News gathered 2024-10-04
(date: 2024-10-04 07:27:08)
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-04, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Last night it wasn't lookin good for the Mets.
http://scripting.com/2024/10/04/132351.html?title=howAboutTheMets
NASA Announces Teams to Compete in International Rover Challenge
date: 2024-10-04, from: NASA breaking news
NASA has selected 75 student teams to begin an engineering design challenge to build rovers that will compete next spring at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center near the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The competition is one of the agency’s Artemis Student Challenges, encouraging students to pursue degrees and careers in […]
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-04, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Matt Mullenweg's blog post on Automattic employees taking the buyout.
https://ma.tt/2024/10/alignment/
TSMC and Amkor link up to bring advanced packaging stateside
date: 2024-10-04, updated: 2024-10-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Arizona looks like the place to be for US semiconductor manufacturing
Taiwan’s TSMC has inked a deal with US semiconductor outfit Amkor Technology to beef up advanced chip packaging on American soil.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/04/tsmc_amkor_arizona/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-04, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
159 employees are leaving Automattic as CEO's fight with WP Engine escalates.
A Big Change Is Coming to the Texas Power Grid
date: 2024-10-04, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Hurricane Kirk, now a Category 4 storm, could bring life-threatening surf and rip currents to the East Coast this weekend • The New Zealand city of Dunedin is flooded after its rainiest day in more than 100 years • Parts of the U.S. may be able to see the Northern Lights this weekend after the sun released its biggest solar flare since 2017.
THE TOP FIVE
- DOE announces $1.5 billion investment in transmission projects
The Energy Department yesterday announced $1.5 billion in investments toward four grid transmission projects. The selected projects will “enable nearly 1,000 miles of new transmission development and 7,100 MW of new capacity throughout Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, while creating nearly 9,000 good-paying jobs,” the DOE said in a statement. One of the projects, called Southern Spirit, will involve installing a 320-mile high-voltage direct current line across Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi that connects Texas’ ERCOT grid to the larger U.S. grid for the first time. This “will enhance reliability and prevent outages during extreme weather events,” the DOE said. “This is a REALLY. BIG. DEAL,” wrote Michelle Lewis at Electrek.
The DOE also released a study examining grid demands through 2050 and concluded that the U.S. will need to double or even triple transmission capacity by 2050 compared to 2020 to meet growing electricity demand.
- Duke Energy doubles down on fossil fuels
Duke Energy, one of the country’s largest utilities, appears to be walking back its commitment to ditch coal by 2035. In a new plan released yesterday, Duke said it would not shut down the second-largest coal-fired power plant in the U.S., Gibson Station in Indiana, in 2035 as previously planned, but would instead run it through 2038. The company plans to retrofit the plant to run on natural gas as well as coal, with similar natural-gas conversions planned for other coal plants. The company also slashed projects for expanding renewables. According to Bloomberg, a Duke spokeswoman cited increasing power demand for the changes. Electricity demand has seen a recent surge in part due to a boom in data centers. Ben Inskeep, program director at the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, a consumer and environmental advocacy group, noted that Duke’s modeling has Indiana customers paying 4% more each year through 2030 “as Duke continues to cling to its coal plants and wastes hundreds of millions on gasifying coal.”
- EEI forecasts 80 million EVs on the road by 2035
The Edison Electric Institute issued its latest electric vehicle forecast, anticipating EV trends through 2035. Some key projections from the trade group’s report:
- By 2030, annual EV sales will reach 7.7 million and account for 46% of total light-duty sales.
- That will soar to 12.2 million annual sales by 2035, with EVs accounting for about 72% of total light-duty sales.
- The total number of EVs on U.S. roads in 2035 will be nearly 80 million, up from 4.5 million at the end of last year. This means that in about a decade, roughly a quarter of all the vehicles on the road – new and old – will be electric.
- All this growth will necessitate the installation of more than 42.2 million charge points by 2035, 325,000 of which will need to be public DC fast chargers.
- Tesla issues another Cybertruck recall
Tesla issued another recall for the Cybertruck yesterday, the fifth recall for the electric pickup since its launch at the end of last year. The new recall has to do with the rearview camera, which apparently is too slow to display an image to the driver when shifting into reverse. It applies to about 27,000 trucks (which is pretty much all of them), but an over-the-air software update to fix the problem has already been released. There were no reports of injuries or accidents from the defect.
- Study: Antarctic ‘greening’ is accelerating
A new study published in Nature found that vegetation is expanding across Antarctica’s northernmost region, known as the Antarctic Peninsula. As the planet warms, plants like mosses and lichen are growing on rocks where snow and ice used to be, resulting in “greening.” Examining satellite data, the researchers from the universities of Exeter and Hertfordshire, and the British Antarctic Survey, were shocked to discover that the peninsula has seen a tenfold increase in vegetation cover since 1986. And the rate of greening has accelerated by over 30% since 2016. This greening is “creating an area suitable for more advanced plant life or invasive species to get a foothold,” co-author Olly Bartlett, a University of Hertfordshire researcher, told Inside Climate News. “These rates of change we’re seeing made us think that perhaps we’ve captured the start of a more dramatic transformation.”
Moss
on Ardley Island in the
Antarctic.
Dan Charman/Nature
THE KICKER
Japan has a vast underground concrete tunnel system that was built to take on overflow from excess rain water and prevent Tokyo from flooding. It’s 50 meters underground, and nearly 4 miles long.
Carl Court/Getty Images
https://heatmap.news/climate/a-big-change-is-coming-to-the-texas-power-grid
Gugusse Roller transfers analogue film to digital with Raspberry Pi
date: 2024-10-04, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
This canny way to transfer analogue film to digital was greatly improved by using Raspberry Pi, Rosie Hattersley discovers.
The post Gugusse Roller transfers analogue film to digital with Raspberry Pi appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
Knock It Off, Zoos
date: 2024-10-04, updated: 2024-10-04, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/10/04/knock-it-off-zoos/
Podcast: One Year Anniversary Subscriber Bonanza
date: 2024-10-04, from: 404 Media Group
In this special podcast episode, we talk subscriber numbers, what people value, how to get our articles in front of people, and what we’re looking to do next year.
https://www.404media.co/podcast-one-year-anniversary-subscriber-bonanza/
Dockworkers suspend their strike — for now
date: 2024-10-04, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Dockworkers have suspended their strike until Jan. 15 in response to a new, higher wage offer from port operators. But what about their demands around automation? Plus, a judge blocks the Biden administration’s latest student debt relief plan, and the complicated work of tracking political donations by companies and business owners.
Hubble Observes a Peculiar Galaxy Shape
date: 2024-10-04, from: NASA breaking news
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the galaxy, NGC 4694. Most galaxies fall into one of two basic types. Spiral galaxies are young and energetic, filled with the gas needed to form new stars and sporting spiral arms that host these hot, bright youths. Elliptical galaxies have a much more pedestrian look, and their […]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-observes-a-peculiar-galaxy-shape/
How Meta Brings in Millions Off Political Violence
date: 2024-10-04, from: The Markup blog
CalMatters and The Markup used Facebook’s AI model to count the millions of dollars it makes after violent news events
https://themarkup.org/investigations/2024/10/04/how-meta-brings-in-millions-off-political-violence
Apple fixes bug that let VoiceOver shout your passwords
date: 2024-10-04, updated: 2024-10-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Not a great look when the iGiant just launched its first password manager
Apple just fixed a duo of security bugs in iOS 18.0.1 and iPadOS 18.0.1, one of which might cause users’ saved passwords to be read aloud. It’s hardly an ideal situation for the visually impaired.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/04/apple_voiceover_password_bug/
What impact will new tariffs on Chinese EVs have on the EU market?
date: 2024-10-04, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: The European Union has given the green light to big tariffs on electric vehicles made in China, but not all member states or European car manufacturers are happy with the decision.
