe of the Fort Belknap Indian Community; Kati Rosskidwits, from the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes; Albert Mekko, from the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma; and William Norkok, from the Eastern Shoshone Tribe.
The Army declined to release details on one grave disinterment, saying the tribe asked for privacy.
More than 10,000 children from more than 140 tribes passed through the school between 1879 and 1918, including Olympian Jim Thorpe. Founded by an Army officer, the school cut their braids, dressed them in military-style uniforms, punished them for speaking their native languages and gave them European names.
The children — often taken against the will of their parents — endured harsh conditions that sometimes led to death from tuberculosis and other diseases. The remains of some of those who died were returned to their tribes. The rest are buried in Carlisle.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
MLB Gameday live updates: Mets at Brewers game on 10/02/2024.
https://www.mlb.com/gameday/mets-vs-brewers/2024/10/02/775339/live
Candidates clash over immigration, TPS at vice presidential debate
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
washington — It came as no surprise that one of the tensest moments in Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate between Democratic Governor Tim Walz and Republican Senator JD Vance was over immigration, one of the most divisive issues in America.
Debate moderators muted Vance’s microphone after he claimed that “millions of illegal immigrants” had overwhelmed American cities, including Springfield, Ohio, where many Haitians have been encouraged to find jobs. When Walz joined in, both candidates’ microphones were muted, and the moderators reminded them the audience couldn’t hear them.
Hundreds of thousands of Haitian immigrants, including those who live in Springfield, hold Temporary Protected Status, known as TPS, or other forms of legal protection, such as humanitarian parole.
“These are people who have a lawful status. They have a lawful presence. They have work authorization,” Sarang Sekhavat, chief of staff at the Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coalition, told VOA.
What is TPS?
Congress established TPS in 1990 when it said migrants whose home countries were considered unsafe could live and work in the U.S. temporarily if they met certain requirements established by the U.S. government.
The secretary of homeland security is responsible for designating a foreign country for Temporary Protected Status.
Currently, 16 countries have TPS designations: Afghanistan, Cameroon, El Salvador, Haiti, Ethiopia, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen.
“Usually what happens is the administration will designate a country for TPS because of some kind of catastrophe. It could be a natural disaster … very often it’s used in times of war,” Sekhavat said. “Basically, the idea is recognizing that, ‘OK, this individual here perhaps doesn’t have permission to be here, but it would be inhumane of us to actually send them back home to their home country under the conditions their country is suffering right now.’”
TPS and legal immigration
Tom Jawetz, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, told VOA that people covered by TPS should not be confused with undocumented immigrants.
“It’s an immigration status that people can have the statutory right to travel on,” he said. “In order to get TPS, people file an application. That application is reviewed individually. It’s adjudicated. They get identification materials attesting to their TPS. Get work authorization by statute. So, these are not individuals who are undocumented by any means.”
Haitian immigrants and TPS
Haitian nationals were first given TPS in 2010 after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, killing more than 100,000 people and overwhelming the government.
This protection was renewed several times during the administration of former President Barack Obama and was extended for six months under former President Donald Trump. Trump decided to end TPS for Haitians in 2019, but this decision faced several legal challenges that lasted until the end of his administration.
Who can apply for TPS?
Protections under TPS are reserved for people who are already in the United States at the time of the designation. To be eligible, a person must be a national of a designated TPS country and have been continuously physically present in the United States since the date specified by the U.S. government. For Haitian immigrants, this date was August 4, 2024.
People must apply during the registration period. For Haitians applying for the first time, this period began July 1, 2024, and runs through February 3, 2026. For those renewing their TPS status, the re-registration period began July 1, 2024, and ran through August 30, 2024.
“For example, when we had the earthquake in Haiti, there were many Haitians who came to the U.S. on valid transit or tourist visas, intending for their stay to be temporary. But due to the situation in Haiti, they couldn’t return, making them eligible to apply for TPS,” Sekhavat said.
Filing for TPS can cost about $545.
TPS and US citizenship
TPS alone does not lead to U.S. permanent residence or citizenship unless the applicant seeks to change status through other immigration processes.
“If you don’t have some other means through which to get permanent residence — whether that’s because you qualify for asylum or you have a family member or an employer who is petitioning for you to get a permanent residence — TPS is not going to get you there,” Jawetz said.
But TPS allows a person to legally work, and it can open a pathway to an employment-based green card — a process immigration experts say can be long and complicated.
TPS ineligibility
An applicant is ineligible for TPS if convicted of a felony or two or more misdemeanors in the United States, or if subject to mandatory restrictions for asylum, such as having taken part in the persecution of someone else or having engaged in terrorist activities.
People are also ineligible if they do not meet the requirements for continuous physical presence and residency in the United States, fail to register for TPS on time, or do not re-register for TPS when required without a good reason.
Travel authorization for TPS holders
TPS holders must request travel authorization to leave the U.S. Applicants must show U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that they need to travel for urgent humanitarian reasons, such as a sick relative. If permission for the TPS holder to travel is requested by a nonprofit organization, it must prove the travel will further social and cultural interests of the United States. The current filing fee is $575.
If a TPS holder leaves the United States without first obtaining travel authorization, the person may lose the TPS status and will not be able to reenter the United States.
Can an administration end TPS at any time?
The secretary of homeland security has to review conditions and decide whether conditions on the ground in a country continue to merit TPS.
Only if the secretary concludes that conditions do not merit a continuation of TPS can the secretary issue a determination ending temporary protected status at that point.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
How unhinged must Trump get to even matter?
49 Free and Open Source Projects Receive NGI0 Core Grants
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: nlnet feed
https://nlnet.nl/news/2024/20241003-announcing-Core-call.html
Another OpenAI founder moves to arch-rival Anthropic
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Just two of the gang of eleven remain as safety concerns swirl
Anthropic has hired yet another of OpenAI’s founders, this time bringing on Durk Kingma in an unspecified role.…
Latest in WordPress war: Automattic says it wanted 8% cut of WP Engine revenue
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Trademark royalties is one way to force support of open source, we guess
Updated WordPress developer Automattic on Wednesday published details of its efforts to pressure rival WP Engine to sign a trademark license agreement costing millions of dollars.…
US prosecutors show new details of Trump’s bid to overturn election loss
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — U.S. prosecutors said Donald Trump was acting outside the scope of his duties as president when he pressured state officials and then-Vice President Mike Pence to try to overturn his 2020 election defeat, in a court filing made public on Wednesday.
The 165-page filing is likely the last opportunity for prosecutors to detail their case against Trump before the Nov. 5 election given there will not be a trial before Trump faces Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
The filing is meant to keep the federal criminal election subversion case against the Republican presidential candidate moving forward following a July U.S. Supreme Court ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution for their official actions in office.
Prosecutors working with Special Counsel Jack Smith laid out a sweeping account of Trump’s conduct following the 2020 election, much of which has already been made public through news reports, findings from the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot or the indictment obtained by Smith in the case.
It includes an allegation that a White House staffer heard Trump tell family members that “it doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”
Trump has pleaded not guilty to four criminal charges accusing him of a conspiracy to obstruct the congressional certification of the election, defraud the U.S. out of accurate results and interfere with Americans’ voting rights.
Much of the filing focuses on Trump’s dealings with then-vice president and running mate Mike Pence, who Trump tried to pressure into using his official role overseeing Congress’s Jan. 6, 2021, certification of the election results to overturn his defeat.
Trump gave a fiery speech that day before his supporters stormed the Capitol, battling police, sending lawmakers running for their lives and chanting “hang Mike Pence.”
Prosecutors allege that when a White House aide told Trump, who was watching news coverage of the riot on TV, that Pence had been taken to a secure location, Trump responded, “So what?”
Prosecutors said they did not plan to use that interaction at trial given the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.
A warning to Pence
It also alleges that on Jan. 1, 2021, Trump warned Pence that people “are gonna hate your guts” and “think you’re stupid” if he didn’t block certification of Democratic President Joe Biden’s win.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung blasted the disclosures, saying, “This entire case is a partisan, unconstitutional witch hunt that should be dismissed entirely, together with all of the remaining Democrat hoaxes.”
Trump has rejected this case and multiple other criminal prosecutions he faced this year as politically motivated attempts to prevent him from returning to power.
The filing presents a detailed narrative of the evidence prosecutors intend to use if the case goes to trial, accusing Trump of plotting even before the election to declare victory prematurely, replacing his campaign legal team when they allegedly would not support allegations of voter fraud and attempting to “manipulate” Pence into aiding his effort to hold onto power.
The filing provides details of conversations with senior officials in Trump’s administration including Pence and White House chief-of-staff Mark Meadows, who appeared before the grand jury during the investigation.
Prosecutors submitted the court filing on Thursday, but U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan had to approve proposed redactions before it was made public.
Pence was identified by name throughout. The names of many other members of Trump’s administration and state officials he targeted are blacked out in the filing, though details of their locations and actions make their likely identities clear.
Trump’s lawyers opposed allowing Smith to issue a sweeping court filing laying out their evidence, arguing it would be inappropriate to do so weeks before the election. They have argued the entire case should be tossed out based on the Supreme Court’s ruling.
If Trump wins the election, he is likely to direct the Justice Department to drop the charges.
Prosecutors also highlighted a Twitter post that Trump sent during the Capitol riot saying Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done” during the congressional certification of the election.
Prosecutors said that post “was not a message sent to address a matter of public concern and ease unrest; it was the message of an angry candidate upon the realization that he would lose power.”
Lilbits: PineNote, Office 2024, Snapdragon X2 Elite, and a fanless Intel N100 mini PC made for networking
date: 2024-10-02, from: Liliputing
The PineNote is a tablet with a Rockchip RK3566 processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 10.3 inch, 1404 x 1872 pixel E Ink display with support for pressure-sensitive EMR pen input. First introduced in 2021, the tablet began shipping to early adopters in early 2022. But it’s been unavailable for purchase for a […]
The post Lilbits: PineNote, Office 2024, Snapdragon X2 Elite, and a fanless Intel N100 mini PC made for networking appeared first on Liliputing.
Facility Managers, Assemble: Protecting Johnson Space Center’s People and Places
date: 2024-10-02, from: NASA breaking news
Not all heroes wear capes (or blue flight suits). At Johnson Space Center in Houston, the heroes might train their colleagues how to safely respond and evacuate their office in an emergency. They might investigate office accidents and remove potential hazards. Or they might help fix a leaky bathroom sink or a broken coffee maker. […]
CIA makes it easier for potential informants to share tips
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
washington — The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) wants to make it easier — and safer — for people in Iran, China and North Korea to share information with America’s premier spy agency.
The agency on Wednesday posted online instructions in Korean, Mandarin and Farsi detailing steps that potential informants can take to contact U.S. intelligence officials without putting themselves in danger.
The instructions include ways to reach the CIA on its public website or on the darknet, a part of the internet that can only be accessed using special tools designed to hide the user’s identity. The CIA posted similar instructions in Russian two years ago following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“People are trying to reach out to us from around the world and we are offering them instructions for how to do that safely,” the agency said in a statement. “Our efforts on this front have been successful in Russia, and we want to make sure individuals in other authoritarian regimes know that we’re open for business.”
The tips, presented in text-only videos and infographics, include using a virtual private network, or VPN, to circumvent internet restrictions and surveillance, and the use of a device that can’t easily be traced back to the user. The CIA also urged any potential informants to use private web browsers and to delete their internet history to cover their tracks.
The messages in the three languages were posted on Telegram, YouTube, X, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Several of those platforms are blocked in China, Iran and Russia but can still be accessed using a VPN.
Authoritarian leaders around the world have used the internet as a tool of mass surveillance and as a way to deliver propaganda and disinformation while blocking sites and views deemed unfavorable to the government.
China, Russia, North Korea and Iran all block access to American platforms like Facebook, for example, and use web access to control which sources of information users can access.
VPNs and other tools offer ways around this censorship and surveillance, but that ability has made them a target. In its instructions to potential sources, the CIA warned its audience to be selective, as their well-being could depend on choosing the right program.
“Use a VPN provider not headquartered in Russia, Iran, or China, or any other country that is considered unfriendly to the United States,” the agency wrote in its instructions for Mandarin users.
https://www.voanews.com/a/cia-makes-it-easier-for-potential-informants-to-share-tips/7808261.html
Biden to survey Hurricane Helene’s aftermath in Florida, Georgia
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
Hurricanes Have a Longer, Deadlier Tail Than Anyone Thought
date: 2024-10-02, from: Heatmap News
Hurricane Helene is, by conventional measures, the deadliest hurricane to strike the continental United States since Katrina. At least 182 people have been confirmed killed by the storm, with hundreds of people still unaccounted for. Although all hurricanes are deadly, only a handful of storms have killed more than 100 people since 1950. Or at least that is what we have long thought. New research suggests that these conventional tallies may be a vast undercount.
