Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalGarland formally prohibits seizure of reporters' records
Source: Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday formally prohibited federal prosecutors from seizing the records of journalists in leak investigations, with limited exceptions, reversing years of department policy.
The new policy largely codifies the commitment Garland made in June, when he said the Justice Department would abandon the practice of seizing reporters’ records in leak investigations. It aims to resolve a politically thorny issue that has long vexed Justice Department prosecutors trying to weigh the media’s First Amendment rights against government’s desire to protect classified information.
But the memo makes clear that federal prosecutors can, in some cases, seize journalists’ records, including if the reporters are suspected of working for agents of a foreign power or terrorist organizations. There is also an exception for situations with imminent risks, like kidnappings or crimes against children.
Garland was moved to act following an outcry over revelations that the department during the Trump administration had obtained records belonging to journalists at The Washington Post, CNN and The New York Times as part of investigations into who had disclosed government secrets related to the Russia investigation and other national security matters.
Read more: https://www.channel3000.com/i/garland-formally-prohibits-seizure-of-reporters-records/
After deadly riots in South Africa, army of volunteers leads defense, cleanup efforts
DURBAN, South Africa — Noxious smoke from days of riots and widespread looting hovered over parts of this lush seaside city over the weekend as residents came onto the streets to defend their homes and businesses from further violence.
“We need to stand (our) ground,” Margaret Westerhof, 42, told NBC News at a volunteer-erected traffic checkpoint on the edge of the suburb of Ballito. Normally an interior designer, Westerhof offered to serve as a media liaison for the community organization that sprung up in response to the unrest.
“It's our duty to continue to support the local authorities … to patrol our areas, keep our businesses safe,” she added.
Nationwide protests began with the arrest of former President Jacob Zuma on July 7. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison for contempt of court after failing to appear before an inquiry investigating corruption and state capture during his administration.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/after-deadly-riots-south-africa-army-volunteers-leads-defense-cleanup-n1274346
Tucson suspect shoots at EMTs, police and firefighters in spree that leaves one dead, four injured
Source: NBC News
A gunman who shot at paramedics, firefighters and police at three locations in Tucson, Arizona, Sunday afternoon killed a civilian and left four others injured.
In what Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus called "an extremely complex series of incidents," another person was killed in a house fire and two or three children were missing.
The call about the fire at a home in South Tucson came in first, at 3:46 p.m., Magnus said. Three minutes later, police are told that a man has shot at an ambulance that had responded to an unrelated medical call at Quincie Douglas Park, about a mile away
The driver and passenger EMTs were struck, but one of them was able to make the call to police and describe the suspect and the vehicle he drove away in, Magnus said.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tucson-suspect-shoots-emts-police-firefighters-spree-leaves-one-dead-n1274345
And the answer is always MORE GUNS?
Built to keep Black from white
When they started building the wall behind Margaret Watson’s house in northwest Detroit, she knew the reason without having to ask.
As a child in the late 1930s, Watson had seen the new streets laid down like a tic-tac-toe board in the open fields where her father once planted a garden the size of a city block.
She’d roller-skated down those newly paved lanes at speeds that would have been impossible on the dirt roads that ran in front of her house.
She knew the new streets had to be for white families — not Black ones like hers — so she wasn’t particularly surprised when, in the spring of 1941, a 6-foot-high, 4-inch-thick, half-mile-long concrete fortification suddenly appeared in her backyard.
https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/detroit-segregation-wall/index.html
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Long, but well worth the read
Wisconsin workers fight factory move to Mexico: 'Anxiety is through the roof'
For most of her 36 years at the Hufcor factory in Janesville, Wisconsin, Kathy Pawluk loved working there, at least until a private-equity firm took over four years ago. There were Christmas parties and summer picnics, and workers could listen to the radio as they built accordion-style room partitions for convention centers and hotel ballrooms.
“They treated people like they were family, not a number,” said Pawluk, 62. “We had the best health benefits. We had HR people who really cared about us.”
But Pawluk said things deteriorated soon after OpenGate Capital acquired Hufcor, a family-owned company founded in Janesville 120 years ago. “They basically told us ‘We don’t want to get to know you’ in so many words,” Pawluk said.
In late May, things took a turn for the worse. The company announced it was shuttering the sprawling plant and moving operations to Monterrey, Mexico, wiping out the jobs of 166 workers.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/18/hufcor-factory-janesivlle-wisconsin-opengate-capital
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Republican plutocrats, turning the US in to a s-hole country, one plant at a time
Oof, Y'all, Dictionary.com Just Added Over 300 New Words And Definitions
While some of them might be enough to make you say "oof," the over 300 new words and definitions added to Dictionary.com during its most recent round of updates reflect the realities of our rapidly changing world.