AI in organizations: Some tactics
date: 2024-10-04, from: One Useful Thing
Meet the Lab and the Crowd
https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/ai-in-organizations-some-tactics
ULA nears second launch of Vulcan Centaur in pursuit of US Space Force approval
date: 2024-10-04, updated: 2024-10-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
No spaceplane in the payload, but it won’t be a wasted mission
Updated United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Vulcan Centaur is ready to blast off from Florida this morning, the second flight to space for the rocket.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/04/ula_vulcan_centaur_launch/
Office 2024 unveiled for Microsoft 365 refuseniks
date: 2024-10-04, updated: 2024-10-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
For the IT professional who has to take work home
The Long Term Service Channel (LTSC) version of Microsoft Office 2024 is being joined by a version aimed at consumers and small businesses that want to avoid paying subscription fees.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/04/office_2024/
Busybox 1.37 is tiny but capable, the way we like Linux tools to be
date: 2024-10-04, updated: 2024-10-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Self-proclaimed Swiss Army knife of embedded Linux moves slow and fixes things in latest release
Busybox is tiny, unobtrusive, and runs quite a lot of routers and other key bits of the internet – somewhat like Linux itself used to be.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/04/busybox_137/
Analysts: Japan’s new prime minister may seek nuclear consulting body with US
date: 2024-10-04, from: VOA News USA
Washington — Japan’s new prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, who began his term this week, may advocate for forming a nuclear body with the United States that is similar to an arrangement between the U.S. and South Korea aimed at planning for nuclear warfare contingencies.
“The U.S.-ROK [Republic of Korea, or South Korea] approach is probably a good example of where the U.S. and Japan might go in the future if nuclear threats keep increasing,” said James Schoff, a senior director of the U.S.-Japan NEXT Alliance Initiative at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA.
“It’s not about nuclear sharing or Japan building its own nuclear forces — both politically impossible at the moment and not necessary — but [about] the alliance taking more practical steps to be prepared for U.S. nuclear retaliation, if it becomes necessary,” Schoff said.
He said creating such a body would demonstrate resolve, credibility and readiness to any potential adversary and thus deter nuclear use in the first place.
Nuclear talk body
The new body would resemble the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) that South Korea and the United States established as part of the Washington Declaration in April 2023. The Washington-Seoul nuclear body is aimed at planning for potential nuclear contingencies caused by North Korea.
A U.S.-Japan nuclear consultative body would focus on nuclear threats from China and Russia in addition to North Korea, analysts say.
In a joint statement issued at their Security Consultative Committee meeting in July, Tokyo and Washington shared concerns over China’s “rapid expansion of its nuclear weapons arsenal” and agreed to strengthen deterrence through their ongoing Extended Deterrence Dialogue.
“Ishiba is likely to continue the strategies of [his predecessor Fumio] Kishida against China, and may in fact try to be bolder,” said Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative and an associate professor at Tokyo International University.
Countering China
Though he is not entirely anti-China, Ishiba, a former defense minister who analysts say tends to view foreign relations through a security framework, is expected to be tough on China’s military assertions.
“Prime Minister Ishiba has spoken openly about the serious security challenges China poses to Japan,” said Ken Weinstein, the Japan chair at Hudson Institute.
“These challenges lie behind his desire for an Asian NATO and nuclear sharing, neither of which is likely to be policy,” Weinstein continued. “Instead, we are likely to see a change in tone towards the PRC with a tougher line from the Kantei on Chinese provocations than we saw from the more establishmentarian Kishida government.”
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the official name of China, and the Kantei refers to the Japanese prime minister’s office.
Before Ishiba was elected, he wrote an article published in September by the Hudson Institute, an American conservative non-profit think tank based in Washington D.C., advocating for an Asian version of NATO that would consider sharing U.S. nuclear weapons or introducing nuclear weapons in the region.
He said if nuclear threats by China and North Korea escalate in the region, “the U.S. extended deterrence in the region will no longer function.”
Extended deterrence involves a U.S. commitment to use all military assets, including nuclear weapons, to defend the region. Such a commitment would deter potential adversaries from causing any conflict.
But in recent years, there has been growing skepticism among U.S. allies over its extended deterrence commitment, leading South Korea to call for its own nuclear weapons.
In January 2023, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said South Korea may have to consider developing its own nuclear weapons or ask the U.S. to redeploy nuclear weapons in South Korea.
Yoon later retracted his statement after the NCG was created in April 2023, saying that South Korea will instead focus on enhancing deterrence with the United States to deal with North Korea’s nuclear threat.
Asian NATO
Ishiba’s call for a collective security arrangement like an Asian NATO and nuclear deployment and sharing options stems from uncertainty in relying “solely on the security alliance with the U.S.,” said Daniel Sneider, a lecturer in international policy focusing on Japanese foreign policy at Stanford University.
Ishiba sees “the need to protect Taiwan from Chinese attempts to forcefully reunify” the self-governed island that Beijing considers its own territory. He also wants Japan “to be prepared for any eventualities, including the retreat of the United States from global leadership,” amid concerns over U.S. foreign policy after the presidential election in November, Sneider said.
Before Japan’s own election this month, Ishiba, as a member of the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party, visited Taiwan in August and told Taiwan President Lai Ching-te that enhanced deterrence was necessary to resist China’s aggression in the Taiwan Strait.
The Sasakawa Peace Foundation’s Schoff said Ishiba probably knows that a true Asian NATO is not feasible, but “he is sending a signal to China and Russia that their aggressive use of military forces harassing other countries and penetrating their sovereign space is being noticed and will push Asian countries closer together in collective defense if they keep it up.”
Japan accused a Chinese spy plane of violating its airspace for the first time in August.
Matthew Brummer, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, said instead of calling for an Asian NATO, Japan will likely increase cooperation with NATO countries, deepening security agreements, especially regarding joint technology sharing and production.
Revenge for being fired is best served profitably
date: 2024-10-04, updated: 2024-10-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Why yes, I will help you again – for a price
On Call The exchange of labor for currency can be a grim business, which is why The Register ends each working week with a new instalment of On Call – the reader contributed column in which you tell cathartic tales of Working For The Man.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/04/on_call/
Harvard duo hacks Meta Ray-Bans to dox strangers on sight in seconds
date: 2024-10-04, updated: 2024-10-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
‘You can build this in a few days – even as a very naïve developer’
A pair of inventive Harvard undergraduates have created what they believe could be one of the most intrusive devices ever built – a wake-up call, they tell The Register, for the world to take privacy seriously in the AI era.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/04/harvard_engineer_meta_smart_glasses/
Google Cloud to help India export its Digital Public Infrastructure
date: 2024-10-04, updated: 2024-10-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Bundles free government apps to help digital diplomacy – and maybe find some new customers
Google Cloud will help India to spread its Digital Public Infrastructure – the suite of government apps it offers to help other nations – through the development of a “DPI in a box” tool.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/04/google_assists_to_export_indias/
Elon Musk’s X mashed by Australian court for evading child protection reporting
date: 2024-10-04, updated: 2024-10-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Argument that it didn’t inherit Twitter’s legal obligations did not hit the spot
Australia’s Federal Court has rejected Elon Musk’s assertion that X/Twitter does not need to comply with local requirements to provide information about how it detects, removes and prevents the spread of child sexual abuse material.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/04/x_loses_australian_child_safety_case/
Big names among thousands infected by payment-card-stealing CosmicSting crooks
date: 2024-10-04, updated: 2024-10-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Gangs hit 5% of all Adobe Commerce, Magento-powered stores, Sansec says
Ray-Ban, National Geographic, Whirlpool, and Segway are among thousands of brands whose web stores were reportedly compromised by criminals exploiting the CosmicSting flaw in hope of stealing shoppers’ payment card info as they order stuff online.…
Mixed verdict for 3 Memphis officers convicted in man’s fatal beating
date: 2024-10-04, from: VOA News USA
MEMPHIS, Tennessee — Three former Memphis police officers were convicted Thursday in the 2023 fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, but were acquitted of the harshest charges they faced for a death that sparked national protests and calls for broad changes in policing.
Jurors deliberated for about six hours before coming back with the mixed verdict for Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith.
All were convicted of witness tampering related to the cover-up of the beating, but Bean and Smith were acquitted of civil rights charges. Haley was acquitted of violating Nichols’ civil rights causing death, but convicted of the lesser charge of violating his civil rights causing bodily injury. He was also convicted of a conspiracy to witness tamper charge that the others were acquitted of.
The court remained silent as the verdicts were read.
The judge ordered all three officers to be taken into custody. He planned to hold a hearing Monday to hear from the defense lawyers about releasing them pending sentencing. The witness tampering charges carry possible sentences of up to 20 years in prison. The civil rights charge against Haley carries up to 10 years in prison. They had faced up to life in prison if convicted on the harshest charges.