Several years ago, two economists and public policy researchers — Rachel Young and Solomon Hsiang, now of Princeton and Stanford — began to study a seemingly simple question: How many Americans do hurricanes kill each year? According to the federal government, the average hurricane kills 24 people after making landfall. That seemed likely to be a modest underestimate. Economists know that natural disasters can have a long tail of suffering; Hsiang expected the real number to be a “single digit multiple” of that figure — perhaps 50 or 100 people per storm.
Yet when they ran the numbers and looked at mortality in places affected by storms, they were initially perplexed by the results, Hsiang told me earlier this week. The numbers they came up with didn’t even make sense at first.
“It was months of us trying to understand what we were looking at,” Hsiang said. “And then once we realized what we were seeing, it was years of us checking our work to find what we missed.” Only when it was clear that their work resembled other American public health statistics — specifically, that the white-Black mortality mirrored what has been found in other studies — that the horrifying truth sunk in.
The finding: Hurricanes are hundreds of times deadlier than anyone has realized.
Their study, which was published on Wednesday in Nature, finds that the average hurricane kills 7,000 to 11,000 people after making landfall in the United States. These previously uncounted deaths happened not during a storm or in its immediate aftermath, but as a long, slow trickle of mortality that plagues a region long after the clouds have cleared and floods have abated.
In any one year, the number of storm-related deaths is not very high. And yet a wave of excess deaths is visible in population data for at least 15 years after a storm hits an area, they found.
“It lasts for so many years, and because there’s so many storms hitting so many states, once you add up, it becomes this enormous number,” Hsiang told me. When added together, hurricanes’ long-term death toll exceeds American combat deaths in all wars, combined. The number so dwarfs previous estimates that it suggests tropical cyclones alone are a major determinant of public health across the United States.
Kerry Emanuel, an MIT meteorology professor who studies climate change and hurricanes, told me that the results were “truly astounding” and “persuasive,” although he noted that he is not an expert in the statistical approach used in the paper.
“Summed over all hurricanes, this amounts to three to five percent of all deaths near the Atlantic coast,” he said. “I expect this result will prove controversial and will be followed up by many other studies of long-term mortality from natural disasters.”
The paper fits into a growing body of research on what others have called the hidden or invisible public health threat of environmental threats. For years, researchers have known that air pollution and heat waves, seemingly silent hazards, can in fact kill tens of thousands of people. Lately they have begun to apply the same techniques to other hazards, with outsized results.
Officially, Hurricane Maria killed 64 people when it struck Puerto Rico in 2017. But when researchers surveyed households across the island months after the storm, they found the death toll was closer to 4,600. (The territory’s government later revised the official figure to 2,975.) These deaths were caused not by the cyclone’s high winds or torrential floods, but rather by secondary effects of the storm’s destruction. Maria took out the island’s power grid and road networks, for instance, and preventing people with heart attacks and strokes from reaching the hospital in time.
That paper was written six months after Maria struck the island; this new hurricane paper considers a wider time horizon, finding that more than 80,000 Americans die each year as a result of a hurricane, whenever it occurred. Black people were disproportionately killed by the aftermath of hurricanes, at least partly because a larger share of the country’s Black population lives in storm-afflicted areas. About 37,000 white deaths each year are due to a prior tropical cyclone.
How could such storms cause such a long tail of deaths, affecting areas 10 or 15 years after they come ashore? The paper cannot answer those questions today. But Hsiang and Young hypothesize that hurricanes cause extreme economic distress, which can resonate for years or decades afterward. “If someone suffers a loss and can’t invest in their business, then it will have ramifications for their income long into the future,” Hsiang told me. “If someone is on a fixed income and their garage is destroyed, and they pull from their retirement funds to fix the garage, then eight years later when they face a big medical decision, they might choose” a cheaper or less effective form of treatment.
“When you talk to people, you hear stories like this,” Hsiang added. The time and money invested in dealing with the storm is often a “pure loss,” even if some of the damage ultimately gets reimbursed. “Even if you have insurance, that just means you already paid for it in some way,” he said.
Storms cause disruption in other ways. They can break up communities and social networks. (If children move away, for instance, their parent can face higher medical bills.) Hurricanes can also impose high costs on states, towns, and cities, which may then have to reduce or restrict other services as a result.
“When you think about how communities rebuild — local municipalities and states — they also play a lot of games with their budget” in the aftermath of a storm, Hsiang said. “If they spend a lot of money to rebuild a bridge or boardwalk somewhere, does that come out of some social program 10 years later? Or building a new NICU hospital?” That could explain why an infant — even one born 15 years after a storm struck a given area — could face a higher chance of death.
Young and Hsiang think that these economic drivers are most likely to be the big reason for the excess deaths — the effect is just too big and drawn out to make any other cause likely — but other possibilities exist, they recognize. Hurricanes could be deadly simply because they are highly stressful events. “We see an effect on cancer rates and also cardiovascular illness. Stress matters a lot to those,” Hsiang said. It’s also possible that hurricanes unleash contamination into the environment that then makes people sick. A flooded basement can become a breeding ground for mold. “There’s gas stations in every town. What chemicals come out when there’s flooding?” Hsiang wondered.
The paper may also help resolve a riddle in American public health. On average, Americans die earlier in the eastern half of the continental United States than in the western half. This effect is worst in the Gulf Coast and Southeast but persists to some degree in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
The paper suggests that hurricanes may have something to do with this geographic phenomenon. For infants, people below the age of 44, and Black people of all ages, hurricanes may explain a large share but not all of the mortality gap.
https://heatmap.news/climate/hurricane-death-study
Before Hurricane Helene, A Perfect Storm Of Climate Denialism
date: 2024-10-02, from: The Lever News
North Carolina was once a climate leader, but more than a decade of Republican and corporate obstruction left the state ill-prepared for the historic disaster.
https://www.levernews.com/before-hurricane-helene-a-perfect-storm-of-climate-denialism/
700K+ DrayTek routers are sitting ducks on the internet, open to remote hijacking
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
With 14 serious security flaws found, what a gift for spies and crooks
Fourteen newly found bugs in DrayTek Vigor routers — including one critical remote-code-execution flaw that received a perfect 10 out of 10 CVSS severity rating — could be abused by crooks looking to seize control of the equipment to then steal sensitive data, deploy ransomware, and launch denial-of-service attacks.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/draytek_routers_bugs/
The Hidden Hand of Climate Change in the Presidential Election
date: 2024-10-02, from: Heatmap News
Earlier this week, ProPublica published an investigation revealing that the Heritage Foundation, home of Project 2025, has been flooding the federal government with Freedom of Information Act requests targeted at federal employees, meant to discover which have used words including “climate change” and “climate equity” in emails and chats. A few hours later, JD Vance and Tim Walz met for what will likely be the final candidate debate of the 2024 presidential campaign, and got one question about climate — the same quantity asked of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in their debate last month.
The campaign is not quite over, but the role of climate change within it can be seen in these two stories. Climate has been a vital issue in this presidential race, but one that has been largely muted. Only occasionally has it intruded into the attention of those who weren’t already following the issue closely. But we’ve seen enough to understand that the next few years will be vital in shaping the government’s climate posture and the nation’s future.
Despite profound differences between the parties in both their beliefs about climate change and their policy preferences, there was some degree of convergence in their rhetoric. Smarter Republicans understand that Trump’s brand of flamboyant denialism is not a political winner for a national audience, and they’ve attempted to offer something more subtle. That’s why we saw Vance turn the climate question he got at the debate into an answer about boosting manufacturing, after admitting that “a lot of people are justifiably worried about all these crazy weather patterns” and noting that China is the world’s biggest carbon emitter. A viewer who knew nothing about what the Republican ticket actually wants to do might think the GOP is only slightly less committed to climate action than its opponents.
Walz’s response was that under the current administration, the country is already producing more energy than ever and boosting manufacturing. Which reflected another reality that came into focus in this campaign: While Democrats still favor restrictive regulation in some areas, their primary climate policies revolve around carrots rather than sticks, tax incentives and subsidies for states, businesses, and consumers to create a broad-based transition to a green economy. Those are the policies they want to talk about.
That shift makes their climate arguments far more politically appealing — and their legislative achievements potentially more durable. The enormous subsidies contained in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are making their way disproportionately to red states, which is why plenty of down-ballot candidates from both parties are lauding the jobs being created with government help. There may still be some vigorous debate within the GOP about whether they should try to repeal the IRA if they get the chance, but the mostly-carrots approach is now firmly embedded in Democratic policymaking, as is the idea that climate optimism is a savvier way to persuade the public than dire warnings of a frightening future, even if that’s what we do face.
Nevertheless, there will likely be no big-spending climate legislation resembling the IRA coming out of Congress in the near future. Control of the Senate sits on a knife edge, with Democrats needing to win nearly every closely contested seat to hang on to their majority. Even if they do and Harris wins the presidency, they may well decide that they took their shot and succeeded already, and therefore devote the once-per-year reconciliation bill (which cannot be filibustered) to other priorities. There are areas of bipartisan interest, including permitting reform, that could speed the development of clean energy projects, but they may wind up more limited in scope.
If Republicans take over the White House and Congress, on the other hand, the future is less clear. They may attempt a repeal of some of the IRA, along with the other major bills passed during the Biden administration, but much of their focus will probably be on what can be accomplished with executive branch authority.
Which is why all the scrutiny that Project 2025 has garnered has been one of the best things about this campaign, proving enormously instructive on a range of issues, including climate. More voters than ever now understand that when we elect a president we also elect a huge apparatus of governing. Policy is made at a variety of levels, and thousands of civil servants no one has ever heard of can do a great deal to improve or undermine people’s lives.
While Trump may deny that Project 2025 is his blueprint for governing, it certainly reflects his climate intentions and those of the people who will serve in his administration. He shares with the project a commitment to changing civil service rules to put loyal apparatchiks in positions throughout the federal government, and a devotion to fossil-fuel-friendly climate policies will be a key requirement for many who want to take those jobs in agencies including the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency. All that has become clear to a great many voters.
The vice presidential debate may not be the last time the candidates are asked to address climate; if nothing else, there will probably be a few more natural disasters in the next month, which could push the issue back on the agenda. But while we can’t say there was a detailed debate about climate in the 2024 election that grappled with our present and future in a nuanced way, one can’t really say that about any issue. The climate debate we got was far short of perfect, but it probably left voters knowing more than they did a year or two ago. Given the degraded state of so much of what passes for democratic deliberation, that isn’t so bad.
https://heatmap.news/politics/vp-debate-climate-election
Two simple give-me-control security bugs found in Optigo network switches used in critical manufacturing
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Poor use of PHP include() strikes again
Two trivial but critical security holes have been found in Optigo’s Spectra Aggregation Switch, and so far no patch is available.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/cisa_optigo_switch_flaws/
A Treasure Hunter Just Uncovered the $100,000 Prize Hidden in the Massachusetts Woods
date: 2024-10-02, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Two weeks ago, organizers of Project Skydrop stashed a golden statuette in a secret location somewhere in the northeastern United States
The Marshall Star for October 2, 2024
date: 2024-10-02, from: NASA breaking news
The Fabric of Marshall: Center Hosts Safety Day 2024 By Serena Whitfield “Safety Woven Throughout the Fabric of Marshall” was the theme for Safety Day at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center on Sept. 26. Kickoff activities were held in Building 4316 and other sites around the center. “It is crucial to ensure that each of […]
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/marshall/the-marshall-star-for-october-2-2024/
Bank of America app glitch zeroes out people’s balances
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Unidentified tech issues now resolved
Updated Some US customers using the Bank of America app to keep an eye on their accounts got a shock Wednesday morning when their checking and savings accounts were unexpectedly empty or out of date.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/bank_of_america_outage/
US, China plan Biden-Xi call in the coming days
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The United States and China are planning a call between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping in the coming days, according to people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
This call would follow their last conversation in April 2024 and their face-to-face meeting in Woodside, California, in November 2023.
After his talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi last Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that both sides “emphasized the need to maintain open lines of communication” between the Chinese and American leaders.
“We also agreed on the importance of the leaders communicating. And so, I fully anticipate that we’ll see that in the week and months ahead,” said Blinken in New York last week.
Ukraine
U.S. officials have said that they seek opportunities, whenever possible, to find common ground with China, whether on issues such as fentanyl or discussions on artificial intelligence risks and safety. China’s material support for Russia in the war on Ukraine is expected to be a key topic on the U.S. agenda.
On Wednesday, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said the U.S. does not seek to “contain or constrain China” but wants to ensure an ongoing dialogue and that the competition between the two countries remains “stable and [does] not trend to conflict.”