Words that have been popularized by the coronavirus pandemic, technological advances and racial reckoning across the U.S. are now on the popular dictionary website, which is based on the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
"The latest update to our dictionary continues to mirror the world around us," said John Kelly, Dictionary.com's managing editor. "It's a complicated and challenging society we live in, and language changes to help us grapple with it."
After more than a year of online and hybrid learning, students are likely familiar — maybe too familiar — with two of the additions: definitions of "asynchronous" and "synchronous."
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/16/1016901447/oof-yall-dictionary-com-just-added-over-300-new-words-and-definitions
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As a lifelong lover of words, this one caught my eye. I have to admit that I have not heard some of them, though.
A Federal Judge Has Blocked New DACA Applicants From Deportation Protections
A federal judge in Texas on Friday ordered the Biden administration to halt a program that shields undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children from deportation.
District Judge Andrew Hanen's split order doesn't affect current recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, but stops the Department of Homeland Security from approving any new applications. The decision comes amid a government backlog of thousands of first-time DACA applicants who were waiting to be approved.
The Supreme Court ruled against the former president Donald Trump's attempts to rescind DACA last year, saying the government had violated federal law when it rescinded the program. Then in December, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to begin accepting new applications for DACA, fully restoring the Obama-era program. The program not only protected undocumented immigrants from deportation, but also gave them permission to work.
Unlike the case the Supreme Court ruled on, which focused on how the Trump administration went about ending DACA, the lawsuit before Hanen focused on the original terms the program was created under. In the lawsuit, Texas and eight other states argued that DACA was illegally created by former president Barack Obama.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfoflores/judge-blocks-new-daca-applicants
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Texass. Might have known it. What are the chances he's a TFG-McTurtle ram-through, or a Shrub appointee?
Just 7% of our DNA is unique to modern humans, study shows
What makes humans unique? Scientists have taken another step toward solving an enduring mystery with a new tool that may allow for more precise comparisons between the DNA of modern humans and that of our extinct ancestors.
Just 7% of our genome is uniquely shared with other humans, and not shared by other early ancestors, according to a study published Friday in the journal Science Advances.
“That's a pretty small percentage," said Nathan Schaefer, a University of California computational biologist and co-author of the new paper. “This kind of finding is why scientists are turning away from thinking that we humans are so vastly different from Neanderthals.”
The research draws upon DNA extracted from fossil remains of now-extinct Neanderthals and Denisovans dating back to around 40,000 or 50,000 years ago, as well as from 279 modern people from around the world.
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/dna-unique-modern-humans-study-shows-78889066
If you are forced to leave the country, where will you go and why?
I think we've all thought about where we might go if it absolutely came down to it...if things got so bad we'd just have to leave this country and go somewhere else. I know I started thinking about it the minute TFG was elected and I still think about it. I may, at my age, just have to go down swinging, though. Husband and I are getting up there where emigration may not be entirely feasible. However, these are possibilities we discussed then and since, pros and cons (copied from an earlier post). I'd love to see yours.
Ireland--good tech climate, but the weather and cost of living were a deterrent
Uruguay--decent climate, language barrier, far from family
Costa Rica--good weather, lots of expats, language barrier
Fiji--fabulous weather except for cyclones, some political instability, far from family
One of the Caribbean nations--same as Fiji for weather
And the surprise entry--Botswana--most stable nation in Africa, booming tech economy, decent weather, but surrounded by unstable nations and very far from family.
Husband doesn't speak Spanish but I have enough tucked away that I could pick it up very quickly. He has been to Fiji and several of the Caribbean countries as a tagalong with a former partner who was a dive enthusiast (don't ask). He is also a tech lord and could probably find IT employment easily in an English speaking country. Age is a deterrent however.
Why not Canada? Two things. Age restrictions, for one, although a friend who lives in Alberta says she would sponsor us. Otherwise most of it is too cold for too long, and I just don't do winter. I would consider Vancouver Island (not the city) though.
White House turns up heat on Big Tech's Covid 'disinformation dozen'
The White House turned up the pressure on Silicon Valley to get a handle on vaccine misinformation Thursday, specifically singling out 12 people one group dubbed the "disinformation dozen," saying they were responsible for a great deal of misinformation about Covid-19.
"There's about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday.
That statistic is from the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) which identified in a report published in March about a dozen people it said were super-spreaders of anti-vaccine misinformation.
The CCDH had at the time called on Facebook and Twitter to shut down all pages run by those people. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent figure in the anti-vaccine movement, is among the people whom the CCDH said should be kicked off social media.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/16/tech/misinformation-covid-facebook-twitter-white-house/index.html
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Here is a link to the report listing all of them
https://252f2edd-1c8b-49f5-9bb2-cb57bb47e4ba.filesusr.com/ugd/f4d9b9_b7cedc0553604720b7137f8663366ee5.pdf
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