The verdict marked a partial setback for prosecutors who were unable to land a conviction for civil rights violations for two officers who played an active role in the encounter. Jurors repeatedly watched graphic clips from police video that showed the officers punch and kick Nichols and hit him with a police baton just steps from his home, as the 29-year-old called out for his mother.
In a statement, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who oversees the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said “Tyre Nichols should be alive today.”
“We hope this prosecution provides some measure of comfort as the law enforcement officers tied to his death have been held accountable,” Clarke said.
Bean and Smith were seen on video wrestling with Nichols and holding his arms, while also hitting him, but the jury was not convinced those actions amounted to civil rights violations. An FBI agent said Smith told him he punched Nichols, but defense lawyers argued Bean and Smith were merely slapping Nichols’ hands away as they tried to put handcuffs on him.
Rodney Wells, Nichols’ stepfather, told The Associated Press outside the courtroom: “A win is a win. They’re all going to jail.”
Five officers were charged in Nichols’ death, but two pleaded guilty and testified against members of their old crime suppression unit.
Prosecutors argued that Nichols was beaten for running from a traffic stop, saying it was part of a common police practice referred to in officer slang as a “street tax” or “run tax.” They said the officers lied — to a supervisor, to medical professionals attending to Nichols and in required written reports — about the extent of the force they used.
“This has been a long journey for our family,” RowVaughn Wells, Nichols’ mother, told reporters. “I’m actually in shock right now because I still can’t believe all the stuff that’s going on. But we’re happy that they all have been convicted and they have been arrested.”
Smith’s lawyer declined to comment. Attorneys for Bean and Haley did not respond to requests for comment.
Nichols, who was Black, ran from the traffic stop despite being hit with pepper spray and a Taser. The five officers, who were fired after the beating, also are Black.
Some of the most emotional testimony at trial came from one of the officers, Desmond Mills, who took a plea deal in which prosecutors call for up to 15 years in prison. He testified in tears that he was sorry, that he left Nichols’ young son fatherless and that he wishes he stopped the punches. Later, he testified that he went along with a cover-up in hopes that Nichols would survive and the whole thing would “blow over.”
Nichols died Jan. 10, 2023, three days after the beating. His son is now 7 years old.
The other officer who reached a deal with prosecutors, Emmitt Martin, testified that Nichols was “helpless” while officers pummeled him, and that afterward the officers understood “they weren’t going to tell on me, and I wasn’t going to tell on them.” Under his plea agreement, prosecutors will suggest a prison sentence of up to 40 years.
Defense attorneys sought to portray Martin as a principal aggressor. Martin testified Nichols was not a threat, yet he acknowledged punching and kicking Nichols in the head.
Mills’ lawyer declined to comment. Martin’s attorney did not immediately respond to a phone message.
The police video shows the officers milling about and talking as Nichols struggles with his injuries. An autopsy report shows he died from blows to the head. The report describes brain injuries, and cuts and bruises on his head and other areas.
With the federal criminal trial complete, other investigations and court action still aren’t settled.
The five officers also have been charged with second-degree murder in state court, where they pleaded not guilty, although Mills and Martin are expected to change their pleas. A trial date in state court has not been set.
The U.S. Department of Justice is conducting a “patterns and practices” investigation into how Memphis officers use force and conduct arrests, and whether the department in the majority-Black city engages in racially discriminatory policing.
The Justice Department also has a separate review concerning use of force, de-escalation strategies and specialized units within Memphis police.
Pastor Earle Fisher, a Memphis activist who has long called for investigations of the city’s police, said he hopes the probes “provide for us the remedies we so rightly deserve.”
Additionally, Nichols’ mother filed a $550 million lawsuit against the city and its police chief.
Ben Crump and Anthony Romanucci, lawyers for Nichols’ family, said the verdicts “bring a measure of accountability for his senseless and tragic death.”
“Our fight for justice for Tyre is far from over,” the lawyers said in a joint statement.
Grace period for US student loan payments is over. Here’s what you need to know
date: 2024-10-04, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — The 12-month grace period for student loan borrowers ended on September 30. The “on-ramp” period helped borrowers who are struggling to make payments avoid the risk of defaulting and hurting their credit score.
“The end of the on-ramp period means the beginning of the potentially harsh consequences for student loan borrowers who are not able to make payments,” said Persis Yu, Deputy Executive Director at the Student Borrower Protection Center.
Around 43 million Americans have student loan debt, amounting to $1.5 trillion. Around eight million of those borrowers had enrolled in the SAVE plan, the newest income-driven repayment plan that extended the eligibility for borrowers to have affordable monthly student loan payments. However, this plan is currently on hold due to legal challenges.
With the on-ramp period and a separate program known as Fresh Start ending and the SAVE plan on hold, student loan borrowers who are struggling to afford their monthly payments have fewer options, added Yu. Student loan borrowers who haven’t been able to afford their monthly payments must consider their options to avoid going into default.
If you have student loans, here’s what you need to know.
What was the on-ramp period?
The Education Department implemented this grace period to ease the borrower’s transition to make payments after a three-year payment pause during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this year-long period, borrowers were encouraged to keep making payments since interest continued to accumulate.
“Normally, loans will default if you fall about nine months behind on making payments, but during this on-ramp period, missed payments would not move people towards defaulting and then being subject to forced collections. However, if you missed payments, you still be falling behind ultimately on repaying your loans,” said Abby Shaforth, director of National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project.
Since this grace period has ended, student loan borrowers who don’t make payments will go delinquent or, if their loans are not paid for nine months, go into default.
Borrowers who cannot afford to make payments can apply for deferment or forbearance, which pause payments, though interest continues to accrue.
What happens if I don’t make my payments?
Borrowers who can’t or don’t pay risk delinquency and eventually default. That can badly hurt your credit rating and make you ineligible for additional aid and government benefits.
If a borrower missed one month’s payment, they will start receiving email notifications, said Shaforth. Once the loan hasn’t been paid for three months, loan servicers notify to the credit reporting agencies that the loan is delinquent, affecting your credit history. Once the borrower hasn’t paid the loan for nine months, the loan goes into default.
If you’re struggling to pay, advisers first encourage you to check if you qualify for an income-driven repayment plan, which determines your payments by looking at your expenses. You can see whether you qualify by visiting the Federal Student Aid website. If you’ve worked for a government agency or a non-profit organization, you could also be eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which forgives student debt after 10 years.
What happens when a loan goes into default?
When you fall behind on a loan by 270 days — roughly nine months — the loan appears on your credit report as being in default.
Once a loan is in default, it goes into collections. This means the government can garnish wages (without a court order) to go towards paying back the loan, intercept tax refunds, and seize portions of Social Security checks and other benefit payments.
What if I can’t pay?
If your budget doesn’t allow you to resume payments, it’s important to know how to navigate the possibility of default and delinquency on a student loan. Both can hurt your credit rating, which would make you ineligible for additional aid.
If you’re in a short-term financial bind, you may qualify for deferment or forbearance — allowing you to temporarily suspend payment.
To determine whether deferment or forbearance are good options for you, you can contact your loan servicer. One thing to note: interest still accrues during deferment or forbearance. Both can also impact potential loan forgiveness options. Depending on the conditions of your deferment or forbearance, it may make sense to continue paying the interest during the payment suspension.
What is an income-driven repayment plan?
The U.S. Education Department offers several plans for repaying federal student loans. Under the standard plan, borrowers are charged a fixed monthly amount that ensures all their debt will be repaid after 10 years. But if borrowers have difficulty paying that amount, they can enroll in one of several plans that offer lower monthly payments based on income and family size. Those are known as income-driven repayment plans.
Income-driven options have been offered for years and generally cap monthly payments at 10% of a borrower’s discretionary income. If a borrower’s earnings are low enough, their bill is reduced to $0. And after 20 or 25 years, any remaining debt gets erased.
What is the latest with the SAVE program?
In August, the Supreme Court kept on hold the SAVE plan, the income-driven repayment plan that would have lowered payments for millions of borrowers, while lawsuits make their way through lower courts.
Eight million borrowers who had already enrolled in the SAVE plan don’t have to pay their monthly student loan bills until the court case is resolved. Debt that already had been forgiven under the plan was unaffected.
The next court hearing about this case will be held on October 15.
What happened with the Fresh Start program?
The Fresh Start program, which gave benefits to borrowers who were delinquent prior to the pandemic payment pause, also closed on September 30. During this limited program, student loan borrowers who were in default prior to the pandemic were given the opportunity to remove their loans from default, allowing them to enroll in income-driven payment plans, or apply for deferment, among other benefits.