He also reiterated the U.S. and its allies’ growing concern over Chinese firms supplying drones to Moscow, which have significantly bolstered Russia’s battlefield capabilities in its war against Ukraine.
“What we’ve seen over the course of last two years is a reconstitution of the Russian military with a rapidity and determination that frankly surprises us. The level of Russian militarization, its ability to rebuild its tanks, its missiles, UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], with the assistance of China, support from North Korea, also from Iran. That has been a topic of real anxiety,” said Campbell during an online moderated conversation at the Washington-based think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“Now we’re in a situation where Russia is seeking to change the territorial lines of Europe, and the fact that China is backing this so substantially is a topic of real concern,” he said.
75th anniversary
This week, China marks 75 years of Communist Party rule. In Beijing, Xi reiterated his party’s plans to “reunite” China with Taiwan.
“The wheel of history will not be stopped by any individual or any force,” Xi said during a recent reception, without naming specific individuals or governments. He added that it is “where the greater national interest lies” and “what the people desire.”
Taiwan has been self-ruled since 1949, when Mao Zedong’s communists took power in Beijing after defeating Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang, or KMT, in a civil war, prompting Chiang and his followers to relocate to the island.
In 2000, following Taiwan’s second democratic presidential election, the KMT peacefully transferred power for the first time to the Democratic Progressive Party.
While the Chinese Communist Party has never governed Taiwan, it consistently insists that Taiwan must be brought under its rule, by force if necessary.
For decades, however, the U.S. has made it clear that its decision to switch diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China — Taiwan’s formal name — to Beijing or the People’s Republic of China in 1979 was based on the expectation that “the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means,” as outlined in the Taiwan Relations Act. Under this act, the U.S. has provided arms to support Taiwan’s defense.
On Sunday, U.S. President Joe Biden approved $567 million in defense assistance for Taiwan, as China intensifies its political and military pressure on the self-ruled democracy.
In a statement, Biden announced that he has authorized Blinken “to direct the drawdown of up to $567 million in defense articles and services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training, to provide assistance to Taiwan.”
In Beijing, Chinese officials urged the U.S. to “stop arming Taiwan in any way.”
Lin Jian, spokesperson for the PRC’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters during a Monday briefing that “no matter how many weapons the United States provides to Taiwan,” it will not shake the Beijing government’s firm determination “to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-china-plan-biden-xi-call-in-the-coming-days/7808130.html
New NASA eClips VALUE Bundles for Learners with Varied Needs
date: 2024-10-02, from: NASA breaking news
The NASA Science Activation program’s NASA eClips project, led by the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), aims to increase Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics (STEM) literacy and inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists by providing effective web-based, standards-aligned, in-school and out-of-school learning and teaching resources through the lens of NASA. In Summer 2024, […]
Coyotes Might Make ‘Puppy Eyes,’ Suggesting the Facial Expression Evolved for More Than Just Cuteness
date: 2024-10-02, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The wild canines have the same muscles used by domestic dogs to create the wide-eyed, pleading look that captures humans’ hearts
Daily Deals (10-02-2024)
date: 2024-10-02, from: Liliputing
Best Buy is selling a Windows laptop from Asus for $110. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a great Windows laptop. Normally priced at $180, the he Asus E410KA has just 4GB of RAM and 64GB of eMMC storage. There’s no backlit keyboard, and the processor is a 6-watt Intel Celeron N4500 dual-core chip based on […]
The post Daily Deals (10-02-2024) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/daily-deals-10-02-2024/
Tesla trounces shareholders who alleged Autopilot was all share-pumping lies
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
It’s easy being Elon
Tesla has managed to persuade a California judge to throw out a lawsuit that claimed the automaker misled shareholders about its Full Self-driving (FSD) system’s true capabilities.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/tesla_defeats_shareholders_lawsuit/
The CBD’s Tortoise Threat
date: 2024-10-02, from: Heatmap News
The Biden administration is trying to open a lot more Western territory to utility-scale solar. But they are facing a conservationist backlash that may be aided by the views of scientists within the federal government.
Yesterday, activists pushed back against the environmental review of the Bureau of Land Management’s new Western solar plan that would make more than 31 million acres available for utility-scale solar applications across 11 states. The BLM is trying to meet the next two decades of demand for renewable electricity while avoiding the kinds of environmental and social conflicts that stymie individual projects. But it appears key stakeholders filed protests against the environmental review, including counties that would host new solar farms and Republican politicians, as well as the whistleblower advocacy group PEER we wrote about last week.
Today, however, we’re going to focus on the protest filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, which submitted to BLM what amounted to the contours of a lawsuit.
The protest argued the environmental review of the plan not only failed to adequately protect the Mojave desert tortoise – a species protected as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act – but appeared to make “arbitrary” decisions to open potential tortoise habitat and travel areas. Per the protest, the review did so without clearly explaining how it took into account guidance from the Fish and Wildlife Service, the primary species protection agency.
Zooming in, scientists at the Service said in a power-point presentation dated April of this year (that CBD happily pointed out is available online) they supported excluding occupied tortoise habitat and translocation sites from the solar plan. Employees at the Service also gave CBD guidance documents they submitted over the past year to the Bureau that outlined “extensive criteria for exclusion” that activists say were not followed and weren’t reflected in the review documents previously released by the government.
Why does this matter? Well, it could determine whether the decisions relevant can hold up in court. CBD is using the word “arbitrary” because it’s a standard followed under the Administrative Procedures Act, which forces government officials to show their work and demonstrate they considered all available information submitted to them.
CBD’s Patrick Donnelly – who we spoke with at length in our first edition of The Fight – authored the protest filing. Donnelly told me the acreage relevant to the tortoises totals only about 200,000 acres of the almost 12 million that would be available for solar under the plan, so the grievance shouldn’t be a herculean endeavor to address.
“We’re trying to go into the protest process with an open mind, not cynically,” he told me, “and make this plan a lot less harmful.”
Still, if CBD escalates, the Bureau will have to show how it went from getting these recommendations to landing on the acreage it opened to solar. It could also shake the certainty of developers with applications within the solar plan area already dealing with tortoise protection advocates on the individual project level, like EDF Renewables’ Bonanza Solar project north of Las Vegas which has a draft environmental review in public comment.
Proving a government decision is arbitrary requires demonstrating the move was not “reasonable and justifiable,” Ankur Tohan, an attorney at K&L Gates, told me. Usually the bar for the government to prove itself is “relatively low,” and courts are “very deferential to an agency” as long as “the agency’s action took into account the relevant factors.” The problems arise for the government if “the internal analysis is contradictory,” Tohan said.
Personally I’m having trouble figuring out how the Service’s initial recommendations were internalized at BLM – though I am assuming they were handled in some way, as otherwise the Service would presumably stand in the way. BLM does acknowledge that “design features and project guidelines” were modified to “better avoid impacts to species where not excluded” and said developers “shall configure solar development projects to maintain existing desert tortoise habitat.”
I asked BLM to explain this, but they declined to answer questions on the matter. “The BLM has no comment at this time,” BLM press secretary Brian Hires said, citing the need to “review all protests.” So I guess we’ll have to wait and see!
https://heatmap.news/plus/the-fight/spotlight/center-biological-diversity-tortoise-solar
Juno for YouTube Removed From the App Store
date: 2024-10-02, from: Michael Tsai
Christian Selig (tweet, Mastodon, Hacker News): For those not aware, a few months ago after reaching out to me, YouTube contacted the App Store stating that Juno does not adhere to YouTube guidelines and modifies the website in a way they don’t approve of, and alludes to their trademarks and iconography.I don’t personally agree with […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/10/02/juno-for-youtube-removed-from-the-app-store/
Pinning iCloud Drive in Sequoia
date: 2024-10-02, from: Michael Tsai
Howard Oakley: The reason for this bizarre and annoying interface is the way that pinning is implemented. When you pin files individually or in groups of up to ten, each file gains its own pinning extended attribute, of com.apple.fileprovider.pinned. But when you pin a folder, only that folder gains the extended attribute, none of the […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/10/02/pinning-icloud-drive-in-sequoia/
Migrating the TelemetryDeck SDK to Swift 6 Mode
date: 2024-10-02, from: Michael Tsai
Cihat Gündüz: And this summer at WWDC 2024 the longest session of them all was migrating your app to Swift 6 for a reason. This major new update to the language brings a new level of safety – namely data-race safety – which is awesome news for more correct code, but it also comes with […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/10/02/migrating-the-telemetrydeck-sdk-to-swift-6-mode/
Local Network Privacy on Sequoia
date: 2024-10-02, from: Michael Tsai
Collin Allen: Running into a Sequoia bug where third party binaries running under a launchd agent are denied local network access despite approving the privacy prompt. This has the effect of making my iOS app’s CI unable to deploy successful builds, as my deployment tool is not one that ships with macOS. Quinn: If you […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/10/02/local-network-privacy-on-sequoia/
Offshore Wind Is Off the Table in Oregon
date: 2024-10-02, from: Heatmap News
1. Coos County, Oregon – We can confirm that opposition and waning industry interest have effectively killed the Beaver State’s first offshore wind lease sale.
- Late Friday, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management postponed an Oct. 15 lease sale for floating offshore wind citing “insufficient bidder interest” from only one of five companies identified as qualified to participate.
- And we’ve learned there won’t be a retry any time soon: BOEM spokesman John Romero confirmed in an email that the agency “does not have a timeline for determining a future opportunity for a potential lease sale in Oregon.”
- Shortly before the cancellation, Gov. Tina Kotek called for the lease sale to be nixed and pulled out of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s task force on Oregon’s offshore wind development after a chorus of concerns from coastal towns and tribes were echoed by the state’s two senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley. All these elected officials are Democrats, by the way.
- Last week, Mainstream Renewable Power Inc. told Oregon Public Broadcasting they’d no longer bid. Four other companies were qualified to bid: Avangrid Renewables, BlueFloat Energy, OW North America Ventures, and South Coast Energy Waters, a company backed by the CEO of solar developer NewSun.
2. Atlantic County, New Jersey – Some good news for offshore wind as a counterbalance: the Atlantic Shores wind farm got its final federal approval from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management yesterday.
- We expected this to happen, and we’ve previously explained that litigation will likely occur. But it’s still a major milestone. Even if Donald Trump wins, the project’s fate is now left for the courts to decide.
- There’ll still be fights over the project. One of the potential host communities for the cables, Sea Girt, is seeing local opposition crop up and intervention from its congressman Chris Smith. But the matter has gotten safer for the developer.
3. Montgomery County, Alabama – In Alabama’s capital city of Montgomery, residents opposed to solar power are campaigning for Montgomery to enact a blanket ordinance banning permits and site development plans.
- Their efforts have led the city council’s public works committee to study the matter. A study committee meeting on the proposal scheduled last week was derailed as Hurricane Helene began to make landfall without a new date.
- Residents took to the Montgomery city council last night and again asked for the moratorium. Some council members seemed receptive to the concerns, but so far no dice for the activists.
- Montgomery is home to several potential solar farms with promise for decarbonizing the Deep South, including projects being developed by Hecate Energy and Pinegate Renewables (not to be confused with Pine Gate Renewables, who we discuss below).
4. Litchfield County, Connecticut – The small New England city of Torrington, Connecticut doesn’t want any more solar panels.
- Torrington’s mayor Elinor Carbone wrote the state requesting they consider rejecting a proposed solar installation opposed by some residents in a neighboring condominium. Visuals and deforestation seem to be the big concerns.
- This comes from a municipality that only recently accepted battery storage and follows in the long tradition of Connecticut residents going back and forth on NIMBY vibes. (A decade ago they had banned wind entirely.)
- And Torrington’s solar projects overall seem to suffer from grumpy neighbors. See: this Verogy project dealing with complaints about overgrown grass.
Here’s what else we’re watching …
In Arizona, the city of Maricopa is opposing a roughly 1,100 acre solar farm proposed by Hidden Valley Ranch Partners.
In California, the city of San Marcos may soon formally oppose AES Corporation’s Seguro battery storage project.
In Illinois, officials in Clinton County have extended their wind moratorium through at least the end of this year.
In Kentucky, Lexington County’s planning commission has recommended against allowing large-scale solar farms.
In Michigan, the city of Detroit has filed eminent domain lawsuits to procure properties for community solar, a development backed by DTE.
In Minnesota, the city of Hugo is taking another stab at allowing some solar development after initially backing restrictions.
In Pennsylvania, Wilson Solar has offered to reduce the size of an 80 MW solar farm to assuage residents’ concerns. Jury’s still out on if it’ll work.
