jell.ie News

Read at: 2021-06-23T10:01:10+01:00 (Ex-US Pres==Gracia Van Uum )

Coronavirus live news: Taiwan extends restrictions; patients on ventilators in England ‘up 41% in last week’

Taiwan case numbers rise again, delaying easing of rules; deputy chief of NHS Providers says hospital trusts ‘are really coming under huge pressure’

9.24am BST

It is time for the parting of the ways. Andrew Sparrow has launched our UK live blog for today – so he’ll be carrying UK Covid developments there, and I’ll keep on with the latest global coronavirus developments here.

9.18am BST

Russia has reported 548 coronavirus-related deaths, the most confirmed in a single day since February, amid a surge in new cases that authorities have blamed on the new Delta variant.

Reuters note that the government coronavirus taskforce confirmed 17,594 new cases in the last 24 hours, including 6,534 in Moscow.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 9:24 am IST

Australia politics live update: Sydney declared a Covid hotspot by commonwealth as new restrictions and border closures announced

NSW urgently investigating four mystery cases overnight as premier Gladys Berejiklian announces Sydney restrictions. Follow all the latest updates, live

9.20am BST

Tens of thousands of Australians have been forced to abandon school holiday travel plans after states closed their borders in response to Sydney’s growing Covid outbreak, with the tourism industry predicting losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Sydneysiders who had been planning to go interstate or to regional New South Wales from the end of this week have had to cancel their holidays after all states and territories announced stricter border restrictions.

9.14am BST

Tasmanian police have dropped weapons charges against a former state Liberal politician who is facing other criminal charges in Queensland, AAP reports.

Adam Brooks was charged in April with incorrectly storing ammunition, which he denied, while running as a candidate in the state election.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 9:23 am IST

Apple Daily, Pro-Democracy Newspaper in Hong Kong, Says it Will Close

The police also arrested an editorial writer as part of an expanding national security investigation into the newspaper that has triggered concerns about free speech.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 9:19 am IST

Apple Daily: Hong Kong pro-democracy paper announces closure

The paper's closure - days after its assets were frozen - is a blow to media freedom in Hong Kong.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 9:17 am IST

India Tries to Jump Start Sluggish Vaccination Effort

The country administered 8.6 million doses of vaccine on Monday, setting a national record on the first day of a new policy. Get the latest on Covid-19.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 9:13 am IST

Giant panda gives birth to twins at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo

The cubs, which have not yet been named, are the first ever twins to be born at the zoo in Tokyo.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 9:10 am IST

Minister says too early to decide over 5 July reopening

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said it is too early to say if the easing of restrictions set for 5 July will go ahead as planned, adding that "Covid tears up the best laid plans and it's a rapidly evolving situation with Delta."

Source: News Headlines | 23 Jun 2021 | 8:54 am IST

Hong Kong’s Apple Daily, symbol of pro-democracy movement, to close

Tabloid founded by Jimmy Lai and targeted by police raid last week will print final edition on Saturday

Apple Daily, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy tabloid targeted by a national security police raid last week, is to close and will print its final edition on Saturday, the company board has announced.

The paper and its activist founder, Jimmy Lai, had become symbols of the pro-democracy movement, and a thorn in the side of Hong Kong’s government and police.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 8:46 am IST

NSW plan to use ‘napalm’ poison to control mouse plague rejected over fears for wildlife

Pesticides regulator says it has concerns about the effects of bromadiolone on animals that eat mice

The national pesticides regulator has refused a request from the New South Wales government to allow farmers to use a rodent poison described as “napalm for mice” around crops to battle the devastating mouse plague.

Conservationists had warned the use of bromadiolone would have devastating affects on native species in the central west and put endangered birds at risk.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 8:38 am IST

Facebook granted patent for 'artificial reality' baseball cap. Repeat, an 'artificial reality' baseball cap

Yeah, y'know, Google Glass wasn't nearly obnoxious enough

Facebook has been awarded a US patent titled "Artificial reality hat," which consists of a display screen that hangs from the brim of a cap, as if it were a havelock worn backward.…

Source: The Register | 23 Jun 2021 | 8:32 am IST

EU citizens get 28-day deadline to apply for UK stay

The Home Office says people with a reasonable excuse for a delay can complete their forms later.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 8:29 am IST

Harlem Globetrotters To The NBA: 'Don't Get It Twisted' Make Us A Pro Franchise 'Now'

In an open letter to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, the Harlem Globetrotters demanded the team join the league as a franchise.

(Image credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Source: News : NPR | 23 Jun 2021 | 8:03 am IST

Spin's new e-scooter is designed to withstand the public's neglect

The scooters have sturdier bodies, swappable batteries and a more modular design.

Source: Engadget | 23 Jun 2021 | 8:00 am IST

Sony Wins Pirate Site Blocking Order Against DNS-Resolver Quad9

Sony Music has obtained an injunction that requires the freely available DNS-resolver Quad9 to block a popular pirate site. The order, issued by the District Court in Hamburg, Germany, is the first of its kind. The Quad9 foundation has already announced that it will protest the judgment, which could have far-reaching consequences. TorrentFreak reports: The Hamburg court found that the DNS service is not eligible for the liability protections that other third-party intermediaries such as ISPs and domain registrars typically enjoy. And if Quad9 fails to comply with the injunction, it will have to pay a fine of 250,000 euros per 'infringing' DNS query plus potentially two years in prison. One of the arguments that Sony brought up in court was that Quad9 already blocks various problematic sites voluntarily. In fact, the DNS-resolver promotes threat blocking as a feature. "Quad9 blocks against known malicious domains, preventing your computers and IoT devices from connecting to malware or phishing sites," the company's website reads. Bill Woodcock, chairman of the Quad9 foundation, doesn't believe that the company's malware and phishing filters, which help to protect users, are on par with blocking a pirate site. He informed the German news site Heise that Quad9 will appeal to the injunction. Speaking with TorrentFreak, Quad9's General Manager, John Todd, says that the company is still reviewing the order, which it received last Friday. The non-profit foundation doesn't believe its resources should be used to benefit for-profit companies such as Sony.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Jun 2021 | 8:00 am IST

Fiji's virus spike 'wake-up call' for Pacific Islands

The Red Cross called for faster vaccine rollouts in vulnerable Pacific island nations as a record Covid-19 surge threatens to overload Fiji's health system.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:58 am IST

Oracle introduces frequent clouding points loyalty scheme

For every buck you spend in the Big Red cloud, Larry gives you 25c to spend on support

Oracle has introduced frequent clouding points that can be redeemed for support services.…

Source: The Register | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:57 am IST

Government to sell part of its Bank of Ireland stake

Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe has announced that the Government will sell part of the State's 13.9% shareholding in Bank of Ireland over the next six months.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:52 am IST

US government blocks Iran-affiliated news websites

The US Department of Justice says 36 websites linked to the Iranian government were seized.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:49 am IST

Rembrandt’s Damaged Masterpiece Is Whole Again, With A.I.’s Help

Sections of “The Night Watch” were cut off in the 18th century and lost. Now, new technology lets viewers imagine how the original work might have looked.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:46 am IST

No jury for Hong Kong's first 'national security' trial

The first trial under Hong Kong's new national security law has begun without a jury, a watershed moment for the financial hub's fast-changing legal landscape.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:31 am IST

Accenture to create 500 jobs in Cork and Dublin

Professional consultancy firm Accenture is to create 500 jobs in Ireland over the next three years.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:30 am IST

Who does Unesco think they are? Listing the Great Barrier Reef as ‘in danger’! After all we have done for it! | First Dog on the Moon

We are not angry, we are disappointed. And angry

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Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:26 am IST

Doctors issue warning after woman suffers sepsis following cosmetic procedure

Patient presented to St James’s with serious infection after receiving buttock filler

Source: The Irish Times - News | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:16 am IST

Indian Competition Commission launches antitrust probe into Google’s smart tellies

Pre-installation of Play Store and other apps on Smart TVs and Androids amounts to leveraging dominance, says watchdog

India’s Competition Commission has ordered an investigation into Google over the advertising giant’s use of the Android operating system in its smart televisions.…

Source: The Register | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:16 am IST

Britney Spears: Singer's conservatorship case explained

The ongoing arrangement has sparked a public backlash from fans who support the #FreeBritney movement.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:14 am IST

Covid: Sydney faces new restrictions as cluster grows

Australia's largest city sees its worst outbreak this year as a cluster infected with the Delta strain grows.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:14 am IST

Fishermen protest in Dublin over EU fisheries policy

A flotilla of trawlers from all around the Irish coast is assembling at the entrance to Dublin Port in a protest by fishermen over quotas and the EU Common Fisheries policy.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:08 am IST

What We Learned from the NYC Mayoral Primary Election

Eric Adams paced the field, while Maya Wiley was in second and Kathryn Garcia in third. Andrew Yang fizzled and dropped out of the race.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:05 am IST

Democrats seek way ahead after voting rights bill hits Senate roadblock

The White House warned democracy was ‘in peril’ but while key Democrats stay committed to the filibuster, progress looks difficult

After nearly six months of watching Republicans relentlessly make it harder to vote in the US, Democrats suffered a major blow on Tuesday after GOP senators used a legislative maneuver to halt a sweeping voting rights and ethics bill.

The vote doesn’t kill the bill, but it marks one of the most significant setbacks for Democrats in Joe Biden’s presidency so far. Democrats heralded the legislation as their No 1 priority, even knowing they were unlikely to get any Republican votes for it. The bill would amount to the most significant expansion of the right to vote in a generation, requiring early voting and automatic and same-day registration, while prohibiting excessive manipulation of electoral district boundaries, a process often called gerrymandering.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:00 am IST

Ayton's last-second dunk extends Suns' play-off lead over Clippers

A last-second dunk from Deandre Ayton earned the Phoenix Suns a 104-103 victory over the LA Clippers in game two of the NBA play-offs' Western Conference finals.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:00 am IST

Explainer: What's happening with the Stardust inquests?