US dockworkers to suspend strike until January
date: 2024-10-04, from: VOA News USA
detroit — The union representing 45,000 striking U.S. dockworkers at East and Gulf coast ports reached a deal Thursday to suspend a three-day strike until January 15 to provide time to negotiate a new contract.
The union, the International Longshoremen’s Association, is to resume working immediately. The temporary end to the strike came after the union and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, which represents ports and shipping companies, reached a tentative agreement on wages, the union and ports said in a joint statement.
A person briefed on the agreement said the ports sweetened their wage offer from about 50% over six years to 62%. The person didn’t want to be identified because the agreement is tentative. Any wage increase would have to be approved by union members as part of the ratification of a final contract.
The union went on strike early Tuesday after its contract expired in a dispute over pay and the automation of tasks at 36 ports stretching from Maine to Texas. The strike came at the peak of the holiday shopping season at the ports, which handle about half the cargo from ships coming into and out of the United States.
The walkout raised the risk of shortages of goods on store shelves if it lasted more than a few weeks. Most retailers, though, had stocked up or shipped items early in anticipation of the dockworkers’ strike.
“With the grace of God, and the goodwill of neighbors, it’s gonna hold,” President Joe Biden told reporters Thursday night after the agreement.
In a statement later, Biden applauded both sides “for acting patriotically to reopen our ports and ensure the availability of critical supplies for Hurricane Helene recovery and rebuilding.”
Biden said that collective bargaining is “critical to building a stronger economy from the middle out and the bottom up.”
The union’s membership won’t need to vote on the temporary suspension of the strike, meaning that giant cranes should start loading and unloading shipping containers Thursday night. Until January 15, the workers will be covered under the old contract, which expired on September 30.
The union had been demanding a 77% raise over six years, plus a complete ban on the use of automation at the ports, which members see as a threat to their jobs. Both sides also have been apart on the issues of pension contributions and the distribution of royalties paid on containers that are moved by workers.
Thomas Kohler, who teaches labor and employment law at Boston College, said the agreement to halt the strike means that the two sides are close to a final deal.
“I’m sure that if they weren’t going anywhere they wouldn’t have suspended (the strike),” he said. “They’ve got wages. They’ll work out the language on automation, and I’m sure that what this really means is it gives the parties time to sit down and get exactly the language they can both live with.”
Industry analysts have said that for every day of a port strike it takes four to six days to recover. But they said a short strike of a few days probably wouldn’t gum up the supply chain too badly.
Kohler said the surprise end to the strike may catch railroads with cars, engines and crews out of position. But railroads are likely to work quickly to fix that.
Just before the strike had begun, the Maritime Alliance said both sides had moved off their original wage offers, a tentative sign of progress.
The settlement pushes the strike and any potential shortages past the November presidential election, eliminating a potential liability for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. It’s also a big plus for the Biden-Harris administration, which has billed itself as the most union-friendly in American history. Shortages could have driven up prices and reignited inflation.
Thursday’s deal came after administration officials met with foreign-owned shipping companies before dawn on Zoom, according to a person briefed on the day’s events who asked not to be identified because the talks were private. The White House wanted to increase pressure to settle, emphasizing the responsibility to reopen the ports to help with recovery from Hurricane Helene, the person said.
Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su told them she could get the union to the bargaining table to extend the contract if the carriers made a higher wage offer. Chief of Staff Jeff Zients told the carriers they had to make an offer by the end of the day so a manmade strike wouldn’t worsen a natural disaster, the person said.
By midday the Maritime Alliance members agreed to a large increase, bringing about the agreement, according to the person.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-04, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
This is a tiny little text box. My goal is to eradicate these beasts
http://scripting.com/2024/01/14/031201.html
Not just AI datacenters needing own power: Taiwanese server-maker Quanta has bought microgrids
date: 2024-10-04, updated: 2024-10-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
California utilities couldn’t deliver for hyperscalers’ favorite hardware slinger
It’s not just datacenters running AI that need their own energy sources. Taiwanese hardware manufacturer to the clouds Quanta has revealed the purchase of three sets of fuel cell microgrid systems to power one of its California plants, after purchasing two in April of this year.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/04/quanta_buys_microgrids/
Biden tours, deploys troops to hurricane-ravaged US states
date: 2024-10-04, from: VOA News USA
President Joe Biden traveled to the election battleground states of Florida and Georgia on Thursday to survey damage caused by Hurricane Helene. It’s the second day the U.S. president reassured storm victims that the federal government will support recovery efforts. Patsy Widakuswara reports.
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-tours-deploys-troops-to-hurricane-ravaged-us-states-/7810036.html
Sols 4323-4324: Surfin’ Our Way out of the Channel
date: 2024-10-04, from: NASA breaking news
Earth planning date: Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024 As a member of the group tasked with organizing our campaign to investigate the Gediz Vallis channel and deposit (informally known as the Channel Surfers), I was a little sad this morning to see that our drive had successfully taken us out of the channel, back onto the […]
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/sols-4323-4324-surfin-our-way-out-of-the-channel/
Biden surveys Hurricane Helene’s damage in southeastern US
date: 2024-10-04, from: VOA News USA
Lawmakers Are Hiding Their Private Equity Millions
date: 2024-10-04, from: The Lever News
As Wall Street fights legislative crackdowns, J.D. Vance and other top lawmakers have tens of millions invested in private equity — and most don’t have to disclose the details.
https://www.levernews.com/lawmakers-are-hiding-their-private-equity-millions/
AI’s energy appetite too big for Texas grid, regulators warn
date: 2024-10-04, updated: 2024-10-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Datacenters coming online in the next 15 months will need to supply at least some of their own power
As the saying goes, everything is bigger in Texas, but as datacenter footprints explode amid the AI boom, regulators fear even the Lone Star state’s utilities won’t be able to keep up for much longer.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/04/texas_dc_power/
Crazy Stupid Tech
date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog
Crazy Stupid Tech is a weekly newsletter about innovation and new technologies by longtime tech journalists Om Malik and Fred Vogelstein.
Cloudflare beats patent troll so badly it basically gives up
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Networking giant pockets $225K, foe promises to stop suing and abandons IP
Cloudflare on Thursday celebrated a victory over Sable Networks, which the former described as a “patent troll.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/patent_shakedown_fails_as_troll/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Former county clerk Tina Peters sentenced to 9 years for voting-system breach
Scammers in the slammer for years after ripping off Apple with fake iPhone returns
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Duo must also cough up $1.5M for pulling off multi-million-dollar exchange swindle
Two fraudsters will spend nearly five years behind bars each and pay a combined $1.5 million for bilking Apple out of millions of dollars worth of iPhones. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/counterfeit_iphone_scammers_prison/
The Toxic Loophole Behind A Chemical Plant Disaster
date: 2024-10-03, from: The Lever News
In the years before the catastrophic BioLab chemical fire this week, chemical industry lobbyists fought to ensure disaster-prevention rules didn’t cover such facilities.
https://www.levernews.com/the-toxic-loophole-behind-a-chemical-plant-disaster/
With Longshoremen on Strike, What Happens to Wind and Solar?
date: 2024-10-03, from: Heatmap News
The American renewables industry is a global industry. While the Biden administration has devoted three-plus years and billions of dollars to building up wind and solar supply chains in the United States, many of the components of renewable energy generation — whether it’s the cells that make up solar panels or the 1,500-ton monopiles that serve as the foundation for offshore wind turbines — are manufactured overseas in from Spain to Denmark all across East and Southeast Asia.
With the members International Longshoremen Association on strike in the U.S. due to a contract dispute with the United States Maritime Alliance, shutting down ports up and down the Gulf and Atlantic Coast, one might wonder, what happens to U.S. renewables development?
The answer so far is: Not much. The closure of these ports’ cargo operations has not yet had a massive effect on the U.S. economy outside of businesses that work directly with the shipping industry, like trucking. There is no single port — or coast, even — that serves as a chokepoint for renewables-related imports. Many components from East and Southeast Asia come through west coast ports that are staffed by longshoremen in a different union, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union; shipments were being diverted there for weeks leading up to the strike.
That’s not to say the industry can simply coast through a prolonged strike. But there are some differences between different sectors, especially wind and solar.