In Texas, a federal judge has halted work on Pine Gate Renewables’ Bandera solar farm amid a legal battle with landowners.
https://heatmap.news/plus/the-fight/hotspots/offshore-wind-oregon
Telegram Confirms it Gave U.S. User Data to the Cops
date: 2024-10-02, from: 404 Media Group
Telegram finally updated its transparency bot to provide data on law enforcement requests.
https://www.404media.co/telegram-confirms-it-gave-u-s-user-data-to-the-cops/
Tariffs Hit Solar Cells
date: 2024-10-02, from: Heatmap News
1. Seasons change, tariffs stay the same – The Biden
administration is
putting
a duty on solar cells from four South Asian countries believed to be
pass-throughs for Chinese imports: Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and
Vietnam.
- The tariffs range wildly from less than 1% to almost 300%. Impacted companies include Jintek, Hanwha Q Cells (a.k.a. Qcells), JinkoSolar, and Trina Solar.
- What this’ll mean: developers wrestling with pricier imported cells from some of the most popular sources.
- These tariffs resulted from an anti-dumping case filed by an alliance of U.S. solar manufacturers including First Solar, Convalt Energy, REC Silicon, and, ironically, also Qcells.
2. New money for new nuclear – The Energy Department yesterday finalized over $2.8 billion in loans and grants to restart the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan.
- The plant – to be operated by Holtec – shut down in 2022 which means, as reports indicate, it shouldn’t take long to recommission and could be re-operational by next year.
- Nuclear Energy Institute CEO Maria Korsnick told me earlier this year over pasta that she was vying for more direct investments to individual projects, partially to make it harder to repeal Inflation Reduction Act programs.
3. California is so silly sometimes – A judge has temporarily halted a California rule that would’ve stopped some solar developers in the state from building battery storage.
- California’s contractor licensing board had set forth regulation effective Oct. 1 stopping solar equipment workers from installing or maintaining batteries beyond 80 kWH (which… is obviously not a lot of power).
- The regulation will now be suspended until a legal challenge from solar and battery storage companies can be resolved.
https://heatmap.news/plus/the-fight/policy-watch/tariffs-solar-cells
How Carbon Pipeline Fights Hurt Direct Air Capture
date: 2024-10-02, from: Heatmap News
This week I spoke with Kajsa Hendrickson, director of policy at
Carbon180, about why they’re eager to talk about the social concerns
involved in direct air capture (DAC) and how conflicts over carbon
pipelines are hurting DAC projects too. We talk a lot about renewables
here on The Fight but DAC is a crucial part of decarbonization and it
has a host of conflicts that’ll be familiar to our readers.
The following is an abridged version of our conversation. Let’s get started…
How do the conflicts over DAC compare to fights against solar and wind farms?
“There are a lot of overlaps in the conflicts that can exist between DAC and more traditional energy systems. That is the reality. The difference is, so much of DAC is being funded by the federal government so we want to see those higher standards come into play about where communities should be engaged, what engagement should entail.”
“Plus, DAC is fundamentally a public good. The goal of it is to do something that is benefiting all of us writ large and that’s why it can’t follow traditional extractive models coming out of even some of the solar industry.”
What do you mean by solar being extractive?
“The approach to communities tends to be, cool, his project is coming in, there’s going to be some jobs, here’s how it’s going. And there might be a community benefits process there.
“What we’d like to see with DAC, whether it’s funded by DOE or not, is ideally communities get a choice as to whether or not a project comes to them. Communities get some form of prior engagement in determining whether or not they’d like to host a DAC site.”
How does the conflict over the Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline impact local support for other forms of carbon management, especially DAC?
“Infrastructure around CO2 is going to be a pain point. We at Carbon180 don’t really advocate for or support CCS. That being said, how the pipelines are being deployed, how developers engage with communities on CCS, is going to very much influence DAC. We fundamentally see DAC as serving a public good and CCS not necessary, but that doesn’t change the fact they’re likely going to have shared infrastructure and that the two of them are often going to be paired together.”
“I can’t speak to any of the particular specific details on the Summit pipeline other than that we have been hearing concerns about that, and concerns about what that means for the CO2 landscape as a whole. Just like any other burgeoning industry, negative handling of any particular project is going to look bad for the rest of them. I’d love to see developers proactively engage communities effectively, focusing on their rights, to allow CO2 storage.”
So there’s a blast radius from Summit’s controversy?
“Very much so. DAC and CCS often get conflated. Well informed organizations still refer to them interchangeably. Regardless of whether we like it or not, pipelines are going to be an extremely big expense for DAC, something that doesn’t have as much of an immediate [thing] it’s selling – it’s already facing an uphill financial battle.”
Some in the environmental justice activism space are against DAC. What would you say to an activist who is a no on DAC?
“It’s funny because I actually have several friends who work in environmental justice and I have this conversation with them.”
“What I would say is that we’re a boat in the middle of the ocean. We have holes in the middle of the boat that are the carbon coming into the air. And first thing, foremost, we’ve got to plug the holes. You don’t prioritize bailing out the water before closing the holes. That’s why decarbonization and DAC have to go hand in hand, it can’t be one or the other.”
“I understand where the criticisms come from. Is DAC a false climate solution? Is this something that’s going to allow us to continue to perpetuate fossil fuels?”
“As we are decarbonizing, by the time we get decarbonized, we won’t be able to just scale up DAC at that point. We have to scale up now so by the time we get decarbonized we’re able to get those legacy emissions.”
https://heatmap.news/plus/the-fight/qa/kajsa-hendrickson-carbon180
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-02, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Bank of America unavailable: Users report account issues on app.
Progressives Weigh In on Kamala Harris’ Economic Proposals — and Share Some of Their Own
date: 2024-10-02, from: Capital and Main
Experts say that policies such as higher taxes on the wealthy and expanded child care are both effective and popular.
The post Progressives Weigh In on Kamala Harris’ Economic Proposals — and Share Some of Their Own appeared first on .
State-run media in Latin America criticize US government, candidates
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
Madrid — In their coverage of the U.S. presidential election, countries with repressive media such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have taken aim at the American system of government and, to some degree, the candidates themselves.
Following the two assassination attempts targeting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Cuban state-run newspaper Granma ran a headline, “The guns speak again in the U.S. elections,” an apparent reference to gun violence in the United States.
But the newspaper made no mention on its front pages Wednesday of the previous night’s vice presidential debate between Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz in which the two candidates clashed on issues that included gun control. The paper did cover the face-to-face debate last month between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, saying they traded “low blows.”
Overall, Cuban press coverage of the U.S. has not favored either candidate during this election cycle, said William LeoGrande, professor of government at American University in Washington.
“The Cuban press has been very even-handed in coverage of the U.S. elections, mostly offering simple factual accounts of the campaign — no doubt because they will have to deal with whoever wins,” said LeoGrande.
“To the extent that they have offered any critical commentary, it can be summed up as a ‘plague on both your houses,’” he said.
LeoGrande noted that one Granma report said, “There is only one certainty: Whoever wins will be the face invested with the arrogance of the empire with a desire for power.” Cuba has long referred to the U.S. as the “empire.”
To understand how Granma views the U.S. election, VOA emailed its editor, Yailin Orta Rivera, for comment but did not receive a reply before publication.
In Nicaragua, ‘hate and criticism’
In Nicaragua, state-controlled media have used reports about the U.S. election as a chance to repeat traditional criticisms of Washington, independent media monitoring groups say.
Abigail Hernandez, director of Galeria News and a member of the Independent Journalists and Communications of Nicaragua, said state media such as La Nueva Radio Ya have run reports critical of the American political system.
“These analysis reports concentrate on the judicial and electoral system of the U.S. and criticize the candidacy of Trump,” she told VOA. “I say ‘analysis’ because in reality, these articles are the traditional line of hate and criticism toward the U.S. empire.”
Hernandez added, “They try to say that the U.S. is a sham democracy and that the elections are a reflection of this.”
The government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega did not respond to an emailed request for comment before publication.
In Nicaragua, state media are controlled by Ortega or members of his family, independent media monitoring groups said.
In 2010, Canal 8, which had been an independent television network, had a new chief executive — Juan Carlos Ortega Murillo — the president’s son.
Until then, the channel had been known for scrutinizing governments of the left or right, the Reuters news agency reported. Its new owner is the wife of Rafael Ortega Murillo, another of the president’s sons.
Media analysts say that in Nicaragua and Venezuela, reports on the U.S. election criticized the U.S. political system in relation to key issues of interest to their core audiences, especially migration.
Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans desperate to escape the Ortega government have headed north, seeking to cross into the United States.
Earlier this year, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Nicaragua over issues related to migrant smuggling and human rights.
Venezuela, US in tense relationship
Venezuela’s government has also had a tense relationship with the United States over human rights and the conduct of elections.
Driven by political turmoil, 7.7 million people have left Venezuela since 2014, according to a United Nations report published earlier this year.
Most have headed for other Latin American countries or Spain. Others have ended up in the United States illegally, although there have been efforts to allow some Venezuelans into the U.S. lawfully, the U.N. report said.
Marivi Marin Vazquez, founder and director of ProboxVE, a nongovernmental organization that studies disinformation in Latin America, said state media in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela all used reports about the U.S. elections to criticize the American political system.
“They all look at problems in the political system so they can justify their own systems,” she said in an interview with VOA from Washington, where she has lived in exile since leaving Venezuela four years ago.
“They pick holes in things like contradictions, inequality and the power of corporate interests.”
The Venezuelan government did not respond to emailed requests for comment on coverage of the U.S. election.
Nobody knows what happened within the MMC Association in 1998
date: 2024-10-02, from: OS News
In 1999, some members from the MMC Association decided to split and create SD Association. But nobody seems to exactly know why. ↫ sdomi’s webpage I don’t even know how to summarise any of this research, because it’s not only a lot of information, it’s also deeply bureaucratic and boring – it takes a certain kind of person to enjoy this sort of stuff, and I happen to fit the bill. This is a great read.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140846/nobody-knows-what-happened-within-the-mmc-association-in-1998/
Cisco is abandoning the LoRaWAN space, and there’s no lifeboat for IoT customers
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Support stretches to end of 2029, no more maintenance beyond 2026
Networking giant Cisco is getting out of the LoRaWAN market for IoT device connectivity, announcing end-of-availability and end-of-life dates for its gateways and associated products, with no planned migration pathway for customers.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/cisco_exiting_lorawan/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-02, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Why bother with debates, for that matter why bother with the New York Times. What exactly is the purpose of these fake journalists.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/25/opinion/walz-vance-debate-loser.html
Vance and Walz face off in US vice presidential debate
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
U.S. vice presidential nominees Tim Walz and JD Vance met for the first and only vice presidential debate of this election season. Tina Trinh reports from New York.
https://www.voanews.com/a/vance-and-walz-face-off-in-us-vice-presidential-debate/7807376.html
Two Comets Could Be Visible to the Naked Eye This Fall. Here’s How to Get the Best View
date: 2024-10-02, from: Smithsonian Magazine
While expectations are high for some special sightings, experts warn that comets are notoriously fickle and unpredictable
The Roman Republic Quashed a Rebellion So Completely That This City Became a Landfill
date: 2024-10-02, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Researchers studying the ancient site of Fregellae reveal the consequences of challenging the Roman army
Men Stole Over $1 Million From DoorDash Delivery Drivers By Impersonating Them to Customer Service
date: 2024-10-02, from: 404 Media Group
The men called DoorDash customer service and pretended they had lost access to the accounts, then drained them, the indictment alleges.
Register Now for the Virtual Library Leaders Forum
date: 2024-10-02, from: Internet Archive Blog
In our virtual Library Leaders Forum, you’ll hear from Internet Archive staff about our emerging library services and updates on existing efforts, including from our partners. How do libraries empower […]
https://blog.archive.org/2024/10/02/register-now-for-the-virtual-library-leaders-forum/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-02, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
scripting.com turns thirty in: 5 days, 42 minutes, 35 seconds.
http://scripting.com/misc/countdown/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-02, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
You'll see this now every time you see El Orange speak.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAhmz_EoKbg/?igsh=MTBlZjE4YzMxOA==
One Year After England’s Famous Sycamore Gap Tree Was Illegally Felled, a New Exhibition Honors Its Legacy
date: 2024-10-02, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The show coincides with an initiative that will give away 49 of the tree’s saplings to individuals and communities across the country
Compare Amazon Fire tablet specs: Fire 7, Fire HD 8, Fire HD 10, and Fire Max 11 tablets
date: 2024-10-02, from: Liliputing
Amazon’s Fire tablets are some of the cheapest tablets worth buying thanks to a combination of decent screens, acceptable performance (for some tasks) and really low starting prices. Normally you can pick up an Amazon Fire tablet for between $60 and $230. From time to time, they go on sale at deep discounts. On Amazon […]
The post Compare Amazon Fire tablet specs: Fire 7, Fire HD 8, Fire HD 10, and Fire Max 11 tablets appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/comparing-specs-amazon-fire-7-fire-hd-8-and-fire-10-tablets/
Emboldened by US Supreme Court, California clears homeless from streets
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
A U.S. Supreme Court decision this year allowed authorities nationwide to fine and arrest people sleeping on the streets. That is leading to a massive cleanup of homeless encampments in many California cities, including Los Angeles. Genia Dulot has the story.