The latest preliminary hearing of the Stardust fire inquests gets under way in Dublin this afternoon, after delays over families accessing legal aid were resolved.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Jun 2021 | 7:00 am IST

Nikole Hannah-Jones Says She Won’t Join U.N.C. Faculty Without Tenure

A letter from Ms. Hannah-Jones’s lawyers said an unnamed “powerful donor” had contributed to the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees’ failure to grant her tenure.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 6:55 am IST

Adams Leads in N.Y.C. Mayoral Primary, but Ranked-Choice Awaits

Voters on Tuesday took part in the city’s first mayoral election using ranked-choice voting, a system that may delay the declaration of a winner until mid-July.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 6:08 am IST

N.Y. City Council Is Set for a Complete Overhaul in Primary Election

As progressive groups hoped to push the Council to the left, early results showed two of their favored candidates had won and others appeared likely to be elected.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 6:01 am IST

Recruitment of under-18s to British military should end, ministers told

Human rights groups call for bar on junior entry, which accounts for quarter of intake to army

Ministers have been urged to stop the practice of recruiting children to Britain’s military by a coalition of 20 human rights organisation as MPs debate the armed forces bill.

The pressure to end the practice also comes as figures showed that girls aged under 18 in the armed forces made at least 16 formal complaints of sexual assault to military police in the last six years – equivalent to one for every 75 girls in the military.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 6:00 am IST

Cloud spraying and hurricane slaying: how ocean geoengineering became the frontier of the climate crisis

Around the world, dozens of ingenious projects are trying to ‘trick’ the ocean into absorbing more CO₂. But critics warn of unforeseen consequences

Tom Green has a plan to tackle climate change. The British biologist and director of the charity Project Vesta wants to turn a trillion tonnes of CO₂ into rock, and sink it to the bottom of the sea.

Green admits the idea is “audacious”. It would involve locking away atmospheric carbon by dropping pea-coloured sand into the ocean. The sand is made of ground olivine – an abundant volcanic rock, known to jewellers as peridot – and, if Green’s calculations are correct, depositing it offshore on 2% of the world’s coastlines would capture 100% of total global annual carbon emissions.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 6:00 am IST

NFTs and me: meet the people trying to sell their memes for millions

Once, people who owned viral photos made little money from them. Now, the ‘original’ can potentially sell for an enormous sum. But are buyers savvy investors – or unwitting dupes?

The photographer Jeff McCurry’s favourite Harambe memes are the ones where the dead gorilla is in heaven, Photoshopped alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, Tupac and Muhammad Ali. “It’s like: wow,” says McCurry. “What greater spot can you be placed in? Harambe’s at the top of the hill, waiting to meet you there.”

McCurry took the photograph of the 17-year-old western lowland gorilla that went on to become a meme. In it, Harambe kneels, projecting a fearsome aura of strength, nobility and calm. A former volunteer photographer at Cincinnati zoo, McCurry was there on 28 May 2016, the fateful day a three-year-old boy climbed into the gorilla’s enclosure, forcing zookeepers to shoot Harambe dead. “It didn’t seem real at first,” says McCurry, who was a regular visitor to the zoo. “When any of your friends die, it’s hard to process. I was in shock.”

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 6:00 am IST

App maps shady spots to guide Barcelona walkers along cooler routes

Cool Walks aims to help pedestrians avoid dangerous heat and find public drinking fountains

A new app promises to help Barcelona residents find the shadiest route between two places to avoid extreme heat.

Cool Walks, a routing tool for pedestrians first developed at a data visualisation contest, aims to show users a variety of walking routes to take for their intended destinations.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 6:00 am IST

Britney Spears speaks at last: will her day in court upend all we thought we knew?

The singer will today make a bid to take back control of her life. After a glut of speculative documentaries and conspiracy theories, her own voice can finally be heard

Britney Spears never used to be an enigma. In the early years of her career, she did interviews for print, TV and radio. She held press conferences and endured day-long junkets. She shot behind the scenes videos, documentaries, TV specials. Britney was candid and trusting. “I’m from the south,” she told the Observer in 2001, “so I’m a very open person and I’ve had to teach myself not to open up to too many people.”

These days however, if Britney interviews are granted, they are conducted under such strict terms that few publications have bothered. Even the radio and TV appearances when she has a record to sell are strictly surface level. Her music gives few clues to her state of mind. Her last four albums offer up sexy party tunes that don’t reflect the artist’s lived reality: now 39, by her own account she doesn’t drink, keeps a small circle of friends, only went out clubbing twice in the four years she spent in residence in Las Vegas, and prior to meeting current boyfriend Sam Asghari in 2016, was “over” dating.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 6:00 am IST

Britney Spears will directly address Los Angeles court on conservatorship

Singer will offer rare testimony on controversial arrangement that has given Spears’s father control over much of her life for 13 years

Britney Spears speaks at last: will her day in court upend all we thought we knew?

Britney Spears will directly address a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday, offering rare testimony in the case of the controversial conservatorship that has governed the pop star’s life for 13 years.

The hearing has drawn interest from fans across the globe, who have for years organized a campaign under the hashtag #FreeBritney to protest the unusual legal arrangement that has stripped the singer of her independence since 2008. The conservatorship has given her father, Jamie Spears, control over her estate, career and other aspects of her personal life.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 6:00 am IST

UK stars call on government to act over post-Brexit touring

Artists such as Radiohead and Biffy Clyro back a campaign asking for a financial support package.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 6:00 am IST

Nutanix is finally happy to mention its name and ‘profit’ in the same sentence

Give it a year or two, but it will happen, says CEO, as COVID-crushed industries start spending again

Nutanix has told investors it has a “clear path to profitability” and predicted it could post black ink in just two years.…

Source: The Register | 23 Jun 2021 | 5:58 am IST

Bragg Holds Lead in Manhattan District Attorney Primary

Alvin Bragg, a former federal prosecutor, maintained a four-point lead over Tali Farhadian Weinstein. If elected, he would the first Black person to hold the office.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 5:50 am IST

Tokyo Olympics To Be A Dry Event After Organizers Abruptly Reverse Course

The decision not to sell alcohol at Olympic venues was portrayed by organizers as an anti-coronavirus measure.

(Image credit: CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images)

Source: News : NPR | 23 Jun 2021 | 5:35 am IST

The 'Borderlands' movie is done filming

It's a wrap for the Borderlands movie production, now that the cast and crew are done with principal photography.

Source: Engadget | 23 Jun 2021 | 5:30 am IST

Tokyo Olympics organisers ban alcohol sales after public outcry

Games officials faced accusations the event was getting preferential treatment while other Tokyo businesses still faced alcohol restrictions

See all our coronavirus coverage

The organisers of the Tokyo Olympics have been forced to abandon plans to allow the sale of alcohol at venues after public outcry.

The president of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee, Seiko Hashimoto, said on Wednesday that the decision had been made to ensure the Games were “safe and secure” during the coronavirus pandemic.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 5:20 am IST

Moving on: why the EU is not missing Britain that much

On the 5th anniversary of Brexit, commentators reflect on the EU’s success at rallying together after Britain’s exit

On the night of 23 June 2016 a storm broke over Brussels. Rain poured, thunder rolled and lightning flashed over the headquarters of the European Union’s institutions.

Then in the small hours came a political thunderbolt almost no one had forecast: the UK had voted to leave the union. Five years on, the Brexit tempest has subsided – in Brussels, if not in London.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 5:15 am IST

Myanmar: Facebook promotes content urging violence against coup protesters – study

Posts ranging from wanted posters to death threats remain online for months, breaching platform’s own standards

Facebook is promoting content that incites violence against Myanmar’s anti-coup protesters and amplifies junta misinformation, despite promising to clamp down on the misuse of its platform, according to a study.

An investigation by the rights group Global Witness found that Facebook’s recommendation algorithm continues to invite users to view content that breaches its own policies. After liking a Myanmar military fan page, which did not contain recent posts violating Facebook’s policies, the rights group found that Facebook suggested several pro-military pages that contained abusive content.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 5:09 am IST

Assad forces’ shelling in Syria causes 5,000 civilians to flee

At least 31 people killed since start of June amid government attacks on Idlib area

About 5,000 civilians in the north-west of Syria have been forced to flee their homes after more government shelling targeting the contested area, a local aid agency said.

At least 31 people have died since the beginning of June, victims of Bashar al-Assad’s forces hitting civilian buildings in southern Idlib province. The buildings included a hospital, displacement camp school, and a White Helmets headquarters. The number of dead includes three children and a civil defence worker who was killed in an attack on the town of Qastoun on Saturday.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 5:00 am IST

Democrats Vow to Redouble Voting Push: ‘Today Is the Starter Pistol’

Even as the party’s sweeping elections bill was blocked in the Senate, Democrats and civil rights groups reaffirmed their resolve to fight for voting protections in Congress.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 4:41 am IST

Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley to bar unvaccinated staff

Last week, Morgan Stanley's chief executive told workers 'if you can eat out, you can go to the office'.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 4:36 am IST

Growing Food With Air and Solar Power Is More Efficient Than Planting Crops

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, the University of Naples Federico II, the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences has found that making food from air would be far more efficient than growing crops. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their analysis and comparison of the efficiency of growing crops (soybeans) and using a food-from-air technique. [...] To make their comparisons, the researchers used a food-from-air system that uses solar energy panels to make electricity, which is combined with carbon dioxide from the air to produce food for microbes grown in a bioreactor. The protein the microbes produce is then treated to remove nucleic acids and then dried to produce a powder suitable for consumption by humans and animals. They compared the efficiency of the system with a 10-square-kilometer soybean field. Their analysis showed that growing food from air was 10 times as efficient as growing soybeans in the ground. Put another way, they suggested that a 10-square-kilometer piece of land in the Amazon used to grow soybeans could be converted to a one-square-kilometer piece of land for growing food from the air, with the other nine square kilometers turned back to wild forest growth. They also note that the protein produced using the food-from-air approach had twice the caloric value as most other crops such as corn, wheat and rice.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Jun 2021 | 4:30 am IST

Dunes in the Sahara - Les dunes du Sahara - As Seen From Orbit

Thomas Pesquet: Les dunes du Sahara.

Source: SpaceRef | 23 Jun 2021 | 4:27 am IST

Beijing Seen From Orbit

Thomas Pesquet: While we were spacewalking on Wednesday the population of humans in space grew by 43%. We are seven on the International Space Station, and China launched three astronauts into space: Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo. 👏 Welcome! :)

Source: SpaceRef | 23 Jun 2021 | 4:23 am IST

Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter Integrated With SLS

Teams with NASA's Exploration Ground Systems and contractor Jacobs prepare to integrate the launch vehicle stage adapter (LVSA) for NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the massive SLS core stage.