Wind
Much of the wind industry, especially offshore, runs on foreign-manufactured equipment that is then processed and assembled in the United States. “Almost 70% of all wind-specific imports that are tracked through trade codes came from Mexico, Germany, Spain, and India, with the remaining imports mostly from Canada and various countries in Europe and Asia,” according to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report on the wind industry.
At least so far, much of the wind business — including the offshore wind business — appears to have largely dodged substantial issues from the strike so far.
Orsted’s work at three East Coast ports in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York has been unaffected, a source familiar with the situation told me. And the Portsmouth Marine Terminal in Virginia, where 70 of those monopiles have been shipped, is continuing to operate normally, according to the Port of Virginia. (Virginia’s offshore wind industry is still vulnernable to vagaries of international trade — last year, Siemens Gamesa cancelled a plan to build a blade manufacturing facility in Virginia, where Dominion Energy is working on an offshore wind project.)
While the East Coast is an active hub of offshore wind activity, if the greater wind industry were to be affected by a prolonged strike, it would likely happen in Texas, which is both a major importer of wind equipment and has the country’s largest wind power sector.
Texas is “the dominant entry point” for wind equipment, according to the Lawrence Berkeley report, with almost $1 billion in annual wind imports.
At least one of those ports is still operating. The Port of Galveston is so-far unaffected by the strike, a port spokesperson told me. The port has become a major importer of wind turbines. In June, the port said that 400 wind turbine components had come through the port just since April, and that another 300 or so would flow through “over the coming months.” So far this year, some 25,742 tons of turbine pieces have come through the port, largely from Spain, Denmark, and other countries in Europe.
Neighboring Port Houston, however, is being picketed and “not handling container operations at this time,” the Houston Chronicle reported. In the run-up to the strike, Port Houston said that imports of wind power equipment had “increased notably” in August. In 2020, the port imported some 19,000 tons of wind power equipment.
Solar
The Houston area also has a number of recently opened solar manufacturing facilities, where cells, often imported from Asia, are assembled into panels. Proximity to the port was one reason why the manufacturers set up in shop in the area, according to the Houston Chronicle. “When you look at Houston specifically, you have one of the best ports in the country,” SEG Solar chief executive Jim Wood said in a company release when the facility opened. (SEG Solar has said it plans to start manufacturing cells domestically, though it currently makes them in Indonesia.)
Sophie Karp, an analyst at KeyBanc, forecast in a note to clients that some renewables manufacturers could be “disproportionately affected” by the strike. U.S. manufacturer First Solar “is the top importer at the Port of Houston,” Karp wrote, importing the equivalent of 17,200 shipping containers in the last year. The Korean solar company Qcells, meanwhile, which has made massive investments in Georgia, is a major customer of the Port of Savannah, which has been shut down due to the strike and has imported 31,400 container equivalents, according to KeyBanc. Karp also speculated that companies like the inverter manufacturer Enphase or the solar tracking company Array “are likely to have some exposure through their supply chains as well.”
“If the strike continues for an extended period, supply disruptions in the U.S. solar market are likely,” Karp wrote — especially for solar companies “that do not have ample inventory cushion on the ground.”
Trade disruptions are nothing new for the solar industry, which saw imports slow in 2022 after the passage of a law meant to ban companies from subsidizing forced labor in Xinjiang in Western China, where much of the raw material for the world’s polysilicon is mined. Just this week, fresh tariffs were slapped on solar cells from manufacturers in Southeast Asia, which officials say function as cover for Chinese solar businesses. In fact, the California Chamber of Commerce specifically warned of congestion in the state’s ports as solar companies hurried up their purchases of panels ahead of the new duty.
So far, the solar and renewables industry has been quiet about the
strike, in comparison to
their
unified voice on tariffs. Other portions of the electrical
industry have been more vocal.
“The electroindustry is one of the largest manufacturing sectors of the U.S. economy, with one of the most complex international supply chains of any industry,” Debra Phillips, president of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, said in a statement. “Over $195 million per day of electroindustry goods, representing nearly 30% of the nation’s electroindustry imports, is now stranded in unloaded cargo ships, threatening widespread disruption to our critical grid infrastructure.”
NEMA was one of more than 250 business groups that signed a letter published Wednesday that called on the Biden White House to “to take immediate action to resolve this situation expeditiously.” While one major clean energy group, the American Clean Power Association, signed the letter, others such as the Solar Energy Industries Association and Advanced Energy United, did not.
https://heatmap.news/economy/port-strike-wind-solar
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
New Yorker’s ‘Social Media Is Killing Kids’ Article Waits 71 Paragraphs To Admit Evidence Doesn’t Support The Premise.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
If I ask good questions ChatGPT stretches my mind in ways it never has been stretched before.
http://scripting.com/2024/10/03/152757.html
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Automattic demanded web host pay $32M annually for using WordPress trademark.
Hurricane pushes climate change to forefront of presidential campaign
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene has brought climate change to the forefront of the presidential campaign after the issue lingered on the margins for months.
Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Georgia Wednesday to see hard-hit areas, two days after her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, was in the state and criticized the federal response to the storm, which has killed at least 200 people in the Southeast. Helene is the deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
President Joe Biden toured some of the hardest-hit areas by helicopter on Wednesday and Thursday. Biden, who has frequently been called on to survey damage and console victims after tornadoes, wildfires, tropical storms and other natural disasters, traveled to the Carolinas, Florida and Georgia to get a closer look at the hurricane devastation.
“Storms are getting stronger and stronger,” Biden said Wednesday after surveying damage near Asheville, North Carolina. At least 70 people died in the state.
“Nobody can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore,’’ Biden said at a briefing in Raleigh, North Carolina.”They must be brain dead if they do.”
Harris, meanwhile, hugged and huddled with a family Wednesday in hurricane-ravaged Augusta, Georgia.
“There is real pain and trauma that resulted because of this hurricane’’ and its aftermath, Harris said outside a storm-damaged house with downed trees in the yard.
“We are here for the long-haul,’’ she said.
Storm damage forces discussion
The focus on the storm — and its link to climate change — was notable after climate change was only lightly mentioned in two presidential debates this year. The candidates instead focused on abortion rights, the economy, immigration and other issues.
The hurricane featured prominently in Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate as Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz were asked about the storm and the larger issue of climate change.
Both men called the hurricane a tragedy and agreed on the need for a strong federal response. But it was Walz, the governor of Minnesota, who put the storm in the context of a warming climate.
“There’s no doubt this thing roared onto the scene faster and stronger than anything we’ve seen,” he said.
Bob Henson, a meteorologist and writer with Yale Climate Connections, said it was no surprise that Helene is pushing both the federal disaster response and human-caused climate change into the campaign conversation.
“Weather disasters are often overlooked as a factor in big elections,’’ he said.”Helene is a sprawling catastrophe, affecting millions of Americans. And it dovetails with several well-established links between hurricanes and climate change, including rapid intensification and intensified downpours.”
More than 40 trillion gallons of rain drenched the Southeast in the last week, an amount that if concentrated in North Carolina would cover the state in 3 1/2 feet of water. “That’s an astronomical amount of precipitation,” said Ed Clark, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Candidates make claims, counter claims
During Tuesday’s debate, Walz credited Vance for past statements acknowledging that climate change is a problem. But he noted that Trump has called climate change “a hoax” and joked that rising seas “would make more beachfront property to be able to invest in.”
Trump said in a speech Tuesday that “the planet has actually gotten little bit cooler recently,” adding: “Climate change covers everything.”
In fact, summer 2024 sweltered to Earth’s hottest on record, making it likely this year will end up as the warmest humanity has measured, according to the European climate service Copernicus. Global records were shattered just last year as human-caused climate change, with a temporary boost from an El Niño, keeps dialing up temperatures and extreme weather, scientists said.
Vance, an Ohio senator, said he and Trump support clean air, clean water and “want the environment to be cleaner and safer.” However, during Trump’s four years in office, he took a series of actions to roll back more than 100 environmental regulations.
Vance sidestepped a question about whether he agrees with Trump’s statement that climate change is a hoax. “What the president has said is that if the Democrats — in particular Kamala Harris and her leadership — 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. And that’s not what they’re doing,” he said.
“This idea that carbon [dioxide] emissions drives all of the climate change. Well, let’s just say that’s true just for the sake of argument. So, we’re not arguing about weird science. If you believe that, what would you want to do?” Vance asked.