Amazon Fire HD 8 (2024) tablets bring memory and camera updates (and AI features)
date: 2024-10-02, from: Liliputing
Amazon’s newest Fire HD 8 tablet for 2024 is… a lot like the company’s 2022 model of this budget tablet. It’s the same size and shape, has the same display, and has the same processor. But the good news is that it also has the same low price tag… and does bring a couple of […]
The post Amazon Fire HD 8 (2024) tablets bring memory and camera updates (and AI features) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/amazon-fire-hd-8-2024-tablets-bring-memory-and-camera-updates/
Gadget designers get chunky option as USB 20 Gbps controller arrives
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Set to bring mighty performance in a small BGA package
Infineon is rolling out its next generation of USB controller designed specifically for peripherals. Simply named the EZ-PD FX20, it will support 20 Gbps Type-C devices, including the latest USB4 standard – though USB 3.2 and Thunderbolt 3 are also supported.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/infineon_unveils_first_usb_20gbps/
Pine64 StarPro64 is a single-board PC with an EIC7700X RISC-V processor featuring a 20 TOPS NPU
date: 2024-10-02, from: Liliputing
Pine64 is a company that’s best known for making cheap, hacker-friendly laptops, smartphones, single-board computers, and other products powered by ARM-based processors. But for the last few years the company has been dabbling in products featuring RISC-V chips. And the new StarPro64 is the company’s most powerful RISC-V device to date. The upcoming single-board computer features […]
The post Pine64 StarPro64 is a single-board PC with an EIC7700X RISC-V processor featuring a 20 TOPS NPU appeared first on Liliputing.
Satellite phones are coming, but users not happy to pay much extra for the capability
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Has someone told all the direct-to-cell investors?
Two out of five mobile phone subscribers are unwilling to pay any extra for direct-to-cell satellite services, which may give operators pause for thought as they continue to pump cash into scaling the infrastructure.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/sat_phone_user_pay/
Long water, power outages from Helene test patience in Carolinas, Georgia
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
SWANNANOA, North Carolina — Many residents of the Carolinas still lacked running water, cellphone service and electricity Wednesday as rescuers searched for people unaccounted for after Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic damage across the Southeast and killed at least 166 people.
President Joe Biden will survey the devastation in the two states as floodwaters receded and revealed more of the death and destruction left in Helene’s path.
More than 1.2 million customers still had no power Wednesday in the Carolinas and Georgia, where Helene tore far inland after initial landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Some residents cooked food on charcoal grills or hiked to high ground in the hopes of finding a signal to let loved ones know they are alive.
“We have to jump-start this recovery process,” Biden said Tuesday, estimating it will cost billions. “People are scared to death. This is urgent.”
While Biden is in the Carolinas, Vice President Kamala Harris will be in neighboring Georgia.
Cadaver dogs and search crews trudged through knee-deep muck and debris in the mountains of western North Carolina looking for more victims. At least 57 people were killed in Buncombe County alone, home to the city of Asheville, a tourism haven known for its art galleries, breweries and outdoor activities.
In small Swannanoa, outside Asheville, receding floodwaters revealed cars stacked on top of others and mobile homes that had floated away. Sinkholes pockmarked roads caked with mud and debris.
Cliff Stewart survived 2 feet of water that poured into his home, topping the wheels on his wheelchair and sending his medicine bottles floating. Left without electricity and reliant on food drop-offs from friends, he has refused offers to help him leave.
“Where am I going to go?” the Marine Corps veteran said. “This is all I’ve got. I just don’t want to give it up, because what am I going to do? Be homeless? I’d rather die right here than live homeless.”
Across the border in east Tennessee, a caravan including Gov. Bill Lee surveying damage outside the town of Erwin drove by a crew pulling two bodies from the wreckage, a grim reminder that the rescue and recovery operations are still very much ongoing and the death toll is likely to rise.
In Augusta, Georgia, Sherry Brown converted power from her car’s alternator to keep her refrigerator running. She has been taking “bird baths” with water collected in coolers. In another part of the city, people waited in line for more than three hours to get water from one of five centers set up to serve more than 200,000 people.
What is being done to help?
More than 150,000 households have registered for assistance with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and that number is expected to rise rapidly in the coming days, said Frank Matranga, an agency representative.
Nearly 2 million ready-to-eat meals and more than a million liters of water have been sent to the hardest-hit areas, he said.
The storm unleashed the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina, dumping more than 2 feet (61 centimeters) of rain in places.
The administration of Gov. Roy Cooper said Tuesday that more than two dozen water plants remained closed. Active-duty U.S. military units may be needed to assist the long-term recovery, he said, adding that Biden had given “the green light” to mobilizing military assets soon.
A section of one of the region’s main arteries, Interstate 40, reopened Tuesday after a mudslide was cleared, but a collapsed stretch near North Carolina’s border with Tennessee remained closed.
How some of the hardest-hit areas are coping
Residents and business owners wore masks and gloves while clearing debris Tuesday in Hot Springs, North Carolina, where almost every building along the main street was heavily damaged.
Sarah Calloway, who owns the deli and gourmet grocery Vaste Riviere Provisions, said the storm arrived frighteningly quickly. She helped fill sandbags the night before, but they turned out to be useless. The water rose so rapidly that even though she and others were in an apartment on an upper floor, she feared they would not be safe. They called to request a rescue from a swift water team.
“It was really challenging to watch how quickly it rose up and then just to watch whole buildings floating down the river. It was something I can’t even describe,” she said.
In the Black Mountain Mobile Home Park in Swannanoa, Carina Ramos and Ezekiel Bianchi were overwhelmed by the damage. The couple, their children and dog fled in the predawn darkness on Friday as the Swannanoa River’s rapidly rising waters began flooding the bottom end of the park.
By then, trees blocked the roads and the couple abandoned their three vehicles, all of which flooded.
“We left everything because we were panicking,” Ramos said.
Mobile service knocked out
The widespread damage and outages affecting communications infrastructure left many people without stable access to the internet and cell service.
“People are walking the streets of Canton with their phones up in the air trying to catch a cellphone signal like it’s a butterfly,” said Mayor Zeb Smathers, of Canton, North Carolina. “Every single aspect of this response has been extremely crippled by lack of cellphone communication. The one time we absolutely needed our cellphones to work they failed.”
Teams from Verizon worked to repair toppled cell towers and damaged cables and to provide alternative forms of connectivity, the company said in a statement.
AT&T said it launched “one of the largest mobilizations of our disaster recovery assets for emergency connectivity support.”
The efforts to restore service were made more challenging by the region’s terrain and spread-out population, said David Zumwalt, president and CEO of the Association for Broadband Without Boundaries.
Destruction from Florida to Virginia
Helene blew ashore in Florida late Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane and upended life throughout the Southeast, with deaths reported in six states: Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia, in addition to the Carolinas.
With at least 36 killed in South Carolina, Helene passed the 35 people who were killed in the state after Hurricane Hugo made landfall north of Charleston in 1989.
When Lee, the Tennessee governor, flew to the eastern part of the state to survey damage Tuesday, residents said the governor and his entourage were the first help they had seen since the storm hit.
“Where has everyone been?” one frustrated local asked. “We have been here alone.”
Microsoft throws in the towel on HoloLens 2
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Five years of mixed reality – now just mixed feelings
Microsoft has axed its HoloLens 2 mixed reality headset and there won’t be a hardware replacement, The Register can confirm.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/microsoft_hololens_2_dead/
Plus Post: Epson HC-88 (PX-8)
date: 2024-10-02, from: Computer ads from the Past
Utilizing the latest technology, we have condensed all of our functionality into an A4 size document.
https://computeradsfromthepast.substack.com/p/plus-post-epson-hc-88-px-8
Internal Emails Reveal How Hate Overwhelmed Springfield After Trump’s Lies About Haitian Immigrants
date: 2024-10-02, from: 404 Media Group
Internal emails from Springfield, Ohio reveal what has happened in the city after Donald Trump and JD Vance spread the conspiracy that Haitians are eating pets.
NASA’s TESS Spots Record-Breaking Stellar Triplets
date: 2024-10-02, from: NASA breaking news
Professional and amateur astronomers teamed up with artificial intelligence to find an unmatched stellar trio called TIC 290061484, thanks to cosmic “strobe lights” captured by NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). The system contains a set of twin stars orbiting each other every 1.8 days, and a third star that circles the pair in just […]
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/tess/nasas-tess-spots-record-breaking-stellar-triplets/
NASA’s Webb Reveals Unusual Jets of Volatile Gas from Icy Centaur 29P
date: 2024-10-02, from: NASA breaking news
Inspired by the half-human, half-horse creatures that are part of Ancient Greek mythology, the field of astronomy has its own kind of centaurs: distant objects orbiting the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has mapped the gases spewing from one of these objects, suggesting a varied composition and providing new insights […]
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-02, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trade Secrets Radio: What is podcasting? This is the exact moment (9/24/2004) that podcasting got its name and its definition. We loved what RSS did for news, now we were doing the same thing for radio, not just talking but doing. If you were there, you remember this as well as I do.
http://secrets.scripting.com/whatIsPodcasting
Two years after entering the graphics card game, Intel has nothing to show for it
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Chipzilla’s AIB market share a rounding error compared to Nvidia, AMD
Comment Add-in board (AIB) market share figures for Q2 2024 are out and despite an uptick in overall sector shipments, relatively recent entrant Intel registered at zero percent.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/intel_aib_market_share/
Someone Put Facial Recognition Tech onto Meta’s Smart Glasses to Instantly Dox Strangers
date: 2024-10-02, from: 404 Media Group
The technology, which marries Meta’s smart Ray Ban glasses with the facial recognition service Pimeyes and some other tools, lets someone automatically go from face, to name, to phone number, and home address.
Microsoft hits go on Windows 11 24H2: Fresh features, bugs, and a whole lotta AI
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Complete with Copilot Vision – but sessions won’t be stored, insists Redmond
Microsoft has made Windows 11 24H2 generally available, dishing out several new features - some that are even useful and interesting - as well as a generous dollop of known issues.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/windows_11_24h2/
Podcast: AI Companies Are Opting You In By Default
date: 2024-10-02, from: 404 Media Group
LinkedIn, Udemy, PayPal, they’ve all had weird opt-in, opt-out stories. And, a dangerous side effect of Waymo’s driverless cars.
https://www.404media.co/podcast-ai-companies-are-opting-you-in-by-default/
Hurricane Helene Knocked One of the World’s Largest Climate Data Archives Offline
date: 2024-10-02, from: 404 Media Group
NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), which is headquartered in Asheville, has been down for days.
https://www.404media.co/hurricane-helene-ncei-national-centers-for-environmental-information-down/
A Network of AI ‘Nudify’ Sites Are a Front for Notorious Russian Hackers
date: 2024-10-02, from: 404 Media Group
Fin7 has made multiple ‘nudify’ sites that promise to use AI to undress photos of people but which are actually vehicles for malware, according to researchers. 404 Media found one advertised on one of the web’s biggest porn aggregators.
https://www.404media.co/a-network-of-ai-nudify-sites-are-a-front-for-notorious-russian-hackers-2/
When companies make political contributions, it’s risky business
date: 2024-10-02, from: Marketplace Morning Report
How businesses strategically funnel cash toward political causes, what they hope to gain, and what they might be risking. Plus, the trucking industry braces for the impact of the dockworkers strike, and an antitrust case against Amazon moves forward.
NIST’s security flaw database still backlogged with 17K+ unprocessed bugs. Not great
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Logjam ‘hurting infosec processes world over’ one expert tells us as US body blows its own Sept deadline
NIST has made some progress clearing its backlog of security vulnerability reports to process – though it’s not quite on target as hoped.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/cve_pileup_nvd_missed_deadline/
Dockworkers strike, day two
date: 2024-10-02, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Dockworkers from East and Gulf Coast ports enter the second day of a strike, with tensions centered around wages and automation. Plus, crude oil prices rise slightly amid escalating violence in the Middle East, and new car sales stall in response to high prices and interest rates.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/dockworkers-strike-day-two
After 27 years, Tcl/Tk 9 finally arrives with 64-bit power and Zip file magic
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Now that’s the kind of stability we like
Tcl/Tk 9.0 has moved to Unicode and 64-bit data structures, and can now access compressed files as if they were file systems. It has been worth the considerable wait.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/tcltk_version_9/
San Francisco Recorded its Hottest Day of the Year
date: 2024-10-02, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Thousands of people in Taiwan have been evacuated ahead of Super Typhoon Krathon • Hurricane Kirk could veer toward Ireland • Forecasters are monitoring the warm Gulf of Mexico for signs of another potential storm expected to form later this week.