Source: SpaceRef | 23 Jun 2021 | 4:20 am IST

Indian mega-corp Tata unveils surprise 5G networking business

Local carrier Airtel will adopt it — next comes world domination

Indian mega-conglomerate the Tata Group has revealed it’s created a 5G networking kit business.…

Source: The Register | 23 Jun 2021 | 4:15 am IST

Vanessa Bryant and Families of Crash Victims Settle With Helicopter Company

Bryant, the widow of the N.B.A. star Kobe Bryant, had filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the company that operated the vehicle that crashed last year, killing nine.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 3:58 am IST

Defense Secretary Says He'll Support Removing Sexual Offense Cases From Commanders

Lloyd Austin endorses removing the prosecution of sexual assaults and related crimes from the military chain of command — a shift that runs against the Pentagon's position.

(Image credit: Andrew Harnik/AP)

Source: News : NPR | 23 Jun 2021 | 3:54 am IST

Fears Delta variant could delay reopening of indoor hospitality from July 5th

If cases increase political sources expect medical experts to urge delay in reopening

Source: The Irish Times - News | 23 Jun 2021 | 3:33 am IST

U.S. Gives More Asylum-Seekers Waiting In Mexico Another Shot

Some people whose asylum claims were dismissed or denied under a Gracia Van Uum administration policy that forced them to wait in Mexico for court hearings will be allowed to return to request protection.

(Image credit: Gregory Bull/AP)

Source: News : NPR | 23 Jun 2021 | 3:30 am IST

The N.F.L.'s Carl Nassib Broke a Barrier. Will Others Follow?

The number of publicly out L.G.B.T.Q. athletes in men’s biggest pro leagues lags far behind that in women’s sports. Will Carl Nassib’s announcement change that?

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 3:20 am IST

TechSee's AI Can Recognize Devices and Guide Users Through Setup

TechSee, which describes itself as an "intelligent visual assistance" company, today announced the launch of Eve Cortex, a platform that teaches itself to recognize thousands of products, models, parts, and components by ingesting only a handful of data points. VentureBeat reports: TechSee claims that by leveraging a combination of AI and synthetic data, Cortex can train itself in a matter of hours, providing end users with step-by-step visual guidance via an augmented reality (AR) overlay. TechSee was founded in 2014 by Eitan Cohen, Amir Yoffe, and Gabby Sarusi. Cohen conceptualized the idea after struggling to walk his parents through an issue they were having with their cable service. The company's cross-platform apps employ computer vision to recognize products and issues and streamline warranty registration. Customer agents can see what customers see through their smartphone cameras and visually guide them to resolutions, using either live video or photos. Cortex builds on TechSee's existing technologies to enable enterprises to custom-build their own visual self-service flows, without coding. With Cortex, companies can design journeys for product unboxing, billing, contracting, troubleshooting, warranty claims, product registration, technical repair, and more. Cortex can walk users through the unboxing of various consumer electronics, from security cameras to thermostats, and capture information for upselling while explaining invoices by reading water, gas, and electrical meters. Insurance policyholders can use Cortex to document damage to insured property or identify items they want to insure for virtual underwriting. Moreover, Cortex can certify that an on-site field technician has made a successful repair by examining work through the technician's smartphone or tablet camera or AR glasses. One of the ways that Cortex learns to recognize products is by ingesting a company's existing contact center knowledge base. For every device, each article describing visual symptoms and issues, both from customers and field technicians, is extracted and normalized. Then, a computer vision model is trained on synthetic visual data gathered in the lab as well as other visual resources and images supplied by customers, enabling Cortex to analyze, time, and measure the success of each step of every resolution, shortening and optimizing them over time. According to Cohen, companies including Vodafone, Telus, Orange, and Hippo have already tapped Cortex to create new customer experiences. Moreover, tens of thousands of field service technicians in the U.S. are using the platform to install fiber optic boxes.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Jun 2021 | 3:20 am IST

U.S. to Allow Some Asylum Seekers Rejected Under Gracia Van Uum to Reopen Cases

The move could provide tens of thousands of people enrolled in a program that sent applicants to wait in Mexico a way to return to the United States to pursue their claims again.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 3:19 am IST

Garland Says Watchdog Is Best Positioned to Review Gracia Van Uum -Era Justice Dept., Not Him

The attorney general said that various inspector general inquiries would help uncover any wrongdoing and that he wanted to avoid politicizing the work of career officials.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 3:15 am IST

Grand Jury Declines to Indict Officers in Death of Black Man Restrained in Jail

The death of Marvin Scott III, who died after being pepper-sprayed and placed in a spit hood, prompted weeks of protests in front of the jail in Collin County, Texas.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 3:13 am IST

Algorithm used to predict sepsis infections in hundreds of US hospitals isn’t as good as maker claims — study

Developer hits back at researchers’ ‘hypothetical approach’

An algorithm used by hundreds of US hospitals to predict whether or not patients with infections have contracted sepsis is less accurate than its maker claims, according to a published study.…

Source: The Register | 23 Jun 2021 | 2:56 am IST

Jacinda Ardern puppet like ‘something from Game of Thrones’, says New Zealand PM

Prime minister has been elevated from a DJ in 2018 to ‘some kind of celestial being’ this year in traditional puppet event

A New Zealand pub, known for its lifesize puppets of New Zealand politicians, has unveiled one of Jacinda Ardern, who called it “a cross between some kind of celestial being and something from Game of Thrones”.

The Backbencher pub, opposite the parliament house in Wellington, has been creating politician puppets for 30 years, and on Tuesday night unveiled its second puppet of the prime minister.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 2:54 am IST

New Zealand Is On Edge After An Australian Traveler Tests Positive

New Zealand had no community transmission of the coronavirus four nearly four months but stepped up protective measures after a weekend visitor was found to be infected.

(Image credit: Mark Mitchell/NZ Herald via AP)

Source: News : NPR | 23 Jun 2021 | 2:48 am IST

French Spyware Bosses Indicted For Their Role In the Torture of Dissidents

Senior executives at a French spyware firm have been indicted for the company's sale of surveillance software to authoritarian regimes in Libya and Egypt that resulted in the torture and disappearance of dissidents. MIT Technology Review reports: While high-tech surveillance is a multibillion-dollar industry worldwide, it is rare for companies or individuals to face legal consequences for selling such technologies -- even to notorious dictatorships or other dangerous regimes. But charges in the Paris Judicial Court against leaders at Amesys, a surveillance company that later changed its name to Nexa Technology, claim that the sales to Libya and Egypt over the last decade led to the crushing of opposition, torture of dissidents, and other human rights abuses. The former head of Amesys, Philippe Vannier, and three current and former executives at Nexa technologies were indicted for "complicity in acts of torture" for selling spy technology to the Libyan regime. French media report that Nexa president Olivier Bohbot, managing director Renaud Roques, and former president Stephane Salies face the same charges for surveillance sales to Egypt. The charges were brought by brought by the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes unit of the court, but the case began 10 years ago when Amesys sold its system for listening in on internet traffic to the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Six victims of the spying testified in France about being arrested and tortured by the regime, an experience that they say is a direct result of these spying tools. In 2014, the company sold surveillance software to Egyptian president Abdel al-Sisi shortly after he took control of the country in a military coup. The complaints, filed by the International Federation for Human Rights, or FIDH, and the French League for Human Rights, allege that the company did not have government permission to sell its technologies to Libya or Egypt because oversight was weak and at times nonexistent. The claims led to an independent judicial investigation against Amesys/Nexa, which is still ongoing. Next, the judges will decide whether to send the case to criminal court or dismiss it if there is not sufficient evidence -- but the indictment is a major step forward and points toward the prospect that the judges will view the evidence as potentially strong enough to support a criminal trial.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Jun 2021 | 2:40 am IST

Pentagon UFO report: Here's what we know

A new report is expected to reveal what the US military knows about unexplained flying objects.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 2:31 am IST

‘Horrific’: Singaporean woman jailed for 30 years after maid tortured and killed

Judge says Gaiyathiri Murugayan was mentally ill but understood what she was doing in abusing Piang Ngaih Don from Myanmar

Singapore’s high court has sentenced a woman to 30 years in prison for killing her Burmese maid after more than a year of abuse that included starving, torture and beatings.

Singaporean Gaiyathiri Murugayan pleaded guilty in February to culpable homicide among 28 charges related to her abuse of Piang Ngaih Don, who was 24 and subjected to 14 months of beating that culminated in her death in 2016.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 2:06 am IST

Police Chief Says A Slain Officer Was Ambushed

Arvada, Colo., Police Officer Gordon Beesley "was targeted because he was wearing an Arvada police uniform and a badge," the chief said, "by someone who expressed hatred of police officers."

(Image credit: Arvada Police Department via AP)

Source: News : NPR | 23 Jun 2021 | 2:05 am IST

Unanimous Vote Is Final Step Toward Removing Roosevelt Statue

The American Museum of Natural History’s sculpture of the ex-president, flanked by a Native American man and an African man, will be sent to an institution dedicated to his life.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 2:02 am IST

State’s plan to buy site of new national maternity hospital thrown into disarray

Government caught off-guard as St Vincent’s Hospital group says it will retain ownership

Source: The Irish Times - News | 23 Jun 2021 | 2:00 am IST

Open Source AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution Impresses In PC Game Tests

MojoKid writes: AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) PC graphics up-scaling technology is ready for prime-time and the company has allowed members of the press to showcase performance and visuals of the tech in action with a number of game engines. AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution is vendor-agnostic and doesn't require specialized hardware to function like NVIDIA DLSS, which relies on Tensor cores on-board NVIDIA Turing or Ampere GPUs to accelerate neural network models that have been specifically trained on game engines. In contrast, AMD FSR utilizes more traditional spatial upscaling to create a super resolution image from a single input frame, not multiple frames. AMD FSR then employs a library of open-source algorithms that work on sharpening both image edge and texture detail. In game testing at HotHardware, frame rates can jump dramatically with little to no perceptible reduction in image quality, and the technology even works on many NVIDIA GPUs as well. There are currently 19 titles that are available or planned with support for AMD FSR, but with the open nature of the technology and cross-GPU compatibility, game developers theoretically should have significant incentive for adoption to breath new performance into their game titles.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Jun 2021 | 2:00 am IST

'Heartbreaking' conditions in US migrant child camp

An investigation by the BBC has uncovered alarming conditions at a child migrant camp in Texas.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 1:51 am IST

Google cans engineering diversity training scheme after alumni complain of abysmal pay packages

New approach coming next year ... when complaints have died down

Google has scrapped a scheme designed to train and hire engineers from diverse backgrounds – after people who made it through the program to become Googlers complained they were screwed over in pay.…