The answer, he said, is to “produce as much energy as possible in the United States of America, because we’re the cleanest economy in the entire world.’’
Vance claimed that policies by Biden and Harris actually help China, because many solar panels, lithium-ion batteries and other materials used in renewable energy and electric vehicles are made in China and imported to the United States.
Walz rebutted that claim, noting that the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats’ signature climate law approved in 2022, includes the largest-ever investment in domestic clean energy production. The law, for which Harris cast the deciding vote, has created 200,000 jobs across the country, including in Ohio and Minnesota, Walz said. Vance was not in the Senate when the law was approved.
“We are producing more natural gas and more oil [in the United States] than we ever have,” Walz said. “We’re also producing more clean energy.”
The comment echoed a remark by Harris in last month’s presidential debate. The Biden-Harris administration has overseen “the largest increase in domestic oil production in history because of an approach that recognizes that we cannot over rely on foreign oil,” Harris said then.
While Biden rarely mentions it, domestic fossil fuel production under his administration is at an all-time high. Crude oil production averaged 12.9 million barrels a day last year, eclipsing a previous record set in 2019 under Trump, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Democrats want to continue investments in renewable energy such as wind and solar power — and not just because supporters of the Green New Deal want that, Walz said.
“My farmers know climate change is real. They’ve seen 500-year droughts, 500-year floods back-to-back. But what they’re doing is adapting,’’ he said.
“The solution for us is to continue to move forward, [accept] that climate change is real” and reduce reliance on fossil fuels, Walz said, adding that the administration is doing exactly that.
“We are seeing us becoming an energy superpower for the future, not just the current’’ time, he said.
About the Office of the General Counsel
date: 2024-10-03, from: NASA breaking news
The Office of the General Counsel provides functional leadership regarding legal services and issues related to all aspects of NASA activities for Center Chief and Patent Counsel and, for Agency-wide issues, the Administrator. These services and issues include establishing and disseminating legal policy and interpreting new statutes and cases. The Office of the General Counsel […]
https://www.nasa.gov/organizations/about-the-office-of-the-general-counsel/
Florida communities hit by 3 hurricanes grapple with whether to rebuild
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
HORSESHOE BEACH, Florida — It was just a month ago that Brooke Hiers left the state-issued emergency trailer where her family had lived since Hurricane Idalia slammed into her Gulf Coast fishing village of Horseshoe Beach in August 2023.
Hiers and her husband, Clint, were still finishing the electrical work in the home they painstakingly rebuilt themselves, wiping out Clint’s savings to do so. They will never finish that wiring job.
Hurricane Helene blew their newly renovated home off its 4-foot-high pilings, sending it floating into the neighbor’s yard next door.
“You always think, ‘Oh, there’s no way it can happen again,’” Hiers said. “I don’t know if anybody’s ever experienced this in the history of hurricanes.”
For the third time in 13 months, this windswept stretch of Florida’s Big Bend took a direct hit from a hurricane — a one-two-three punch to an 80-kilometer (50-mile) sliver of the state’s more than 13,500 kilometers (8,400 miles) of coastline, first by Idalia, then Hurricane Debby in August 2024 and now Helene.
Hiers, who sits on Horseshoe Beach’s town council, said words like “unbelievable” are beginning to lose their meaning.
“I’ve tried to use them all. Catastrophic. Devastating. Heartbreaking … none of that explains what happened here,” Hiers said.
The back-to-back hits to Florida’s Big Bend are forcing residents to reckon with the true costs of living in an area under siege by storms that researchers say are becoming stronger because of climate change.
The Hiers, like many others here, can’t afford homeowners insurance on their flood-prone houses, even if it were available. Residents who have watched their life savings get washed away multiple times are left with few choices — leave the communities where their families have lived for generations, pay tens of thousands of dollars to rebuild their houses on stilts as building codes require, or move into a recreational vehicle they can drive out of harm’s way.
That’s if they can afford any of those things. The storm left many residents bunking with family or friends, sleeping in their cars or sheltering in what’s left of their collapsing homes.
Janalea England wasn’t waiting for outside organizations to get aid to her friends and neighbors, turning her commercial fish market in the river town of Steinhatchee into a pop-up donation distribution center, just like she did after Hurricane Idalia. A row of folding tables was stacked with water, canned food, diapers, soap, clothes and shoes, a steady stream of residents coming and going.
“I’ve never seen so many people homeless as what I have right now. Not in my community,” England said. “They have nowhere to go.”
The sparsely populated Big Bend is known for its towering pine forests and pristine salt marshes that disappear into the horizon, a remote stretch of largely undeveloped coastline that’s mostly dodged the crush of condos, golf courses and souvenir strip malls that has carved up so much of the Sunshine State.
This is a place where teachers, mill workers and housekeepers could still afford to live within walking distance of the Gulf’s white sand beaches. Or at least they used to, until a third successive hurricane blew their homes apart.
Helene was so destructive, many residents don’t have a home left to clean up, escaping the storm with little more than the clothes on their backs, even losing their shoes to the surging tides.
With marinas washed away, restaurants collapsed, and vacation homes blown apart, many commercial fishermen, servers and house cleaners lost their homes and their jobs on the same day.
Those who worked at the local sawmill and paper mill, two bedrock employers in the area, were laid off in the past year too. Now a convoy of semi-trucks full of hurricane relief supplies have set up camp at the shuttered mill in the city of Perry.
Hud Lilliott was a mill worker for 28 years, before losing his job and now his canal-front home in Dekle Beach, just down the street from the house where he grew up.
Lilliott and his wife, Laurie, hope to rebuild their house there, but they don’t know how they’ll pay for it. And they’re worried the school in Steinhatchee where Laurie teaches first grade could become another casualty of the storm, as the county watches its tax base float away.
“We’ve worked our whole lives, and we’re so close to where they say the ‘golden years,’” Laurie said. “It’s like you can see the light and it all goes dark.”
Dave Beamer rebuilt his home in Steinhatchee after it was “totaled” by Hurricane Idalia, only to see it washed into the marsh a year later.
“I don’t think I can do that again,” Beamer said. “Everybody’s changing their mind about how we’re going to live here.”
Beamer plans to stay in this river town but will put his home on wheels. He says he’ll buy a camper and build a pole barn to park it under.
In Horseshoe Beach, Hiers is waiting for a makeshift town hall to be delivered in the coming days, a double-wide trailer where they’ll offer what services they can for as long as they can. She and her husband are staying with their daughter, a 45-minute drive away.
“You feel like this could be the end of things as you knew it. Of your town. Of your community,” Hiers said. “We just don’t even know how to recover at this point.”
California Voters Can Reverse State’s Decision to Cut Millions For Climate Disasters
date: 2024-10-03, from: Capital and Main
New scorecard reveals extent of private equity’s role in fossil fuel finance.
The post California Voters Can Reverse State’s Decision to Cut Millions For Climate Disasters appeared first on .
John Deere accused of being full of manure with its right-to-repair promises
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Tractor maker has only turned over shoddy tools, half-baked info, may be breaking the law, says senator
US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has sent a letter to John May, CEO of agricultural equipment maker Deere & Company, questioning whether John Deere is living up to the promises it made to support the right to repair.…
Contracts and Acquisition Integrity Law
date: 2024-10-03, from: NASA breaking news
The Contracts and Acquisition Integrity Law Practice Group is responsible for providing Agency-wide legal advice and counsel regarding the statutes, regulations and policies governing Federal Government contracting. The Practice Group also represents the Agency, working with the U.S. Department of Justice where appropriate, in bid protests and contract-related litigation before the Government Accountability Office, the […]
https://www.nasa.gov/organizations/contracts-and-acquisition-integrity-law/
Throwback Thursday: KDE 2 on SuSE Linux 7.3
date: 2024-10-03, from: mrusme blog
“Do you pine for the days when men were men and wrote their own
device drivers?”