THE TOP FIVE
- JD Vance and Tim Walz talk climate and energy at debate
Vice presidential hopefuls Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz discussed energy and climate change during last night’s VP debate. The topics were all but unavoidable after one of the costliest hurricanes in recent U.S. history devastated communities far from the coast the weekend before the debate. Vance refused to say with certainty that the climate crisis was caused by fossil fuel emissions, but said that if it were, the U.S. president would want to “reshore as much American manufacturing as possible, and produce as much energy as possible in the United States of America, because we’re the cleanest economy in the entire world.” What Vance is describing sounds suspiciously like the rationale behind the Inflation Reduction Act, which explicitly aims to build a green economy at home in the U.S. Walz more or less pointed that out in his response: “We’ve seen massive investments — the biggest in global history,” he said. “We’ve seen that the Inflation Reduction Act has created jobs all across the country,” including in manufacturing electric cars and solar panels. “It goes to show: Climate jobs and domestic manufacturing are popular ideas with the American public,” wrote Heatmap’s Jeva Lange. “Just don’t tell your boss, JD.”
- Biden and Harris head to states hit hard by Helene
President Biden and Vice President Harris today will visit states ravaged by Hurricane Helene. Biden will travel to North Carolina, with plans to head to Georgia and Florida “as soon as possible,” according to the White House. Harris heads to Augusta, Georgia, today and will visit North Carolina “in the coming days.” Biden approved a declaration for a major disaster in South Carolina yesterday. He has directed FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell to remain on the ground in Asheville, North Carolina, to help identify ways to speed up recovery efforts in communities cut off by road closures and debris. CNN reported that in some areas, supplies are being delivered by mules. As of this morning, more than 1.3 million people are still without power across five states, with most of the outages in the Carolinas and Georgia. The storm’s death toll has risen to more than 160.
- San Francisco records hottest day of the year
On the other side of the country, intense heat is breaking records. San Francisco recorded its hottest day of 2024 yesterday, with temperatures hitting 93 degrees Fahrenheit. The Sonoma County Airport hit 106 degrees. Other parts of the Bay Area were “as much as 35 degrees above normal” overnight, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. An excessive heat warning remains in place until 11 p.m. tonight. Here’s a look at some of the daily records set or tied:
X/Meanwhile, in Arizona, Phoenix recorded its hottest October day ever (of 113 degrees), breaking the previous 1980 record by a stunning 6 degrees Fahrenheit.
- U.S. imposes tariffs on solar panels from Southeast Asia
The Commerce Department yesterday announced new tariffs on solar panel imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Some U.S. manufacturers say Chinese companies are operating in those countries to get around U.S. duties on solar imports from China, and that the cheap imports hurt domestic solar panel producers. But others in the industry argue that low-priced imports are essential to ramping up clean-energy projects. “The targeted nations provide the bulk of U.S. solar cell and module imports,” Bloomberg reported, “and the swift imposition of countervailing duties means renewable developers will face higher prices for that equipment right away.”
- Climate scientist Claudia Sheinbaum sworn in as president of Mexico
Mexico swore in its first-ever female president yesterday. Claudia Sheinbaum’s election has raised the hopes of environmentalists because she’s a climate scientist with a Ph.d. in energy engineering. She has vowed to boost the country’s renewable energy infrastructure and put forward a $14 billion plan for new energy generation that focuses on renewables. But, as The Washington Post noted, her ideas are “incompatible” with her other promise, which is to carry on the policies of her predecessor López Obrador and rescue the country’s indebted state oil company.
THE KICKER
A company called DairyX claims to have created a type of protein that can make plant-based cheeses stretchy, potentially solving the consistency problem that has long stumped makers of dairy-free cheeses.
https://heatmap.news/climate/california-heatwave-bay-area
VOA EXCLUSIVE: AFRICOM Chief on threats, way forward for US military in Africa
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
Pentagon — U.S. Africa Command chief Gen. Michael Langley is starting to reshape the U.S. military presence on the continent following the U.S. military withdrawal from Niger.
Uncertainty about the next phase of the counter-terror fight in West Africa stems from America’s lost access to two critical counter-terror bases in Niger. In the east, international participants and troop numbers for the new African Union Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) have yet to be finalized less than three months before the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) ends on December 31.
In an exclusive interview at the VOA on Thursday, Langley said the Islamic State in Somalia had grown about twofold and explained how al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabab had taken advantage of tensions between Ethiopia and Somalia to increase recruitment.
Below are highlights from his discussion with VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb, edited for brevity and clarity:
On the growing U.S. partnership with Angola:
AFRICOM Chief General Michael Langley: Angola has displayed their leadership across southern Africa … I’m very encouraged by the actions of Angola.
With Angola and all the countries across the periphery, you have over 38 countries in Africa that have a shoreline. Economic viability is heavily dependent upon their economic exclusive zones … In the maritime and maritime awareness of some of these countries, we have a number of engagements, whether it be Exercise Obangame Express in Gabon this past summer … We have shared type objectives. They want to be able to stabilize and grow their economy through their fishing industries, but it’s hampered by other countries that are going across their economic exclusive economic zones.
On Chinese aspirations for a second military base in Africa:
Langley: I think they do have, in my best military opinion, aspirations for another military base… We’re actively watching.
On Russia’s Africa Corps:
Langley: As you can see, they’re already in Mali. They’re already in Burkina Faso and, to some degree, in Niger. They’ve been in CAR for a while, Central African Republic, and also in Libya. … (Wagner) has transitioned to the Russian MOD and the introduction of the Africa Corps, trying to replicate what we do best in partnering with these countries and trying to say that their security construct is better. It has proven not to be … I don’t have particular numbers that they’ve introduced to Mali, limited numbers in Burkina Faso and also in Libya. It’s in the hundreds. I’ll just put it that way. It’s not extensive just yet.
On how the disputes between Ethiopia, Somalia and others in east Africa are affecting the war against al-Shabab:
Langley: Well, it comes down to troop-contributing countries: who’s going to play and who’s going to be a troop contributing country in the transition from ATMIS to AUSSOM, and that starts at the end of the year. The sunset of ATMIS is 31 December, and then AUSSOM is supposed to take effect. The unknowns are who are going to be the troop-contributing countries to the AUSSOM construct…It is not finalized yet. That’s the UN, that’s the AU and that’s the government of Somalia doing that. We’re not in those discussions, but it’s going to be revealed soon. I hope so. So, in the ATMIS construct, one of the anchor and frontline countries was Ethiopia. So that’s what has me concerned. Ethiopia, especially in the South West State and their contributions to the liberation and stabilization, has been valuable … So time will tell if they can settle their differences and coalesce into a force that’s very effective, because when they do work together, they’re very, very effective at clearing out al-Shabab … There’re limited operations with the Ethiopians at this time.…Al-Shabaab leadership will try to exploit those disagreements and use that as a recruiting mechanism.
VOA: We’ve heard that they’ve had a stronger recruitment because of that situation. Would you agree with that?
Langley: Yes, I will agree with that. They have used that to their advantage.
On whether U.S. forces may be needed during that transition from ATMIS to AUSSOM to try to supplement security:
Langley: That’s not what we’re there for. We’re there … helping President Hassan Mohamud be able to build his army. He’s going through the force generation … all of our initiatives and our approach on the African continent, with our African partners, will be Africa-led and U.S.-enabled. So our piece of enabling is not our boots on the ground. We’re there to advise and assist, and assist in the training, but the fight is theirs… That’s not my mission… President Sheik Mohammed does not ask for our boots on the ground.
On June comments from senior U.S. defense officials who told VOA that al-Shabab had reversed Somali National Army gains in central Somalia:
Langley: I will say it ebbs and flows…They’re still building the Somali National Army. So as they go on offensive operations, it is stress on the force. As they clear and liberate a region, you have to have a credible holding force there so stabilization activities and efforts can initiate and turn the populace and faith in the federal government of Somalia with the services they provide. So that’s a very, that’s a very fragile period. And if they can’t sustain that, because they’re moving to the next region or next district, it ebbs.
VOA: So that was what was happening in this instance. They couldn’t hold the territory that they had gained?
Langley: Right.
VOA: And that’s where your training is coming in, to try to get them ready to be able to hold that territory?
Langley: Exactly. It takes time. It’s an investment to build an army … so they have staying power, and they can also close the military and civilian divide, where the local populace will have faith in the federal government of Somalia and the national army that is there trying to hold.
On why he’s “cautiously optimistic” the Somali forces will be successful against al-Shabab:
Langley: We are at an inflection point. This is unknown territory … However, when I say I’m consciously optimistic, I’m looking at the whole-of-government effort. … Every time I go there, stabilization activities are increasing…Yes, we need a credible holding force because sometimes the shadow governments of al-Shabab try to re-insert themselves back in that region and try to influence some of the local leaders … So it goes back and forth to some of these regions, but they’re being overridden by some of the stabilization activities that USAID, the biggest contributor, has put forth.
On the collaboration between Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militants and al-Shabab:
Langley: There’s probably aspirations. That’s something that we’re watching closely but, you know, I will stay tight lipped on …
We’re concerned, and we’re closely watching that, because this can turn into a bad neighborhood real quick. This is a strategic choke point on the globe…That’s where a lot of our commerce goes through. It could affect our global economy if those waters don’t have free flow of commerce…
With the Houthis and their actions, and al-Shabab and their actions and (Somali President) HSM trying to keep them from coalescing, that can interdict the free flow of commerce across those waters of the Gulf of Aden, Bab-el-Mandeb, the Red Sea, and through the Suez Canal.
On reports Islamic State in Somalia leader Abdulqadir Mumin is now the leader of Islamic State:
Langley: We have to take it as credible … As far as who is the overall leader–and ISIS professes that–sometimes you’ve got to take that seriously, because that person may have an act or aspirations or put forth operations that can affect our homeland. So yes, we’ve got to take that seriously.
On Islamic State in Somalia’s growth:
Langley: I am concerned about the northern part of Somalia and ISIS growing in numbers, and also the possibility of foreign fighters growing there.
Oh, wow … In the past year, it’s probably grown, probably twofold. Now, I won’t give numbers, but I’d say it’s probably, it’s more than what it was last year.
On whether France, the U.S. and Germany have failed the Sahel:
Langley: If we look at the numbers of the global index for terrorism across the Sahel … 40% of those killed across the globe came from the Sahel. So that’s concerning. It emanated from, the ideology, I would say, emanated down through Syria, through the Maghreb. Arab Spring contributed to it. The fall of Libya contributed to it. That’s how that has grown and metastasized to the numbers you have today…that jihad-type ideology is preying upon the civil society, preying upon the military-aged males.
We are engaging with coastal West African countries because as we look at what direction it’s metastasized, it’s on the northern regions of Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo and Benin. …They understand the enduring solution for terrorism …. it’s not about kinetics. So that’s why I don’t just go see the militaries. I get with USAID, and we sit down with these, with these administrators that go out in the field.
On the possibility of southern Libya providing a solution to the U.S. bases challenge in the fight against terror in the Sahel:
Langley: We’ve affected the conversation… I went in and talked to both sides, the GNU and the LNA leadership, but also I want to say that this is very much in the diplomatic realm. …We need to affect unity to move forward. They are at an impasse, a political impasse, because, for us to fully be able to support building their capacity to fight terrorism, anything emanating from the Sahel, we do need them in agreement, in concert, working together as a joint force.
But I will tell you, you know, there is another elephant in the room–elephant in that country–and it’s the Russian Federation. And so their activities are irrespective of the law of armed conflict, irrespective of rules-based order, irrespective to human rights. So we want to be the preferred partner. We don’t tell them to choose. We don’t give them ultimatums, but through our actions and whatever we offer in a value proposition that protects human rights, that’s mindful of the laws of armed conflict, protects the civil society … both the GNU and LNA understand that, and they have made overtures that they do want to work with us. So we’re in the nascent stages, but they need to address the political impasse that they have between the east and the west. And so our State Department is working that effort.