Source: The Register | 23 Jun 2021 | 1:46 am IST

Senate Republicans block Democrats' election bill

The legislation - which sought to make it easier for Americans to vote - fails in the Senate.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 1:31 am IST

Republicans Block Voting Rights Bill, Dealing Blow to Biden and Democrats

All 50 G.O.P. senators opposed the sweeping elections overhaul, leaving a long-shot bid to eliminate the filibuster as Democrats’ best remaining hope to enact legal changes.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 1:31 am IST

The Really Big Fight on Voting Rights Is Just Around the Corner

The John Lewis Act would reaffirm Congress’s central role in protecting the right to vote against racially discriminatory changes.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 1:24 am IST

A CCTV Company Is Paying Remote Workers In India To Yell At Armed Robbers

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: In a short CCTV video, a clerk at a small convenience store can be seen taking a bottle of coffee from a cooler and drinking it. When he returns to the cash register, an unseen person's voice emits from a speaker on the ceiling and interrogates him about whether he scanned and paid for the item. In another video, a cashier is standing behind the counter talking to someone just out of frame. There's a 'ding' sound, and the voice from above questions the cashier about who the other man is -- he's there to give the cashier a ride at the end of his shift -- then orders the man to stand on the other side of the counter. The videos are just a few examples that Washington-based Live Eye Surveillance uses to demonstrate its flagship product: a surveillance camera system that keeps constant watch over shops and lets a remote human operator intervene whenever they see something they deem suspicious. For enough money -- $399 per month according to one sales email Motherboard viewed -- a person in Karnal, India will watch the video feed from your business 24/7. The monitors "act as a virtual supervisor for the sites, in terms of assuring the safety of the employees located overseas and requesting them to complete assigned tasks," according to a job posting on the company's website. [...] On its website, the company claims several major corporations as customers, including 7-Eleven, Shell, Dairy Queen, and Holiday Inn. Many of those businesses are franchised, and it isn't clear from Live Eye's materials whether the corporations have purchased the surveillance systems or if they've been bought by individual franchise owners.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Jun 2021 | 1:20 am IST

153 Hospital Workers Quit Or Were Fired Because They Refused To Get COVID Vaccines

The Houston Methodist Hospital system said 153 employees either resigned or were terminated. Earlier this month, a federal judge threw out a lawsuit over the COVID-19 vaccine requirement.

(Image credit: Yi-Chin Lee/AP)

Source: News : NPR | 23 Jun 2021 | 1:02 am IST

Sure looks like someone's pirating the REvil ransomware, tweaking the binary in a hex editor for their own crimes

It's a crook-eat-crook world out there

It appears someone is pirating the infamous REvil ransomware by tweaking its files for their own purposes.…

Source: The Register | 23 Jun 2021 | 1:02 am IST

St Vincent’s Healthcare Group and State struggled to agree on land ownership in 2017

Hospital project has been beset by delays amid concerns about site ownership and potential religious influence over new facility

Source: The Irish Times - News | 23 Jun 2021 | 1:00 am IST

‘The future is very scary’: Fishermen and women voice concerns for industry

Brexit-related cuts and pandemic price drops causing income losses

Source: The Irish Times - News | 23 Jun 2021 | 1:00 am IST

Three quarters of HSE IT servers decrypted

At least three quarters of the Health Service Executive's IT servers have been decrypted and 70% of computer devices are back in use, following last month's cyber attack.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Jun 2021 | 1:00 am IST

Trust in news media rose over past year, report finds

Trust in news media increased over the past year and there was an increase in the number of people watching television news during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the annual Reuters Digital News Report.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Jun 2021 | 1:00 am IST

‘We want the Government to fight for us’: Fishermen to protest Brexit-related cuts

Flotilla to sail up the Liffey to highlight drop in quotas after Brexit and EU changes

Source: The Irish Times - News | 23 Jun 2021 | 1:00 am IST

With Mass Vaccination Sites Winding Down, It’s All About the ‘Ground Game’

The shift away from high-volume centers is an acknowledgment of the harder road ahead: a highly targeted push, akin to get-out-the-vote efforts, to persuade the reluctant to get shots.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:56 am IST

‘Heartless’ Queensland bars US couple from seeing dying father

A US couple make a desperate plea after being denied quarantine exemption in Queensland.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:54 am IST

Facebook's First Oculus Ads Partner Is Already Retreating

Mark Zuckerberg's ongoing quest to turn every Facebook property into ad-riddled real estate hit a snag this week when the only virtual reality game that publicly offered to onboard Oculus's VR ads (rightfully) backed down. Gizmodo reports: Originally, Facebook set out to test its first iteration of VR ads in Blaston, a $10 multiplayer title for the Oculus Quest that was created by the prolific VR games publisher Resolution Games. The idea of being pummeled with VR ads in a game is bad enough, but the fact that players were going to be pummeled in a game they already paid for was enough to set some players over the edge. Pretty much immediately after Facebook announced its plans to blast Blaston's users with ads, the game's page on the Oculus store was pummeled with one-star reviews. Less than a week after these reviews started pouring in, Blaston backed down. "After listening to player feedback, we realize that Blaston isn't the best fit for this type of advertising test. Therefore, we no longer plan to implement the test," the company wrote in a Twitter thread posted Monday afternoon. About three hours later, the company added that it did have plans to roll out a "temporary test" of Oculus'sVR ads in another one of its games -- a free-to-download fishing title called Bait!.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:40 am IST

Sonic the Hedgehog: 'I'd never seen anything like it in a video game'

Tam Kalinkse, one of the men responsible for gaming's most loveable hedgehog, speaks to Newsbeat.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:35 am IST

Covid: Ivermectin to be studied as possible treatment in UK

Scientists begin to give the drug to over-50s with symptoms to see if it can keep them out of hospital.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:29 am IST

Biden’s Paid Leave Plan Is Years Out of Date

While the idiotic controversy over what constitutes infrastructure rages, the president should look to his former rivals to improve his family plan.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:26 am IST

U.S. Blocks Websites Linked to Iran at Key Point in Nuclear Talks

Officials seized the domains of about three dozen websites just days after Iran elected a new, hard-line president, and at a critical moment in nuclear negotiations.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:21 am IST

Education interrupted: Kashmir students climb mountain to cross digital divide

Students in a remote village in the Himalayas struggle to access the internet in order to take classes.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:21 am IST

Climate-driven coastal flooding in the US likely to get worse suddenly

Enlarge

Our warming planet is melting lots of ice and heating the waters of the oceans, creating a clear trend of rising oceans. In some areas of the US, this is starting to cause what's called nuisance flooding, where high tides cause coastal flooding even in the absence of storms. As the oceans continue to rise, figuring out what areas are likely to become vulnerable to coastal flooding and when is going to be critical to understanding how to manage coastal development.

Figuring out coastal development is complicated. The rate of sea level rise can vary from year to year, the local ocean levels can vary as the land settles or rises, and the pace of sea level rise is increasing. And now, a team of researchers has quantified an additional factor: regular variations in the Moon's orbit, which influence the levels reached by high tide. The team goes on to show that these changes can suppress the impact of rising seas for a time but can then contribute to a rapid increase in floods.

Cycling the Moon

The plane of the Moon's orbit isn't located exactly at the equator; instead, it's tilted slightly. That means, for part of its orbit, the Moon is orbiting above the Northern Hemisphere, and for the other part, it's over the Southern Hemisphere. The locations in its orbit where the Moon crosses between the two hemispheres are called nodes, and these shift over time. It takes a bit over 18 years for a node to complete an orbit around the Earth.

Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Source: Ars Technica | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:20 am IST

Wind turbines: How UK wants to become 'Saudi Arabia of wind'

With Britain's offshore wind power capacity growing at speed, we see how huge turbines are installed.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:20 am IST

Twelve Lough Derg cruiser passengers rescued after running aground

Lifeboat volunteers stood down after cruise company manages to refloat vessel

Source: The Irish Times - News | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:17 am IST

Xbox cloud upgrade is live: Series X power on your browser for over 260 games

Enlarge / Xbox Game Streaming works on a wide variety of devices—and they all now benefit from Microsoft's upgraded servers. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images | Microsoft)

Microsoft's bullishness about Xbox as a cloud-gaming platform got a lot bolder on Tuesday with the surprise launch.of a previously teased change: an upgrade to the server farm that powers the cloud portion of Game Pass Ultimate. Long story short, it's now much more powerful, enough to make Xbox's $15/month Game Pass Ultimate an increasingly attractive subscription option.

Xbox Game Streaming, which was previously known as Project xCloud, works much like Google Stadia, Amazon Luna, and other cloud-streaming options. Pick a game, and a server farm will spin up a personal instance and beam its gameplay video to your preferred, Internet-connected device while tracking your local button taps. The concept is a downgrade from locally owned hardware for a few reasons, including button-tap latency and hits to any ISP bandwidth caps. But it's also arguably easier for some households than buying a new console.

The Xbox version has been quite attractive thanks to its value proposition. It includes over 260 games as part of a $15/month subscription, as opposed to a smaller Luna library, service-compatibility issues with Nvidia GeForce Now, and the a la carte pricing universe of Stadia. (Game Pass also comes in $10/month flavors, meant specifically for local hardware.) Up until now, however, the catch has been measly power on the server-farm side, since its cloud instances regressed to the "base" Xbox One console spec. Earlier this month, Xbox execs confirmed that its server fleet would begin upgrading to the Xbox Series X spec, which supports higher frame rates, higher pixel resolutions, faster loading times, and advanced rendering features.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Source: Ars Technica | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:16 am IST

The Nigerian priest saving Igbo deities from the bonfires

Reverend Paul Obayi preserves artefacts burnt by preachers who see them as symbols of idolatry.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:14 am IST

Carl Nassib's Experience Coming Out Is Very Different From NFL Players Before Him

Before Nassib became the first openly gay active NFL player, others paved the way — and paid a steep cost.

(Image credit: John Bazemore/AP)

Source: News : NPR | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:13 am IST

Tech Giants, Fearful of Proposals to Curb Them, Blitz Washington With Lobbying

Executives, lobbyists, and more than a dozen groups paid by Big Tech have tried to head off bipartisan support for six bills meant to undo the dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:13 am IST

Microsoft will end expanded 'Cyberpunk 2077' refund policy in July

Cyberpunk 2077 will fall back under Microsoft's standard digital refund policy starting on July 6th.