– Linus T.
https://xn--gckvb8fzb.com/throwback-thursday-kde-2-on-suse-linux-7-3/
Samsung is porting Tizen to RISC-V
date: 2024-10-03, from: OS News
In case you missed it at the 2024 Samsung Developer Conference today, our partners at Samsung Visual Display discussed the work they have been doing to port the Tizen operating system to RISC-V. Tizen is an open-source operating system (OS) that is used in many Samsung smart T.V.s and it makes sense that they would look to the fast growing, global open-standard RISC-V to develop future systems. The presentation showed the results of efforts at both companies to expand the capabilities of the already robust Tizen approach. At the event they also demonstrated a T.V. running on RISC-V and using a SiFive Performance P470 based core. ↫ John Ronco The announcement is sparse on details, and there isn’t much more to add than this, but the reality is that of course Samsung was going to port Tizen to RISC-V. The growing architecture is bound to compete with the industry standard ARM in a variety of market segments, and it makes perfect sense to have your TV and other (what we used to call) embedded operating systems ready to go.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140852/samsung-is-porting-tizen-to-risc-v/
Culturally Inclusive Planetary Engagement in Colorado
date: 2024-10-03, from: NASA breaking news
In August 2024, the NASA Science Activation program’s Planetary Resources and Content Heroes (ReaCH) project held a Culturally Inclusive Planetary Engagement workshop at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder, Colorado for the planetary science community. These workshops are designed to enhance the ability of scientists to engage Black and Latinx youth and […]
California investigating possible case of bird flu in dairy worker
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
chicago — California is investigating a possible case of bird flu in a dairy worker who had contact with infected cattle, the state’s public health department said Thursday.
The virus’ jump to cattle in 14 states and infections of 13 dairy and poultry farmworkers this year have concerned scientists and federal officials about the risks to humans from further spread.
The worker had a “presumptive positive” result to a test for bird flu, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will do further testing to confirm the finding, the California Department of Public Health said in a statement.
The person, who was not identified, suffered only conjunctivitis, or pink eye, the department said in a statement. The person is being treated with antiviral medication and staying home, it added.
The person works at a Central Valley dairy facility suffering an outbreak in cattle, according to the statement.
Cows at dairy farms in California, the top U.S. milk-producing state, began testing positive for bird flu in late August.
“The risk to the general public remains low, although people who interact with infected animals are at higher risk of getting bird flu,” the department said.
Missouri last month confirmed bird flu in a person with underlying medical conditions who had no immediate known animal exposure. Six health care workers who cared for the Missouri patient developed respiratory symptoms, but the virus was not confirmed in any of them.
Scientists are watching closely for signs that the virus has begun to spread more easily in people.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday said it would begin testing raw cow’s milk intended for pasteurization at dairy plants to better understand the prevalence of the bird flu virus in milk.
Participation in the study, set to begin October 28, is voluntary, and pasteurized dairy products remain safe to consume, the agency said.
Prior FDA testing of retail dairy samples came back negative, and more such testing is underway.
NASA Establishes New Class of Astrophysics Missions, Selects Studies
date: 2024-10-03, from: NASA breaking news
Two proposals for missions to observe X-ray and far-infrared wavelengths of light from space were selected by NASA for additional review, the agency announced Thursday. Each proposal team will receive $5 million to conduct a 12-month mission concept study. After detailed evaluation of those studies, NASA expects to select one concept in 2026 to proceed […]
The Discovery of a 5,000-Year-Old Society in Morocco Reveals an Ancient Farming Culture
date: 2024-10-03, from: Smithsonian Magazine
At the site known as Oued Beht, archaeologists uncovered evidence of a large farming settlement where people used advanced techniques
Meghan Daley: Shaping the Future of NASA’s Robotic Simulations
date: 2024-10-03, from: NASA breaking news
During National Disability Employment Awareness Month, we celebrate the thousands of employees living with disabilities who contribute to NASA’s mission. By sharing their stories, we highlight the impact people with disabilities have on our organization and the vital role they play in fostering an inclusive workforce at NASA. Meghan Daley has spent nearly two decades […]
Commercial and Intellectual Property Law
date: 2024-10-03, from: NASA breaking news
The Commercial and Intellectual Property Law Practice Group is responsible for providing Agency-wide legal advice for negotiating, drafting, and interpreting Space Act Agreements; for partnering arrangements with commercial organizations; and, for commercialization of NASA activities. The Practice Group also provides advice and counsel in patents, copyrights, and trade secrets. For the area of patents, the […]
https://www.nasa.gov/organizations/commercial-and-intellectual-property-law/
Legal Internship & Externship Opportunities
date: 2024-10-03, from: NASA breaking news
The Office of the General Counsel provides various opportunities throughout the academic year for law students to serve as interns and externs at NASA Headquarters and each of the 10 field installations. Internships and Externships provide law students with opportunities for hands-on experience across a diverse range of practices. OGC generally supports litigation and transactional […]
https://www.nasa.gov/organizations/academic-semester-legal-externships/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
And forget about paying the news orgs. They don't give you a way to opt out of the lies.
http://scripting.com/2024/10/03.html#a192131
Montana Rancher Who Created Giant, Hybrid Sheep Sentenced to Six Months in Prison
date: 2024-10-03, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Arthur “Jack” Schubarth cloned illegally imported genetic material from the Marco Polo argali to create hybrid sheep that would draw higher prices from hunting preserves
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
I don't think you can claim to be part of the "social web" if you don't support links, btw. It's the most basic feature of the web.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:oety7qbfx7x6exn2ytrwikmr/post/3l5erfos4x22p
Saying goodbye to the tech dreams Microsoft abandoned with Windows 11 24H2
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Is that a Mixed Reality headset, or just a complicated paperweight? Oh and farewell WordPad
With the release of Windows 11 24H2, it is time to pay our respects to the features and functions removed from Microsoft’s flagship operating system.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/whats_gone_from_windows_11/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Ian Kennedy put together a portal of NYC bloggers, sorted by borough, using FeedLand.
https://www.threads.net/@everwas/post/DAq9Na2R1eN
PDFpen/Nitro and Cleverbridge
date: 2024-10-03, from: Michael Tsai
Matt Henderson: There used to be a great PDF app for the Mac called something like PDFPro [PDFpen]. At some point it got acquired by @NitroHQ, and began to ask to upgrade to a new version seemingly every time I launched it—up to version 13. Today, on macOS 15, I needed it, but it wouldn’t […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/10/03/pdfpen-nitro-and-cleverbridge/
Finder Sync Extensions Removed From System Settings in Sequoia
date: 2024-10-03, from: Michael Tsai
ZigZag (also): Even though Finder Sync extensions are embedded and distributed in their containing applications (like containing application FileUtils embeds its extension FileUtilsSync), the actual hosting application for those extensions is Finder. They modify Finder’s appearance and behavior, adding menu items and icon badges. Hence, fundamental things related to these extensions, like registering with OS, […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/10/03/finder-sync-extensions-removed-from-system-settings-in-sequoia/
IDA Pro 9 Switches to Subscriptions
date: 2024-10-03, from: Michael Tsai
Alex Petrov (release notes): This release is amplified with new disassemblers and decompilers, such as the RISC-V decompiler, the disassembler support of T-Head instruction set for the XUANTIE-RV architecture, the nanoMIPS decompiler and disassembler, and the Web Assembly (WASM) disassembler. Balaji N: The latest version of the Interactive Disassembler (IDA) software introduces a unified licensing […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/10/03/ida-pro-9-switches-to-subscriptions/
Restoring Shift-Key Slow-Motion Minimizing to Dock
date: 2024-10-03, from: Michael Tsai
John Gruber: What I’d forgotten is that Apple had removed this as default behavior a few years ago (I think in MacOS 10.14 Mojave), but you can restore the feature with this hidden preference, typed in Terminal: […] defaults write com.apple.dock slow-motion-allowed -bool YES; killall Dock
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/10/03/restoring-shift-key-slow-motion-minimizing-to-dock/
HP TouchPad hack replaces the micro USB port with USB Type-C
date: 2024-10-03, from: Liliputing
The HP TouchPad holds a rather strange place in the history of modern tablet computers. First launched in 2011 as a $500 tablet running webOS 3.0 software, the tablet was canceled just a few months later when HP pulled the plug on webOS. Suddenly a tablet that nobody was buying became a hot commodity as […]
The post HP TouchPad hack replaces the micro USB port with USB Type-C appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/hp-touchpad-hack-replaces-the-micro-usb-port-with-usb-type-c/
Long Road to Recovery for Low-Income Wildfire Survivors
date: 2024-10-03, from: Capital and Main
Experts say insurance for renters and low-income homeowners could help ease the path to recovery.