The battle over $18B of sunken treasure
date: 2024-10-02, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: The San José is being hailed as the most valuable shipwreck in the world — it’s a Spanish galleon which sank in the Caribbean more than 300 years ago. Now there’s a legal battle over who has a claim to the treasure, which is valued at £18 billion. Plus, global oil prices rise amid increasing tension in the Middle East.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/the-battle-over-18b-of-sunken-treasure
Fat Bear Week Gets Vicious
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/10/02/fat-bear-week-gets-vicious/
‘Patch yesterday’: Zimbra mail servers under siege through RCE vuln
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Attacks began the day after public disclosure
“Patch yesterday” is the advice from infosec researchers as the latest critical vulnerability affecting Zimbra mail servers is now being mass-exploited.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/mass_exploitation_of_zimbra_rce/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-02, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The messy rules around cannabis use and organ transplants.
https://www.statnews.com/2024/10/02/marijuana-cannabis-use-organ-transplant-denial-law/
HOW I NEARLY FOUND GOD IN NAPLES BUT SETTLED FOR FRIENDSHIP INSTEAD
date: 2024-10-02, from: Howard Jacobson blog
Recently came across a short piece I wrote a few years ago and had forgotten all about.
https://jacobsonh.substack.com/p/how-i-nearly-found-god-in-naples
Fresh court filing accuses Oracle of creating ‘maze’ of options ‘hidden’ in ‘contract’
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Big Red says claims are baseless and wants case thrown out
Oracle faces a class action lawsuit over allegations it has failed to deliver on its promises including a new claim that it “obfuscates” onerous contract terms in “hidden” documents.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/oracle_netsuite_lawsuit/
It’s all hands OFF deck with this Pi-powered LEGO card shuffler
date: 2024-10-02, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
We talk to Pi Towers’ summer intern Louis Wood about his nifty LEGO card shuffler and ambitions as a maker.
The post It’s all hands OFF deck with this Pi-powered LEGO card shuffler appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/its-all-hands-off-deck-with-this-pi-powered-lego-card-shuffler/
The Local Elections That Matter for Decarbonization
date: 2024-10-02, from: Heatmap News
In just over a month, America will elect hundreds of thousands of people to state, county, and municipal offices. While those elections might lack the splashiness of the race for the White House or Congress, they could shape how and whether the United States fights climate change. So which elections matter most?
On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Jesse and Rob speak with Caroline Spears, the executive director of Climate Cabinet, a group that tries to do ‘Moneyball for climate policy,’ analyzing the races that could matter most for the country’s decarbonization. A winner of the Grist 50 award, Spears formerly worked in the solar industry and now leads the growing organization. We dive into which offices have the most sway role over adaptation and mitigation and which races deserve your attention in 2024. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.
Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Caroline Spears: One of the races that is critically important for climate this year is elected utility commissions. They’re not elected in every state, but in about 10 states across the country, voters show up to their ballot box, and they elect the electricity regulatory body for their state.
Should that be an elected position? Listen, it’s not for me to decide. Democracy has decided that electricity regulatory bodies are elected in many states, so here we are. In a bunch of other states, they’re appointed and then confirmed by the state legislature. So there’s this interesting mix of when democracy shows up in these races, in these offices. There are a few public utility commission districts up this November. I really want to highlight the ones happening in Arizona and Montana this year — we’re really watching those, we’re excited to see where those go.
In both cases, climate champions are one and four or zero and five in those states, which means — literally, we are so far from a climate majority in either of those states. And this has real world impacts. So, for example, let’s talk about Montana really quick. That solar company that I used to work for: The Montana Public Service Commission unfairly changed the avoided cost rate, the rate at which we would get compensated, when solar started entering the market. And there’s this hot mic moment where an elected Montana Public Service Commissioner says, “Well, this will kill solar in the state,” and then voted for it. So that’s the power that these public service commissions have, and they’re up for election. They’re up for election this November. So they’re really important.
In Arizona, we’re supporting all three climate champions running. The one person I really want to highlight today is Ylenia Aguilar. She served on the water commission in Arizona, so she has a great knowledge of that intersection between climate and water issues in the state, and just last month she made national news for her work trying to cool down classrooms in Arizona from heating. So she’s someone who can bring together climate, knowledge of what it takes to be on an electricity regulatory commission, and the personal impact of how it actually shows up in people’s lives. So this is the exact type of person you want running for the seat. I’m really excited about those races, but those will be tough.
Jesse Jenkins: And I’ll just add, so these commissions are often in charge of effectively approving the investments and plans of the regulated utilities in the state. In some states, those are only network utilities. So they’re the ones investing in transmission and distribution lines, deciding how to make sure those are resilient to climate damages as we’re seeing from wildfires and floods and hurricanes and everything else.
In other states, like Arizona and Montana, they also oversee utilities that control power generation, as well. So should they be investing in new natural gas plants? Or should they be investing in batteries and solar? For example. Those kinds of decisions go before the utility commission for approval or disapproval before the utilities can earn returns on the investments they make in those areas — or make investments. And as you mentioned, they also set rates both for retail customers — so, you know, what’s the net metering policy? How are we incentivizing flexible EV charging? — and then the rates for, in some cases, avoided costs for larger-scale generators that are connecting to the grid in partial competition frameworks. Lots and lots of other rules.
They’ll be the ones in charge of implementing, usually, clean electricity standards — and in some states, like Arizona, they even have the authority to establish one themselves. So really, really influential bodies.
This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …
Watershed’s climate data engine helps companies measure and reduce their emissions, turning the data they already have into an audit-ready carbon footprint backed by the latest climate science. Get the sustainability data you need in weeks, not months. Learn more at watershed.com.
As a global leader in PV and ESS solutions, Sungrow invests heavily in research and development, constantly pushing the boundaries of solar and battery inverter technology. Discover why Sungrow is the essential component of the clean energy transition by visiting sungrowpower.com.
Intersolar & Energy Storage North America is the premier U.S.-based conference and trade show focused on solar, energy storage, and EV charging infrastructure. To learn more, visit intersolar.us.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.
https://heatmap.news/shift-key-s2-e8-climate-cabinet
The Local Elections That Matter for Decarbonization
date: 2024-10-02, from: Heatmap News
In just over a month, America will elect hundreds of thousands of people to state, county, and municipal offices. While those elections might lack the splashiness of the race for the White House or Congress, they could shape how and whether the United States fights climate change. So which elections matter most?
On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Jesse and Rob speak with Caroline Spears, the executive director of Climate Cabinet, a group that tries to do ‘Moneyball for climate policy,’ analyzing the races that could matter most for the country’s decarbonization. A winner of the Grist 50 award, Spears formerly worked in the solar industry and now leads the growing organization. We dive into which offices have the most sway role over adaptation and mitigation and which races deserve your attention in 2024. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.
Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Caroline Spears: One of the races that is critically important for climate this year is elected utility commissions. They’re not elected in every state, but in about 10 states across the country, voters show up to their ballot box, and they elect the electricity regulatory body for their state.
Should that be an elected position? Listen, it’s not for me to decide. Democracy has decided that electricity regulatory bodies are elected in many states, so here we are. In a bunch of other states, they’re appointed and then confirmed by the state legislature. So there’s this interesting mix of when democracy shows up in these races, in these offices. There are a few public utility commission districts up this November. I really want to highlight the ones happening in Arizona and Montana this year — we’re really watching those, we’re excited to see where those go.
In both cases, climate champions are one and four or zero and five in those states, which means — literally, we are so far from a climate majority in either of those states. And this has real world impacts. So, for example, let’s talk about Montana really quick. That solar company that I used to work for: The Montana Public Service Commission unfairly changed the avoided cost rate, the rate at which we would get compensated, when solar started entering the market. And there’s this hot mic moment where an elected Montana Public Service Commissioner says, “Well, this will kill solar in the state,” and then voted for it. So that’s the power that these public service commissions have, and they’re up for election. They’re up for election this November. So they’re really important.
In Arizona, we’re supporting all three climate champions running. The one person I really want to highlight today is Ylenia Aguilar. She served on the water commission in Arizona, so she has a great knowledge of that intersection between climate and water issues in the state, and just last month she made national news for her work trying to cool down classrooms in Arizona from heating. So she’s someone who can bring together climate, knowledge of what it takes to be on an electricity regulatory commission, and the personal impact of how it actually shows up in people’s lives. So this is the exact type of person you want running for the seat. I’m really excited about those races, but those will be tough.
Jesse Jenkins: And I’ll just add, so these commissions are often in charge of effectively approving the investments and plans of the regulated utilities in the state. In some states, those are only network utilities. So they’re the ones investing in transmission and distribution lines, deciding how to make sure those are resilient to climate damages as we’re seeing from wildfires and floods and hurricanes and everything else.
In other states, like Arizona and Montana, they also oversee utilities that control power generation, as well. So should they be investing in new natural gas plants? Or should they be investing in batteries and solar? For example. Those kinds of decisions go before the utility commission for approval or disapproval before the utilities can earn returns on the investments they make in those areas — or make investments. And as you mentioned, they also set rates both for retail customers — so, you know, what’s the net metering policy? How are we incentivizing flexible EV charging? — and then the rates for, in some cases, avoided costs for larger-scale generators that are connecting to the grid in partial competition frameworks. Lots and lots of other rules.
They’ll be the ones in charge of implementing, usually, clean electricity standards — and in some states, like Arizona, they even have the authority to establish one themselves. So really, really influential bodies.
This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …
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Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.
https://heatmap.news/podcast/shift-key-s2-e8-climate-cabinet
UK’s Arm-based Isambard 2 supercomputer powers off for good
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Isambard 3 and AI sibling set to pick up the torch
The UK’s Isambard 2, one of the early Arm-based supercomputers, has officially retired after just a few years of operation. It is superseded by the more powerful Isambard 3 and Isambard-AI, just as British supercomputing enters an uncertain period for funding.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/isambard_2_retired/
AI agent promotes itself to sysadmin, trashes boot sequence
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Fun experiment, but yeah, don’t pipe an LLM raw into /bin/bash
Buck Shlegeris, CEO at Redwood Research, a nonprofit that explores the risks posed by AI, recently learned an amusing but hard lesson in automation when he asked his LLM-powered agent to open a secure connection from his laptop to his desktop machine.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/ai_agent_trashes_pc/
NATO and Its Defense Industrial Base
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: RAND blog
The 2024 NATO summit was a display of political unity. To maintain such cohesion, NATO needs to increase its defense industrial base capacity, as well as adopt an acquisition strategy that meets the growing demand for weapons and ammunition. And it needs to do both things in a way that navigates political sensitivities.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/10/nato-and-its-defense-industrial-base.html
The fix for BGP’s weaknesses has big, scary, issues of its own, boffins find
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Bother, given the White House has bet big on RPKI – just like we all rely on immature internet infrastructure that usually works
The Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) protocol has “software vulnerabilities, inconsistent specifications, and operational challenges” according to a pre-press paper from a trio of German researchers.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/rpki_immaturity_study/
A look at false and misleading claims during the vice presidential debate
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
FBI claims corrupt LA cops helped crypto CEO’s cash grab
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Feds tell thrilling tale of crypto crooks, Facebook scams, fast cars, guns, betrayal … and leg extensions?
Adam Iza, the founder of cryptocurrency trading platform Zort, has been charged with tax evasion and conspiracy in a bizarre tale of corrupt cops and Facebook employees, stolen digicash, and an alleged $30 million scam.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/fbi_zort_arrest/
JD Vance couldn’t quite gaslight the audience for the full 90 minutes.
date: 2024-10-02, from: Dave Karpf’s blog
The format favored Vance, but he couldn’t make it the whole way without being creepy and weird.
https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/jd-vance-couldnt-quite-gaslight-the
Singapore tires of Big Tech’s slow and half-hearted help for abused users
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
PM promises agency to handle complaints as he outlines new digital nation plan
Singapore is working on legislation and a dedicated agency that would hold online service providers more accountable for cyber bullying, according to prime minister Lawrence Wong.…
Helene and other storms dumped 40 trillion gallons of rain on South
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
JD Vance Makes the Case for the Inflation Reduction Act
date: 2024-10-02, from: Heatmap News
It was always going to be the case that the vice presidential debate would have the most substantive climate exchange of the 2024 election cycle. For one (big) thing: Neither candidate was Donald Trump. For another, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Ohio Senator JD Vance both have, at least at some point, professed concern about “the climate problem.” But a question from the moderators was all but guaranteed after one of the costliest hurricanes in recent U.S. history devastated communities far from the coast the weekend before the debate.
Rather than get just a few meager sentences about “immaculate clean water,” then, Americans who bothered to tune into the debate were treated to a lengthy back-and-forth about clean energy investment and the Inflation Reduction Act by the presidential candidates’ seconds. The exchange touched off when Vance was asked what responsibility the Trump administration would have “to try and reduce the impact of climate change,” especially given the scenes out of Western North Carolina.