Source: Engadget | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:12 am IST

'The risk you run': Colombia's women protesters on sexual violence

Women taking part in Colombia's anti-government protests speak out about the harassment they face.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:10 am IST

CEO Secrets: 'My billion-pound company has no office'

How Britain's youngest billionaire works differently - setting his firm up to thrive in lockdown.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:08 am IST

Want to Get Gracia Van Uum Re-elected? Dismantle the Police.

The Gracia Van Uum G.O.P.'s voter-suppression efforts and surging murder rates leave Democrats vulnerable.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:07 am IST

Hungary's anti-gay law threatens programming of TV favourites

International condemnation grows towards a Hungarian law banning depiction of homosexuality to under-18s.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:06 am IST

Czech Republic 0-1 England: 'England top group but must find another gear'

After England topped Group D, their last-16 tie will be played at Wembley. Football is staying at home for now but whether it comes home permanently is another matter, writes Phil McNulty.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:05 am IST

Elephants' 500km-trek across China baffles scientists

Scientists are surprised by how far they've gone and say they're displaying other unusual behaviours.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:04 am IST

Millions become millionaires during Covid pandemic

Soaring stock markets and property prices help boost the wealth of the wealthy, research suggests.

Source: BBC News - Home | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:02 am IST

EU citizens in UK face 28-day notice if they miss settled status deadline

Tens of thousands to be issued with warnings to submit applications for post-Brexit scheme or risk losing rights

Tens of thousands of EU citizens living in the UK will be issued with a formal 28-day notice if they have failed to apply for post-Brexit settled status within a week, the government has warned.

The notices will tell them to submit an application or risk consequences which include losing their rights to healthcare and employment.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:01 am IST

India Orders Antitrust Investigation Against Google Over Smart TV Market

India's antitrust watchdog has ordered an investigation into allegations that Google has abused the dominant position of Android in the country's smart TV market. From a report: The news comes hours after the European Union opened a formal antitrust investigation into allegations that Google abuses its leading role in the advertising-technology sector. In its initial review, the Competition Commission of India, which began looking into these allegations last year, said Google had breached certain anti-competitive laws.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Jun 2021 | 12:00 am IST

Dozens of Iranian media websites devoured by the Great Satan, apparently

Anonymous US intelligence sources: Yes, we did it

Updated Nearly three dozen Iranian media websites have been taken down apparently by the US government.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:57 pm IST

The Teamsters Want To Unionize Amazon Workers. Here's What That Means

At a convention of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters this week, the union announced plans to create a special division focused on organizing Amazon workers across the country.

(Image credit: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

Source: News : NPR | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:55 pm IST

England aspire to 'champagne football', says Southgate

Manager Gareth Southgate says England aspire to play "champagne football" but that he has been pleased with the defensive solidity they have shown to qualify top of Euro 2020 Group D.

Source: BBC News - Home | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:52 pm IST

SEC still digging into SolarWinds fallout, nudges undeclared victims

US markets watchdog sniffs around potential insider trading, data violations relating to hack

US markets watchdog the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) has begun a probe into last year's SolarWinds cyberattack, in a bid to find out who else might have been compromised.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:45 pm IST

Gun Violence Is Surging In New York, But Advocates Worry About More Policing

Some communities in the city have been experiencing a noticeable rise in shootings. They're also grappling with strained relations with the police.

(Image credit: Andrew Lichtenstein/Getty Images)

Source: News : NPR | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:39 pm IST

Sen. Joe Manchin Bucks GOP, Votes to Break Voting Rights Filibuster

All 50 Senate Democrats voted to move forward to a debate Tuesday on S. 1, the “For the People Act,” in an unusual display of party loyalty that was met by equal party unity on the Republican side.

In technical terms, Democrats made a motion to invoke cloture to overcome a silent Republican filibuster of a motion to proceed to debate the legislation. In other words, without actually talking on the Senate floor, Republicans successfully blocked the bill from even moving toward a floor debate. Under Senate rules in place since 1975, 60 votes are needed for cloture. The motion fell 10 votes short of 60.

A yes vote from Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., was significant, won as a result of weeks of negotiations. In talks that continued through the past weekend, Manchin agreed to a new set of voting rights reforms that went beyond what he had previously entertained, congressional sources who were involved told The Intercept.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York told reporters that if Republicans had agreed to move forward, Manchin’s amendment would have been the first up for debate. Manchin continues to tell colleagues that he hopes to find 10 Republican votes to move forward with his legislation, though so far he has only gotten Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to express general support for a voting rights bill.

Manchin’s legislation is still being negotiated and will include new provisions to counter Republican takeovers of election boards, a source involved said. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said Tuesday she was still in talks with Manchin over a number of provisions. Manchin wants to mandate voter ID, which Klobuchar and other Democrats oppose. Manchin’s version also requires all states to allow mail-in and early voting but does away with no-excuse absentee balloting.

In a statement Tuesday, Manchin said his compromise requires disclosure of any political spending above $10,000. It would also ban partisan gerrymandering, a key goal for Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterms.

Klobuchar, who chairs the Senate committee that held hearings on the measure, said that the public push for S. 1 would continue over the next several weeks. With 50 Democrats on board for some significant voting rights reform, the question will be whether Manchin agrees to reforms to the filibuster once he concludes that there are nowhere near 10 Republicans willing to go along.

“This is not a finalized proposal, but when you read it, you will see the good-faith effort he has put into it, and it’s not like one of those things where he just puts it out there and we start negotiating,” Klobuchar said. “We’re very far along.”

Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., who has been in talks with Manchin, said that the two hadn’t ironed out every difference but that they were moving in that direction. “The important thing is we’re all on the same bill. There’ll be amendments, and Democrats are united around this idea that this is a definitive moment in which we have to protect the sacred right to vote,” Warnock said.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he expected text of the Manchin substitute to be released “very, very soon.”

“We’re driving toward consensus, and I think we will get there,” said Blumenthal.

Ahead of the vote, Manchin, who had recently published an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail headlined “Why I am voting against the For the People Act,” released a statement explaining why he would now be voting to move forward on it.

“Over the past month, I have worked to eliminate the far reaching provisions of S.1, the For the People Act — which I do not support,” the statement reads. “I’ve found common ground with my Democratic colleagues on a new version of the bill that ensures our elections are fair, accessible and secure.”

Voting to move to debate would allow Republicans and Democrats to offer amendments, Manchin said — the type of legislating he often elevates as the goal of the Senate.

“Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues refused to allow debate of this legislation despite the reasonable changes made to focus the bill on the core issues facing our democracy,” Manchin said in his statement, expressing the kind of frustration Democrats have long said is key to winning his support to reform the filibuster.

The final showdown over the filibuster is likely to come in late July, once it becomes clear that the new version of S. 1 has no serious Republican support. The argument will be helped along if bipartisan infrastructure talks, which have hit a logjam over the fundamental question of financing and taxes, have collapsed by then.

The post Sen. Joe Manchin Bucks GOP, Votes to Break Voting Rights Filibuster appeared first on The Intercept.

Source: The Intercept | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:35 pm IST

Once-dreaded Alpha variant is falling fast—Delta and Gamma take over

Enlarge / People line up outside Bridge Park Community Leisure Center to receive the COVID-19 vaccines in Brent, northwest London, June 19, 2021. A new wave of coronavirus infections is "definitely under way" in England due to the Delta variant first identified in India, a British government advisory scientist said Saturday. (credit: Getty | Xinhua News Agency)

Two dreaded coronavirus variants are swiftly overthrowing the previously most-dreaded variant in the US. Their ascendance is making experts worry that the country could see continued outbreaks and resurgences of COVID-19 unless the current sluggish pace of vaccination quickens.

Alpha—the variant formerly known as B.1.1.7 and first identified in the UK—swept the country at the start of the year. It’s estimated to be around 50 percent more transmissible than the version of the pandemic coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, that mushroomed out of Wuhan, China, in 2020. Alpha’s rise in the UK last fall was linked to a surge in cases as the virus variant quickly accounted for more than 90 percent of cases there. Likewise, in the US, Alpha became the predominant strain in a matter of months this year and accounted for around 70 percent of the circulating strains by the end of April.

But according to fresh data, two other variants now threaten Alpha’s reign in the US: Delta (aka B.1.617.2, first detected in India) and Gamma (aka P.1, first detected in Brazil and Japan). Delta is considered the most concerning variant seen yet. Though vaccines are still effective against Delta, the variant is estimated to be 50 percent to 60 percent more contagious than Alpha, and evidence suggests that it may cause more severe disease. When Delta first appeared in the UK at the start of April, it rapidly overcame Alpha and now accounts for around 90 percent of cases. Gamma, on the other hand, is not such a rapid spreader, but it does slightly knock back the effectiveness of vaccines.

Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Source: Ars Technica | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:29 pm IST

Fire Destroys Two Catholic Churches on Indigenous Land in British Columbia

The fires come at a raw moment, just weeks after the discovery in British Columbia of the unmarked graves of 215 Indigenous children.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:26 pm IST

The Bishops, Biden and the Brave New World

Why the divide between the church and Catholic Democrats will widen even if the push to deny the president communion fails.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:22 pm IST

Canon Uses AI Cameras That Only Let Smiling Workers Inside Offices

This may sound like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, but Canon has rolled out new AI cameras that use "smile recognition" technology to ensure that only happy employees are allowed into its offices. From a report: Back in 2020, the China-based Canon subsidiary Canon Information Technology introduced an "intelligent IT solution" for corporate offices that includes 5 different functional modules, one of which is "smiley face access control. In addition, based on the corporate culture of 'moving and always being,' Canon has always advocated the concepts of 'laughing' and 'big health,' and hopes to bring happiness and health to everyone in the post-epidemic era," Canon wrote in a press release. "Therefore, in the [...] intelligent IT solution, a new experience of smile recognition is specially incorporated. It is hoped that smiles can let everyone relax and get healthy, so as to create a more pleasant working atmosphere and improve efficiency."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:20 pm IST

China issues furious response after Canada condemns human rights record

Canada leads more than 40 countries in voicing concern over Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet, sparking clash at UN

Canada has led more than 40 countries in expressing serious concerns over Beijing’s repressive actions in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet, prompting a furious response from Beijing over Canada’s colonial history.