The post Long Road to Recovery for Low-Income Wildfire Survivors appeared first on .
https://capitalandmain.com/long-road-to-recovery-for-low-income-wildfire-survivors
Boston university relaunches journalism curriculum to encompass humanities
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
Washington — As the fall semester begins, a women’s college in Boston, Massachusetts, has retooled its media-related curriculum to best reflect the ideals of the school’s namesake, the late journalist Gwen Ifill.
Simmons University announced it would relaunch the media school as the Gwen Ifill School of Media, Humanities and Social Sciences. A search committee also named media scholar Ammina Kothari as the new dean.
The Ifill School’s new structure expands its media curriculum to include humanities and social sciences. The attributes that defined Ifill also shape a new, holistic approach, “An unwavering commitment to accuracy and objectivity, a nuanced understanding of social and historical context and a compassion-based appreciation of policymaking’s real-world implications,” according to a Simmons press release.
“Folks here are very proud of Gwen’s legacy and want to honor it in many different ways,” said Bert Ifill, Gwen’s brother and a longtime university administrator.
A crucial component of the Ifill School is its emphasis on communications, a field Gwen excelled in, Bert told VOA.
After graduating from Simmons in 1977, she had long careers in both print and television journalism, working for The Baltimore Evening Sun, The Washington Post, The New York Times, NBC and PBS. She covered seven presidential campaigns and died in 2016 at age 61.
Ifill was the first African American woman to moderate a vice presidential debate and to coanchor a national newscast, “PBS NewsHour.”
“Gwen valued storytelling, and she was an amazing journalist,” Kothari, the school’s new dean, told VOA. “But she also worked really hard to raise awareness about important social issues and to highlight underrepresented voices.”
Abigail Meyers, a current junior at the Ifill School, admires the journalist’s “groundbreaking work” in both journalism and racial justice, she told VOA. Raised near Baltimore, Maryland, Meyers feels a special connection to Ifill’s work for the Baltimore Evening Sun newspaper.
The school has been instrumental in supporting Meyers’ aspirations to become a professional journalist, she told VOA.
“The support that you get from the faculty and alumni is unlike really any other journalism program,” she said.
Being a double major in communications and political science, Meyers appreciates the new curriculum’s flexibility, as she is able to take classes across different disciplines.
This flexibility will help prime Simmons’ students to achieve success, Kothari said. She believes interdisciplinary training leads to stronger leaders in the world.
“As we think about communications or media, including journalism or social sciences, we need a strong foundation in humanities to understand the historical context for what we see happening today,” Kothari said.
The school’s increased focus on humanities “couldn’t be more timely,” according to the press release. Nearly three of four Americans believe media literacy is an important skill in today’s news landscape, a 2023 Boston University survey found.
However, humanities-focused degree programs like the Ifill School’s receive little recognition. Of all the bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2020, humanities degrees made up less than 10%, a number that has only been decreasing, according to a 2022 MIT study. Meanwhile, science, technology, engineering and math degrees, or STEM, have grown exponentially.
But humanities and STEM shouldn’t be seen as opposites, Kothari said.
She cited the COVID-19 pandemic response as an example. Many precautionary measures such as social distancing were grounded in “amazing scientific research,” but weren’t effectively communicated to the public, she said.
“As we have new knowledge being produced, we also need journalists,” Kothari said. “We need communicators who are able to translate very complex information to the audience so they can see, ‘How does it matter to me? What is the effect for me?’”
Ifill’s legacy is not only celebrated within her namesake school, but also through press freedom organizations around the world.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a press freedom nonprofit, honors Ifill with the annual Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award, which is presented to individuals who have “shown extraordinary and sustained achievement in the cause of press freedom,” according to CPJ’s website.
Christophe Deloire, the late director of international media freedom organization Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, received the 2024 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award.
“Christophe was one of journalism’s greatest-ever champions,” RSF Executive Director Clayton Weimers told VOA in an email. “There was hardly a fight or an advance in press freedom in the past decade that he wasn’t a part of, if not leading.”
As Ifill’s legacy spreads, there is one person who couldn’t be prouder: her brother, Bert. He told VOA it often seems as though his full-time job is “to talk nicely about Gwen.”
“It’s always a great pleasure and honor for me to talk about her and to talk about her legacy, not only as obviously a very skilled journalist, but as an extraordinary mentor and confidant,” he said.
Sensitive data on 61K+ patients accessed in Alabama hospital cyberattack
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Intruder pored over medical records, insurance details, Social Security numbers in some cases
An Alabama hospital is officially informing more than 61,000 patients that their personal data was accessed by a miscreant during a cyberattack in October 2023.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/alabama_hospital_cyberattack/
This Newly Discovered Sunken Warship Served on Both Sides of World War II
date: 2024-10-03, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The USS Stewart was purposefully sunk off the coast of California after the war
Breast Cancer Cases Are Rising Among Younger Women, Report Finds
date: 2024-10-03, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Though breast cancer mortality is declining overall, Asian American women and women under 50 have experienced an uptick in diagnoses of the disease
It’s true, social media moderators do go after conservatives
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Because they’re most likely to share crappy misinformation online
Since Elon Musk bought Twitter nearly two years ago – a $44 billion acquisition he tried to pull out of – the mogul has driven a narrative that moderation of the microblogging website disproportionately targeted conservatives, libertarians, and Trump supporters.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/social_media_conservative_moderation/
A Concerning Rise in Rough Sleeping Threatens Recent Progress on Unsheltered Homelessness in Los Angeles
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: RAND blog
In Los Angeles, rough sleeping—living without the protection of a vehicle, tent, or makeshift dwelling—has risen to new heights. If left unaddressed, this increase in the most precarious form of homelessness sets back recent progress in Los Angeles’s efforts to combat this crisis.
Residents File Class Action Lawsuit Against BioLab for Toxic Plume
date: 2024-10-03, from: 404 Media Group
This isn’t even the first time an incident at the Conyers, Georgia BioLab plant has forced residents out of their homes.
https://www.404media.co/residents-file-class-action-lawsuit-against-biolab-for-toxic-plume/
Google expands visual, audio search, lets AI handle layout
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
AI Overviews get links to referenced websites – and ads
Almost two decades ago, the head of Google’s then nascent enterprise division referred to the firm’s search service as “an uber-command line interface to the world.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/google_expands_visual_audio_search/
Trump, Harris stances on China differ, but not completely
date: 2024-10-03, from: VOA News USA
The United States’ policy on China has been mostly consistent from the administration of Donald Trump to the White House of Joe Biden — with both presidents viewing China as America’s biggest competitor. But in the race for the next president, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have slightly different approaches toward the global superpower. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee explains.
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-harris-stances-on-china-differ-but-not-completely/7809235.html
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
So far we've only created reading portals. What I want for myself and for you, is a writing portal. Think about it.
http://scripting.com/2024/10/03.html#a161830
DOJ, Microsoft seize 107 domains used in Russia’s Star Blizzard phishing attacks
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Winter is coming
The US Department of Justice and Microsoft have seized 107 websites used by Russian cyberspies in a phishing campaign to steal sensitive information from US government agencies, think tanks, and other victims.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/russian_phishing_domains_seized/
Astronomers Discover a Small Exoplanet That’s Our Cosmic Neighbor at Just Six Light-Years Away
date: 2024-10-03, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Orbiting Barnard’s star, the nearest solo star to Earth, the world is too hot to be habitable—a scorching 257 degrees Fahrenheit
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 samples are 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 samples are now available for $89 appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/openwrt-one-wifi-6-router-is-now-available-for-89/
Adding Tags to My Projects Page
date: 2024-10-03, from: Nora Tindall’s blog
I’ve wanted to change up my projects page for a while, but wasn’t quite sure what to do. I didn’t want to use any JavaScript, but I did want to organize projects in multiple different ways, rather than just a single set of categories like I’ve had for a long time.
Ultimately what I settled on is a tag system. The tags look like this:
- Project Name library rust is a project!
These tags are just text with some styling applied, and they’re inserted
with a Hugo shortcode. I originally thought to use individual shortcodes
for each kind of tag, like {{< t-rust >}} or
{{< t-author >}}, but after making a few shortcode
files that looked like this:
https://nora.codes/post/adding-tags-to-my-projects-page/
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 pay 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 their pay has risen over the past 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: 2024-10-04, 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: 2024-10-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Britain’s Asda admits tech divorce from ex-owner Walmart is still overrunning
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’ 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 may snarl tech supply chains
date: 2024-10-03, updated: 2024-10-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Time to see if industry learned anything from the last shortage crisis
Updated 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