“A lot of people are justifiably worried about all these crazy weather patterns,” Vance said to start (though lest we forget, those “crazy weather patterns” just left 100 dead in six U.S. states and are expected to result in 250,000 excess deaths per year by 2050, according to the IPCC). He added that “Donald Trump and I support clean air, clean water” but that “one of the things that I’ve noticed some of our Democratic friends talking a lot about is a concern about carbon emissions — this idea that carbon emissions drive all the climate change.”
Who had on their Bingo card that Vance would be the first to mention carbon emissions during a debate in 2024? But he quickly turned the moment around to cast doubt on the human causes: “Let’s just say that’s true, for the sake of argument, so we’re not arguing about weird science,” he added, though he proceeded to structure his remarks as if we live in a world where greenhouse gases are warming the atmosphere (what a thought!):
If you believe that, what would you want to do?
The answer is that you want to reshore as much American manufacturing as possible, and you want to produce as much energy as possible in the United States of America, because we’re the cleanest economy in the entire world.
Kamala Harris’ policies actually led to more energy production in China, more manufacturing overseas, more doing business in some of the dirtiest parts of the entire world — when I say that, I mean the amount of carbon emissions they’re doing per unit of economic output.
So if we actually care about getting cleaner air and cleaner water, the best thing to do is to double down and invest in American workers and the American people.
Of course, what Vance is describing sounds suspiciously like the rationale behind the Inflation Reduction Act, which explicitly aims to build a green economy at home in the U.S. Walz more or less pointed that out in his response: “We’ve seen massive investments — the biggest in global history,” he said. “We’ve seen that the Inflation Reduction Act has created jobs all across the country,” including in manufacturing electric cars and solar panels.
Walz also noted that Trump has called climate change a hoax, which earned Vance a chance to respond. “If the Democrats — in particular, Kamala Harris and her leadership — if they really believe that climate change is serious, what they would be doing is more manufacturing and more energy production in the United States of America,” he reemphasized, then added: “If you really want to make the environment cleaner, you’ve got to invest in more energy production. We’ve built a nuclear facility — I think one in the past 40 years. Natural gas, we’ve got to invest more in it.”
The ball then returned to Walz. “We’re producing more natural gas than we ever had,” he correctly pointed out (and, though he didn’t mention it, Biden recently signed a big bill advancing nuclear, too). But while Trump hosted oil executives at Mar-a-Lago when he was courting campaign donations, “we can be smarter about that and an all-above energy policy,” the governor went on. “That’s exactly what this administration has done. We are seeing us becoming an energy superpower for the future, not just the current.”
Was it a perfect climate exchange? Not really. It’s easy to see why the oil industry is sweet on Vance and Walz’s citation of an “all-above energy policy” will likely leave some in the more progressive wings of the climate movement feeling cold.
But it will be described as an amicable exchange, particularly for moments like Walz telling Vance, “Well, we got close to an agreement” on recognizing so-called crazy weather patterns. In truth, they also got close to an agreement on a little something called the IRA — yet another case of a Republican trying to have it both ways. It goes to show: Climate jobs and domestic manufacturing are popular ideas with the American public. Just don’t tell your boss, JD.
https://heatmap.news/politics/jd-vance-debate-inflation-reduction-act
Vance, Walz clash in US vice presidential debate
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/vance-walz-clash-in-us-vice-presidential-debate-/7807245.html
JD Vance on Climate Change: ‘Let’s Just Say That’s True’
date: 2024-10-02, from: Heatmap News
We didn’t have to wait long for climate to come up during tonight’s vice presidential debate between VP hopefuls Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz — the night’s second question was about the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene and fueled by warmer air and waters due to climate pollution.
Vance started off his answer innocuously enough, extending his thoughts and prayers to those affected by the hurricane and then proceeding to some campaign boilerplate. “I think it’s important for us, first of all, to say Donald Trump and I support clean air and clean water,” Vance said up top, echoing Trump’s claim that he wants “absolutely immaculate clean water and … absolutely clean air,” from the presidential debate back in June. (It’s worth noting, of course, that his policy choices tell a different story.)
Vance then proceeded to hedge the climate change question in a way that wound up backing him right into it. “One of the things that I’ve noticed some of our Democratic friends talking a lot about is a concern about carbon emissions, this idea that carbon emissions drives all of the climate change,” Vance said. “Well, let’s just say that’s true — just for the sake of argument, so we’re not arguing about weird science. Let’s just say that’s true.”
He then went on to describe an America-first all-of-the-above energy and manufacturing policy that sounded more than a little familiar.
https://heatmap.news/sparks/vance-debate-climate
China trains 100-billion-parameter AI model on home grown infrastructure
date: 2024-10-02, updated: 2024-10-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Research institute seems to have found Huawei to do it – perhaps with Arm cores - despite sanctions
China Telcom’s AI Research Institute claims it trained a 100-billion-parameter model using only domestically produced computing power – a feat that suggests Middle Kingdom entities aren’t colossally perturbed by sanctions that stifle exports of Western tech to the country.…
Justice Department launches first federal review of 1921 Tulsa race massacre
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a review and evaluation of the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said.
The massacre started on May 31, 1921, when white attackers killed as many as 300 people, most of them Black, in Tulsa’s prosperous Greenwood neighborhood, which had gained the nickname “Black Wall Street.”
In announcing the review on Monday, Clarke said the department aims to have it finalized by the end of the year.
“When we have finished our federal review, we will issue a report analyzing the massacre in light of both modern and then-existing civil rights law,” said Clarke, who oversees the Justice Department’s civil rights enforcement efforts.
The review will be conducted under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which allows the Department of Justice to investigate death-resulting civil rights crimes that occurred on or before Dec. 31, 1979.
The massacre started after a Black man was accused of assaulting a white woman.
“We have no expectation that there are living perpetrators who could be criminally prosecuted by us or by the state,” Clarke said. “Although a commission, historians, lawyers and others have conducted prior examinations of the Tulsa Massacre, we, the Justice Department, never have.”
Clarke said the department is examining available documents, witness accounts, scholarly and historical research and other information related to the massacre.
Biden to visit hurricane-hit North Carolina
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-to-visit-hurricane-hit-north-carolina-/7807179.html
Trump declines to be interviewed for ‘60 Minutes’ election special
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — CBS News said Tuesday that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has declined to participate in an interview with “60 Minutes” for its election special, which will go forward next Monday with Democratic opponent Kamala Harris alone.
Television’s top-rated news program regularly invites the two presidential contenders for separate interviews that air back-to-back on a show near the election. This year, it is scheduled for Monday instead of its usual Sunday time slot.
Asked for comment, the former president’s campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said, “Fake news,” adding that there were discussions, but nothing was ever locked in.
“60 Minutes” said Trump’s campaign had initially agreed to an interview before telling CBS that the former president would not appear. The network said its invitation to sit for an interview still stands, and correspondent Scott Pelley will explain Trump’s absence to viewers.
Vice President Harris will appear in a pretaped interviewed with Bill Whitaker.
There are currently no other scheduled opportunities for voters to compare the two candidates together. Harris and Trump previously debated on Sept. 10. Although Harris has accepted an invitation from CNN for a second debate later this month, Trump has not accepted.
The interview special is scheduled to air Monday instead of the usual “60 Minutes” time slot because CBS is showing the American Music Awards on Sunday.
Trump’s interview with “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl prior to the 2020 election proved contentious, with the former president ending the session early and his campaign posting an unedited transcript of the session.
CBS News was hosting Tuesday’s vice presidential debate between Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Tim Walz, Minnesota’s Democratic governor.
Wildfires in California have burned 1 million hectares so far this year
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
LOS ANGELES — The total hectares burned in California this year surpassed 1 million as spiking temperatures Tuesday added to the challenges facing firefighters struggling to contain a stubborn blaze in the mountains northeast of Los Angeles that flared up over the weekend.
Evacuation orders were expanded again Monday for remote communities northeast of Los Angeles as the Line Fire that has been burning for nearly a month spread over nearly 176 square kilometers (68 square miles) of the San Bernardino Mountains, and containment dropped from 83% to 76%.
“The dry vegetation, steep slopes and wind aligned … to create conditions for the rapid fire spread,” according to a statement late Monday from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
The risk of wildfires increased across California as an autumn heat wave scorched much of the state. Some inland areas could see temperatures up to 20 degrees above average for this time of year, according to the National Weather Service.
San Francisco, where residents typically break out the sweaters in October, could hit 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit), while triple digits 38 C were predicted for Sacramento. The weather service office in the state’s capital urged residents to stay indoors during the heat of the day on Tuesday.
Dry, hot winds in the northern part of the state prompted Pacific Gas & Electric to preemptively cut power to small clusters of customers in high-risk areas. The utility routinely stops electricity service in counties where weather conditions increase the probability of fires.
In Southern California, the Line Fire’s surge pushed the total hectares burned across the state in 2024 to 405,492 (1,001,993 acres) as of Tuesday morning, according to Cal Fire. The milestone surpasses the total scorched during the same time last year — 118,719 hectares (293,362 acres) — but is roughly on par with the five-year average for the period, the Los Angeles Times reported.
A 34-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to starting the Line Fire on September 5. Justin Wayne Halstenberg of Norco, California, was charged with 11 arson-related crimes, according to court records.
At its height, the blaze threatened more than 65,000 homes in and around the Big Bear Lake area.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-02, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Why should the New York Times hold Harris to a higher standard than Trump? Isn't that sort of our whole problem.
https://jabberwocking.com/let-us-hold-donald-trump-to-normal-standards-of-conduct-please/
November trial set for suspect in Trump assassination attempt in Florida
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-02, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The 1962 Mets No Longer Hold Season Loss Record.
https://metsmerizedonline.com/the-1962-mets-no-longer-hold-season-loss-record/
US special envoy for Taliban-ruled Afghanistan moved to different role
date: 2024-10-02, from: VOA News USA
ISLAMABAD — The United States has reassigned its special representative for Afghanistan, leaving vacant a key position in its efforts to engage with the Taliban-ruled country.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the decision Tuesday to reassign Tom West, while emphasizing that Washington’s commitment to the South Asian nation “remains an enduring priority.”
Blinken said West would serve in a new role as the acting head of the Office of Sanctions Coordination at the U.S. State Department and commended him for working “tirelessly to ensure [that] both our national interests and the welfare of the Afghan people guided our policy in Afghanistan.”
West was appointed as the special representative to Afghanistan in October 2021, two months after the Taliban regained power and all U.S.-led NATO troops withdrew from the country, ending 20 years of involvement in the war.
“Tom has skillfully led diplomacy on Afghanistan during a complex period,” Blinken said. “Today’s global challenges are equally as complex, and I look forward to working with him on coordinating economic sanctions strategies across the U.S. government with our partners and stakeholders to achieve U.S. foreign policy priorities,” he said without elaborating.
The Taliban takeover compelled Washington and other Western capitals to relocate their diplomatic missions from Kabul to Doha, Qatar, where Karen Decker serves as the chief of the U.S. Embassy. Blinken said Decker has been asked to lead Afghan diplomacy.
The de facto Afghan leaders have imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law, known as Shariah, banning girls’ education beyond the sixth grade, prohibiting women from most workplaces and access to public life at large across the impoverished country.
Taliban leaders reject international criticism and calls for reversing bans on Afghan women’s rights to work and education as interference in the country’s internal matters.
Blinken said that Rina Amiri, the U.S. special envoy for Afghan women’s and girls’ rights, would continue to lead her mission to ensure that “human rights, and particularly women’s rights, are prioritized.”
Asif Durrani, who served as Pakistan’s special representative to Afghanistan until last month, said that many countries, including the U.S., are frustrated with the Taliban due to their treatment of women and their lack of an inclusive government in Kabul.
“Issues such as inclusivity or human rights, particularly girls’ right to education and women’s right to work, are issues that the American administration cannot afford to overlook and engage the Taliban in a meaningful way,” Durrani said.
But he suggested the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have diverted Washington’s attention from the Afghan situation.
“It’s quite obvious that Afghanistan is not on the United States’ priority list, at least for the time being,” Durrani said.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller rejected that view when asked by reporters Tuesday whether Afghanistan is still a U.S. foreign policy priority.
“Of course it is,” he said. “And we will continue to stay engaged in Afghanistan. It remains an enduring priority.”
Durrani said the U.S. cannot be blamed alone for the lack of improvement in Afghanistan. “The Taliban’s rigid attitude towards women’s education and their ban on women’s work is not winning them any friends or sympathy.”
No country has officially recognized the men-only Taliban government in Kabul, mainly due to human rights issues and their sweeping restrictions on women’s freedoms.
The United States and allied nations have imposed financial and banking sector sanctions on Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover. Donors have cut economic development assistance, citing terrorism-related sanctions on several key leaders of the de facto government.
State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching contributed to this report.