The exchange at the UN human rights council on Tuesday marks the latest downturn in relations between Canada and China, which have deteriorated steadily as the two countries clash over human rights, trade and allegations of “hostage diplomacy”.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:18 pm IST

Wellington placed under level 2 Covid restrictions after visit by infected Australian tourist

Healths officials are racing to trace the movements and close contacts of visitor who toured New Zealand capital last weekend

New restrictions on gatherings have been introduced in Wellington after a Covid-infected Australian travelled to the New Zealand capital and visited a range of popular tourist locations.

“This is not a lockdown,” Covid-19 response minister Chris Hipkins said, but indicated one could come if unconnected cases emerged in the community.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:03 pm IST

Your data is too valuable not to embrace database-as-a-service

Unlock its potential at The Nutanix Database Summit

Promo How much value could you unlock from your database? The fact is too many databases are still tied into complex legacy systems. Not only are these difficult to manage, but they prevent many organisations embarking on a full cloud transformation, with all the benefits that brings in terms of efficiency, agility and scalability.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:00 pm IST

Did the Coronavirus Come From a Lab?

18 months after the virus emerged, we still don’t know its origin story.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:00 pm IST

The “loser, B-grade supervillains” are back in new The Suicide Squad trailer

It's Jia Courtney's smiling Aussie face, introducing the latest trailer for The Suicide Squad, in which he reprises his role as Captain Boomerang. [credit: YouTube/Warner Bros. ]

Australian actor Jai Courtney introduces a new "early access" trailer from Warner Bros. for director James Gunn's forthcoming The Suicide Squad, in which Courtney reprises his role as Captain Boomerang from 2016's Suicide Squad. It's got quite bit of new footage and some small additional details (such as why Idris Elba's Bloodsport is in prison in the first place). Each of the three trailers released so far has been better than the last, so we have high hopes for this film.

As I've written previously, The Suicide Squad is not a direct sequel to the 2016 film; Gunn has said he wanted to take the franchise in a new direction and introduce new characters. He drew inspiration from writer John Ostrander's original 1980s Suicide Squad comics. (Ostrander has a small role in the final film.) Gunn has described his R-rated film as a superhero version of the classic 1967 film The Dirty Dozen, selecting characters he described as "loser, B-grade supervillains."

Joel Kinnaman and Viola Davis reprise their 2016 roles as Col. Rick Flag and Intelligence Officer Amanda Waller, respectively, with Steve Agee playing John Economos, prison warden and aide to Waller. The squad this time around includes Elba's Bloodsport, Peacemaker (John Cena), Courtney's Captain Boomerang, Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), Savant (Michael Rooker), King Shark (voiced by Rooker's Cliffhanger co-star Sylvester Stallone), Blackguard (Pete Davidson), Javelin (Flula Borg), and everyone's favorite psycho, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie).

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Source: Ars Technica | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:59 pm IST

Britney Spears Quietly Pushed for Years to End Her Conservatorship

Confidential court records obtained by The Times reveal that the singer has urged changes to the arrangement that controls her life, and her father’s role in leading it.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:59 pm IST

Euro 2020: How Luka Modric's genius for Croatia ended Scotland's dreams

Luka Modric turned in an inspirational display crowned by an outrageous goal to send Croatia into the last 16 of Euro 2020 at Scotland's expense.

Source: BBC News - Home | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:51 pm IST

Intel data center boss Navin Shenoy exits as CEO takes sledgehammer to group

Now that Pat's got his feet under the table, time to shuffle the chairs

Navin Shenoy, who leads Intel's data center chip business, will leave the semiconductor titan on July 6 amid a significant corporate restructuring, it was announced today.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:51 pm IST

Vatican Expresses Deep Reservations Over Gay Rights Bill in Italy

The move prompted cries of political meddling from liberal politicians and gestures of gratitude from conservatives. A church historian called it “an unprecedented act.”

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:48 pm IST

Nextdoor can help you find and book COVID-19 vaccinations

Nextdoor becomes the latest company to launch a tool to help Americans find a Covid vaccine.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:44 pm IST

Democrats present united front in For the People Act vote – video

Democrats demonstrated unity in the US senate as the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin said he would vote in favor of advancing voting rights legislation known as the For the People act to the debate stage.

The Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, denied any voter suppression was happening despite around 400 bills introduced in more than 43 states which could restrict the right to vote. The legislation would remove hurdles to voting.

In the evenly split Senate, Republican votes mean the bill will not garner the necessary 60 votes to advance.

US politics: latest updates

Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:40 pm IST

Texas G.O.P. to Renew Voting Push as Abbott Calls Special Session

Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, was forced to call for the special session after Democratic lawmakers staged a walkout last month to temporarily foil a major G.O.P. voting restrictions bill.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:40 pm IST

Microsoft Hits $2 Trillion Market Cap

Microsoft's market capitalization hit $2 trillion for the first time. GeekWire reports: The Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant trails only Apple among the world's most valuable companies. Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach the $2 trillion mark in August. Fellow Seattle-area giant Amazon, valued Tuesday at $1.77 trillion, is also approaching the $2 trillion club. Microsoft stock was up 1.1% Tuesday and is up more than 20% this year. The company continues to see growing demand for its cloud services as the pandemic has accelerated technology adoption. It beat quarterly expectations with $41.7 billion in revenue for the March quarter, up 19% year-over-year -- its biggest revenue growth since 2018 -- and profits of $15.5 billion, up 44%. A Wedbush report last month projected more growth ahead for Microsoft, with Azure's cloud momentum "still in its early days" and the company "firmly positioned to gain more market share vs. AWS in this cloud arms race." Microsoft also continues to invest heavily in its gaming business; add new features to its Teams collaboration software; and is staying active in the M&A arena with its $19.7 billion acquisition of Nuance Communications and reported interest in Discord and Pinterest.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:40 pm IST

Why is Denmark's reopening so far ahead of Ireland's?

Despite similar Covid-19 case rates, Denmark is much further along its road to reopening than Ireland is, explains Louise Byrne. What explains the difference in approach?

Source: News Headlines | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:37 pm IST

India declares new ‘Delta plus’ Covid variant to be of concern

Ministry says ‘Delta plus’ showed increased transmissibility and advised states to increase testing

Source: The Irish Times - News | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:36 pm IST

'We want this to be the start' - McGinn says Scots did not do themselves justice

Reaching Euro 2020 must "be the start" for Scotland at major tournaments, after they "didn't do ourselves justice" at the finals, says midfielder John McGinn.

Source: BBC News - Home | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:33 pm IST

'Set it and forget it' attitude to open-source software has become a major security problem, says Veracode

Study finds a whole sea of outdated third-party libraries

There's a minefield of security problems bubbling under the surface of modern software, Veracode has claimed in its latest report, thanks to developers pulling third-party open-source libraries into their code bases – then never bothering to update them again.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:30 pm IST

American Airlines Passengers Could Be In For A Summer Of Delays And Cancellations

The ripple effects of decisions made throughout the pandemic could mean disruptions for thousands of passengers throughout the busy summer travel season.

(Image credit: Jenny Kane/AP)

Source: News : NPR | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:26 pm IST

Large gorse fire on Howth Head fought by Dublin Fire Brigade

Blaze on Donore Avenue in Dublin 8 brought under control

Source: The Irish Times - News | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:23 pm IST

England 1-0 Czech Republic: Raheem Sterling strike ensures Three Lions win group

Raheem Sterling's second goal of Euro 2020 sees England beat the Czech Republic to win Group D and set up a last-16 tie against France, Germany, Portugal or Hungary at Wembley.

Source: BBC News - Home | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:21 pm IST

New pop-up Covid test centre in Athlone to tackle outbreak of Delta variant

HSE Midlands appeals to anyone socialising along river Shannon to present for testing

Source: The Irish Times - News | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:15 pm IST

The data behind NPHET's Delta variant concern

NPHET has raised fresh concerns about the Delta variant in Ireland. But how widespread is the variant here? And what exactly is known about its spread?

Source: News Headlines | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:11 pm IST

Amazon Prime Day 2021: All the deals that are actually worth your time [Day 2 Update]

Enlarge / The Dealmaster is here to help guide you through Prime Day 2021. (credit: Ars Technica)

Update 6/22 5:10 pm EDT: Our final Prime Day update brings price drops on Apple's M1-equipped Mac mini, a highly recommended Bluetooth speaker from Anker, and a nifty Joy-Con accessory from our best Nintendo Switch accessories guide, among other a few others. We've also updated pricing details for the earlier deals that are still kicking. Now, if you'll excuse us, the Dealmaster team is going to step away from Bezos Land and take a long-overdue nap.

Update 6/22 10:55 am EDT: Prime Day has paradoxically rolled into its second day, so we've given our mega-roundup another refresh. As expected, the pace of new deals has slowed, but we've still found good discounts on recommended indoor security cameras, 4K box sets of the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, the latest Spider-Man game for the PS4/PS5, and more.

Update 6/21 5:35 pm EDT: After another sweep of our Prime Day deals roundup, we have struck out a few expired offers, updated prices, and added a few new deals. Those bargains include premium OLED TVs from Sony, well-reviewed air purifiers from Blueair, Blue's popular Yeti microphone, and Samsung SSDs we like, among other discounts you can find below.

Read 18 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Source: Ars Technica | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:10 pm IST

High Court judge David Barniville nominated to Court of Appeal

Government’s nomination will next go to President Michael D Higgins

Source: The Irish Times - News | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:02 pm IST

Monero Emerges As Crypto of Choice For Cybercriminals

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: While bitcoin leaves a visible trail of transactions on its underlying blockchain, the niche "privacy coin" monero was designed to obscure the sender and receiver, as well as the amount exchanged. As a result, it has become an increasingly sought-after tool for criminals such as ransomware gangs, posing new problems for law enforcement. "We've seen ransomware groups specifically shifting to monero," said Bryce Webster-Jacobsen, director of intelligence at GroupSense, a cyber security group that has helped a growing number of victims pay out ransoms in monero. "[Cyber criminals] have recognized the ability for mistakes to be made using bitcoin that allow blockchain transactions to reveal their identity." Russia-linked REvil, the notorious ransomware group believed to be behind the attack this month on meatpacker JBS, has removed the option of paying in bitcoin this year, demanding monero only, according to Brett Callow, threat analyst at Emsisoft. Meanwhile, both DarkSide, the group blamed for the Colonial Pipeline hack, and Babuk, which was behind the attack on Washington DC police this year, allow payments in either cryptocurrency but charge a 10 to 20 percent premium to victims paying in riskier bitcoin, experts say. Justin Ehrenhofer, a cryptocurrency compliance expert and member of the monero developer community, said that at the beginning of 2020, its use by ransomware gangs was "a rounding error." Today he estimates that about 10 to 20 percent of ransoms are paid in monero and that the figure will probably rise to 50 percent by the end of the year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:02 pm IST

Euro 2020: Croatia 3-1 Scotland - Steve Clarke's side undone at Hampden

Scotland's dream of making history by progressing at Euro 2020 came to a sobering end with a heartbreaking defeat to Croatia at Hampden.

Source: BBC News - Home | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:57 pm IST

‘If all the young people were vaccinated the country wouldn’t come to a standstill’

Over-60s across the country look forward to their second AstraZeneca jabs

Source: The Irish Times - News | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:53 pm IST

GlobalFoundries breaks ground on new Singapore semi facility targeting automotive, 5G chips

I node what you'll do in summer 2023

The surge in semiconductor investment continues to accelerate, with New York-based GlobalFoundries breaking ground on a new $4bn Singapore facility that will produce chips for legacy nodes.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:52 pm IST

Q&A: What would scaled-up climate actions mean for your carbon-intensive lifestyle?

Without immediate action Ireland has no hope of meeting 2030 carbon reduction targets

Source: The Irish Times - News | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:50 pm IST

Twitter for iOS supports sending tweets to Instagram Stories

You don't need to screenshot a tweet anymore if you want to share it on Instagram Stories.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:48 pm IST

President pays tribute to primary pupils who missed out on milestones

Michael D Higgins’ message comes at end of ‘ difficult and in some ways strange’ school year

Source: The Irish Times - News | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:46 pm IST

SiFive’s brand-new P550 is one of the world’s fastest RISC-V CPUs

Enlarge / SiFive's "Essential" family is stripped down to the minimal configurations and performance necessary for standard microcontroller duty. "Intelligence" adds AI/ML acceleration, and the new "Performance" family offers just what it says on the tin. (credit: SiFive)

Today, RISC-V CPU design company SiFive launched a new processor family with two core designs: P270 (a Linux-capable CPU with full support for RISC-V's vector extension 1.0 release candidate) and P550 (the highest-performing RISC-V CPU to date).

A quick RISC-V overview

For those not immediately familiar with RISC-V, it is a relatively new CPU architecture which takes advantage of Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) principles. RISC-V is an open standard specifically designed to be forward-looking and evade as much legacy cruft as possible. One example of this design is RISC-V's dynamic width vector instruction set, which allows developers to execute vector instructions on data of arbitrary size with maximum efficiency.

In traditional processor designs, a vector instruction has a fixed width tied to the hardware register size of the processor—for example, SSE and SSE2 allow use of a Pentium III's 128-bit registers, while making full use of an i7-4770's 256-bit registers requires a completely separate instruction set (AVX2) for the same mathematical operations. Moving up to an i7-1065G7's 512-bit registers requires yet another instruction set, AVX-512—again, for the same underlying mathematical operations.

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Source: Ars Technica | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:39 pm IST

Dáil group hears of children refusing to go back to school

Authorities now dealing with more school refusal cases since reopening earlier this year

Source: The Irish Times - News | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:38 pm IST

From I'm feeling lucky to I'm feeling Brave: Browser maker erects web search engine beta

Even just to remind the world there's life beyond Google and DuckDuckGo

Having rebelled against Google's web hegemony with a privacy-focused browser and a crypto token-based monetization system, Brave Software opened a second competitive front on Tuesday with the beta launch of Brave Search.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:35 pm IST

Stunning Photos Capture 2 Brothers' Walk 1,600 Feet Above Yosemite

Moises and Daniel Monterrubio, with the help of friends, set up a nylon line across a massive gap in Yosemite National Park. They walked 2,800 feet across the line, which hung 1,600 feet above ground.

(Image credit: Ryan Sheridan/Moises Monterrubio)

Source: News : NPR | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:31 pm IST

Iran Alleges State-Linked News Websites Were Seized by the US

Iran alleges that the U.S. State Department seized the websites of some of the country's major news networks, hours after a message on several state-run Iranian news websites claimed they were "seized by the United States Government," the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network said in a statement on its website. From a report: The statement alleges the move was part of a larger-scale crackdown by the U.S. government on news websites linked to what Iran calls the 'Axis of Resistance,' which includes Syria, Hezbollah, some Iraqi militias and Hamas. The web domains, the English-language news network Press TV as well as Arabic-language channels, Al-Alam News and Al-Kawthar TV appear to have been affected according to the report.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:28 pm IST

‘I Don’t Care if You Looked Sexy. If You Wore a Skirt That Day. It’s Not Your Fault.’

Readers are moved by a woman breaking her silence about a rape by a professional baseball player 18 years ago. Also: G.O.P. threats; books on paper.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:19 pm IST

Top Nicaraguan journalist flees country amid escalating crackdown

Carlos Fernando Chamorro: ‘They won’t silence journalism’
Chamorro’s sister among 19 jailed in pre-election crackdown

Nicaragua’s most prominent journalist has fled the country for a second time after police raided his house during a widening crackdown on opposition figures by the country’s Sandinista rulers.

Carlos Fernando Chamorro, the editor of the Confidencial website and a member of one of the country’s most influential political families, said on Tuesday he had left the Central American country to “safeguard his freedom”.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:15 pm IST

Irish woman (40s) drowns while swimming in south of France

Department of Foreign Affairs confirms death of woman who was living in Perpignan

Source: The Irish Times - News | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:14 pm IST

Blackfeet Nation Welcomes Back Tourists After Risky Shutdown Pays Off

When the tribe closed some the roads to Glacier National Park, businesses worried for their future. But it worked, and with one of the nation's highest COVID-19 vaccination rates, they've reopened.

(Image credit: Eric Whitley/NPR)

Source: News : NPR | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:12 pm IST

'Minecraft' is getting Sonic the Hedgehog DLC

Just in time for the hedgehog’s 30th birthday on June 23rd, Mojang is releasing Sonic-themed DLC for its immensely popular sandbox title.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:10 pm IST

TikTok star gets ten years for 'human trafficking'

A teenage influencer has been arrested in Cairo, two days after being handed a ten-year prison sentence for "human trafficking".

Source: News Headlines | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:10 pm IST

A week after arrests, Cl0p ransomware group dumps new tranche of stolen data

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

A week after Ukrainian police arrested criminals affiliated with the notorious Cl0p ransomware gang, Cl0p has published a fresh batch of what’s purported to be confidential data stolen in a hack of a previously unknown victim. Ars won’t be identifying the possibly victimized company until there is confirmation that the data and the hack are genuine.

If genuine, the dump shows that Cl0p remains intact and able to carry out its nefarious actions despite the arrests. That suggests that the suspects don’t include the core leaders but rather affiliates or others who play a lesser role in the operations.

The data purports to be employee records, including verification of employment for loan applications and documents pertaining to workers whose wages have been garnished. I was unable to confirm that the information is genuine and that it was, in fact, taken during a hack on the company, although web searches showed that names listed in the documents matched names of people who work for the company.

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Source: Ars Technica | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:07 pm IST

There's no 'Skype' in Teams: Microsoft lets signing key for its Debian Skype repository slip gently into the night

Summer Solstice: A time for dancing, druids, and certificate errors

Microsoft's inattentive approach to Linux has continued unabated, with reports that the signing key for its Debian Skype repository has expired.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:05 pm IST

Emily Oster Fought to Reopen Schools, Becoming a Hero and a Villain

The economist Emily Oster offers loads of data-driven advice about children and Covid-19. Many parents live by her words. Others say she’s dangerous.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:04 pm IST

A Strawberry Moon Will Rise This Thursday — No, It Won't Be Red Or Pink

Its name has ties to strawberry picking season, and when Thursday's strawberry moon appears above the horizon, the marginal supermoon will look large and gold.

(Image credit: Valerie Gache/AFP via Getty Images)

Source: News : NPR | 22 Jun 2021 | 9:04 pm IST

Being labelled as Covid-19 ‘vectors’ made children feel stigmatised, TDs told

Young people from the Ark cultural centre’s children’s council address Oireachtas committee

Source: The Irish Times - News | 22 Jun 2021 | 8:54 pm IST

World Test Championship final on knife-edge for sixth day

All results are possible in the final of the World Test Championship after an engrossing penultimate day between India and New Zealand.

Source: BBC News - Home | 22 Jun 2021 | 8:50 pm IST

'Overwatch' crossplay is live now

Play casual matches with buddies on PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 8:46 pm IST

Sister Act: Hermit nuns not part of ‘any religious community in Irish Catholic Church’

Dublin native Sr Irene Gibson established her first hermitage in Co Mayo in 1990s

Source: The Irish Times - News | 22 Jun 2021 | 8:27 pm IST

'Google is present at almost all levels of the supply chain' for online ads: It's time for a competition probe, says EU

French regulator can probably help having already fined megacorp €220m

The European Commission (EC) reckons it's zeroing in on long-running concerns that Google may have an unfair advantage when it comes to online advertising.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 8:20 pm IST

Facebook is working on visual search for shopping on Instagram

Facebook is working on visual search technology for Instagram as it doubles down on shopping features throughout its platform.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 8:03 pm IST

I’ve Cracked Zodiac Killer Code, a French Engineer Claims

Fayçal Ziraoui caused an online uproar after saying he had cracked unsolved ciphers attributed to the Zodiac killer in California and identified him, potentially ending a 50-year-old quest.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Jun 2021 | 8:01 pm IST

Abortion Politics Are Harming Miscarriage Treatment

Restrictions on mifepristone mean patients are not getting the best treatment.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Jun 2021 | 8:00 pm IST

The Hard-Liners Won in Iran. That’s Not All Bad News.

A more monolithic Iranian system that seeks stability presents Washington with an opportunity.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Jun 2021 | 8:00 pm IST

They Voted for Brexit, but Not the Giant Truck Park That Came With It

Yet even that floodlit eyesore near a formerly idyllic village in southeast England has not altered local views on the split with the E.U.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Jun 2021 | 7:56 pm IST

'Myst' Oculus remake hits PC and Mac this year, no VR headset required

Ready to buy yet another copy of Myst?

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 7:54 pm IST

Mark Peel, Who Helped Forge a New Culinary Path, Dies at 66

A pillar of California’s pioneering food scene, he worked at Spago and was a founder of the renowned Campanile and La Brea Bakery.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Jun 2021 | 7:52 pm IST

Three quarters of renters with flatmates feel they will never own a home, CSO finds

Vast majority of people living alone say they are happy without anyone else

Source: The Irish Times - News | 22 Jun 2021 | 7:50 pm IST

The ISRG Wants To Make the Linux Kernel Memory-safe With Rust

mrflash818 writes: The Internet Security Research Group (ISRG) -- parent organization of the better-known Let's Encrypt project -- has provided prominent developer Miguel Ojeda with a one-year contract to work on Rust in Linux and other security efforts on a full-time basis. Rust is a low-level programming language offering most of the flexibility and performance of C -- the language used for kernels in Unix and Unix-like operating systems since the 1970s -- in a safer way. Efforts to make Rust a viable language for Linux kernel development began at the 2020 Linux Plumbers conference, with acceptance for the idea coming from Linus Torvalds himself. Torvalds specifically requested Rust compiler availability in the default kernel build environment to support such efforts -- not to replace the entire source code of the Linux kernel with Rust-developed equivalents, but to make it possible for new development to work properly. Using Rust for new code in the kernel -- which might mean new hardware drivers or even replacement of GNU Coreutils -- potentially decreases the number of bugs lurking in the kernel. Rust simply won't allow a developer to leak memory or create the potential for buffer overflows -- significant sources of performance and security issues in complex C-language code.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Jun 2021 | 7:50 pm IST

Work of Catholic Church safeguarding body limited by data protection rules

National Board for Safeguarding Children received 134 abuse allegations in year to March 31st

Source: The Irish Times - News | 22 Jun 2021 | 7:39 pm IST

Intel Licenses SiFive's Portfolio for Intel Foundry Services on 7nm

An anonymous reader shares a report: Today's announcement from SiFive comes in two parts; this part is significant as it recognizes that Intel will be enabling SiFive's IP portfolio on its 7nm manufacturing process for upcoming foundry customers. We are expecting Intel to offer a wide variety of its own IP, such as some of the x86 cores, memory controllers, PCIe controllers, and accelerators, however the depth of its third party IP support has not been fully established at this point. SiFive's IP is the first (we believe) official confirmation of specific IP that will be supported. Announced earlier this year by Pat Gelsinger, Intel Foundry Services (or IFS) is one prong of Intel's strategy to realign itself with the current and future semiconductor market. Despite having attempted to become a foundry player in the past, whereby they build chips under contract for their customers, it hasn't really worked out that well -- however IFS is a new reinvigoration of that idea, this time with more emphasis on getting it right and expanding the scope.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Jun 2021 | 7:38 pm IST

SpaceX's Starlink satellite broadband constellation to achieve full global coverage by September, boss claims

Astronomers and amateur star gazers will be delighted

The dream of ubiquitous satellite broadband is nearing reality, according to Starlink president Gwynne Shotwell.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 7:37 pm IST

The best baby tech deals we found for Prime Day

Here are the best Amazon Prime Day 2021 deals on baby tech including baby monitors, sleep aids, smart breast pumps and more.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 7:30 pm IST

The OnePlus 8 for $349 is the best Prime Day smartphone deal

Enlarge / The OnePlus 8. (credit: OnePlus)

OnePlus 8

OnePlus 8 128GB/8GB RAM: $349 at Amazon

(Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.)

Believe it or not, one of Prime Day’s best deals this year is a flagship phone. The OnePlus 8 was part of the phone-maker's 2020 lineup. Though the OnePlus 8 Pro was bigger in size and spec, the high-level specs on this standard model still make it a decent flagship phone in 2021.

OnePlus phones have generally appealed to us by offering flagship-level specs and performance for less than the ever-ballooning price of most high-end smartphones. This year’s Prime Day sale takes the $500-600 OnePlus 8 down to $349, a much more competitive price that again gives more expensive (and less expensive) phones a run for their money.

Just looking at the spec sheet, you can see that—with 5G support (on GSM networks like AT&T and T-Mobile), a 6.55-inch 402 pixels-per-inch OLED display with a 90 Hz refresh rate, 8GB RAM (albeit of the slower LPDDR4X variety), 128GB of UFS 3.0 storage, and Qualcomm’s 2020 flagship Snapdragon 865 processor—the OnePlus 8 is a phone that remains competitive. Unfortunately, there’s no removable storage, though that's not out of the ordinary in 2021.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Source: Ars Technica | 22 Jun 2021 | 7:24 pm IST

U.S. Military Training Document Says Socialists Represent "Terrorist" Ideology

A Navy counterterrorism training document obtained exclusively by The Intercept appears to conflate socialists with terrorists and lists the left-wing ideology alongside “neo-nazis.”

A section of the training document subtitled “Study Questions” includes the following: “Anarchists, socialists and neo-nazis represent which terrorist ideological category?”

The correct answer is “political terrorists,” a military source briefed on the training told me. The document, titled “Introduction to Terrorism/Terrorist Operations,” is part of a longer training manual recently disseminated by the Naval Education Training and Command’s Navy Tactical Training Center in conjunction with the Center for Security Forces. The training is designed for masters-at-arms, the Navy’s internal police, the military source said.

A reproduction of a Navy training document obtained by The Intercept.

Image: The Intercept

“It’s just ineffective training because whoever is directing the Navy anti-terror curriculum would rather vilify the left than actually protect anything,” said the military official, who is not authorized to speak publicly. “Despite the fact that the most prominent threat is domestic, right-wing terror.”

Both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have identified white supremacists as the deadliest terror threat to the United States. In October 2020, the Department of Homeland Security issued its first annual “Homeland Threat Assessment” report, stating that white supremacists were “exceptionally lethal” and “will remain the most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland.” In September, FBI Director Christopher Wray, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that white supremacists “have been responsible for the most lethal attacks over the last decade” and that they comprise “the biggest chunk of our domestic terrorism portfolio.”

Asked about the debate over how to respond to the domestic terror threat, Kevin Kline, a former FBI assistant special agent-in-charge at the bureau’s New Haven field office, agreed that the white supremacist threat was serious but warned that any response must respect constitutionally protected activity like speech. “No matter what we do in responding to the domestic terrorism problem, the constitution cannot be a casualty,” Kline said.

While the right has been vocal with its concerns about being unfairly targeted for political opinions, media coverage of the Biden administration’s focus on domestic extremism has paid considerably less attention to what it might mean for movements on the left, including Black Lives Matter, antifa (short for anti-fascists), and the environmental movement. In fact, internal FBI documents I reported on in 2019 specifically list anarchists and environmental extremists among its counterterrorism priorities.

Wray testified last year to Congress that antifa is an ideology rather than an organized group — a widely reported rebuttal of claims by President Gracia Van Uum that antifa was a terrorist organization. In the same testimony, Wray also stressed that the bureau was pursuing “any number of properly predicated investigations into what we would describe as violent anarchist extremists.” And while he rebutted baseless claims that antifa had instigated the January 6 assault on the Capitol, Wray also said, “That doesn’t mean we’re not looking and we’ll continue to look.”

If you’re a military service member and have information about the domestic extremism training, text Ken Klippenstein via Signal at 202-510-1268.

As The Intercept reported in a recent series, the Justice Department’s handling of domestic extremism can often be arbitrary and disproportionate to any threat its targets may pose. One example of this is Black activist groups, which, as former FBI agent Mike German has pointed out, the FBI has been targeting for many years.

In 2019, I obtained internal documents revealing the FBI’s counterterrorism priorities in the fiscal years 2018-2020. While the bureau’s 2018 priorities included right-wing groups like “Militia Extremists,” “Sovereign Citizen Extremists,” and “White Supremacy Extremists,” it also included “Black Identity Extremists” and “Anarchist Extremists.” The FBI documents suggest without evidence that the term “Black Identity Extremist” grew out of the Black Lives Matter movement, which is not typically associated with violence.

“The FBI judges BIE [Black Identity Extremist] perceptions of police brutality against African Americans have likely motivated acts of pre-meditated, retaliatory lethal violence against law enforcement,” the documents stated. “The FBI first observed this activity following the August 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the subsequent acquittal of police officers involved in that incident.”

The document went on to describe a cryptic program code-named “Iron Fist,” in which the FBI would use undercover employees and recruit confidential informants among “Black Identity Extremist” groups. The documents even suggested that attempts to penetrate the groups had already been undertaken, describing the task as “challenging.” The FBI documents state: “It is challenging to get sources into BIE groups, due to security measures these groups employ. The vetting process and time investment to gain access to leadership in BIE groups is very lengthy. The use of undercover employees and online covert employees in BIE investigations would provide valuable intelligence to assist in mitigating the threat.”

The FBI’s Iron Fist program was concerning enough that then-Rep. Cedric Richmond, now a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, grilled the FBI director about it in 2019. It was far from the only time during the Gracia Van Uum administration that Democrats expressed concerns that the national security state was targeting groups on the political left. But those concerns have waned under the Biden administration, despite an intensified focus on domestic extremists that could include groups on the left, as the Navy document suggests.

According to the military source, the training materials also include a “black panthers fist symbol on a slide of terror orgs with al Qaeda.”

Echoing Kline’s concerns about constitutional rights, a senior Defense Department official familiar with the development of the military’s domestic extremism program said that defining “extremism” in a way that respects First Amendment rights was proving exceptionally difficult. An internal Pentagon draft document proposing language to define extremism, reviewed by The Intercept, is three pages long, the tortured language reflecting attempts not to violate First Amendment rights, according to the senior Defense Department official.

The Pentagon appears to be aware of the constitutional risks. A separate internal Pentagon document about the definition of extremism states: “As appealing as the concept of a one sentence definition may be, this would carry both practical and legal risks. A single sentence definition, crafted too narrowly, might fail to prohibit actions that threaten the Department’s ability to carry out its mission. A less specific definition, on the other hand, risks being so vague as to prohibit or chill Constitutionally protected conduct by servicemembers.”

The Defense Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The post U.S. Military Training Document Says Socialists Represent “Terrorist” Ideology appeared first on The Intercept.

Source: The Intercept | 22 Jun 2021 | 7:14 pm IST

They Relied on Chinese Vaccines. Now They’re Battling Outbreaks.

More than 90 countries are using Covid shots from China. Experts say recent infections in those places should serve as a cautionary tale in the global effort to fight the disease.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Jun 2021 | 7:07 pm IST

US Navy starts an earthquake to see how its newest carrier withstands combat conditions

Who are they expecting to fight? Thor? Godzilla? Sea snails?

Following the recent decision by the United States Air Force to assassinate four snails and 90 giant clams in the name of missile research, the US Navy obviously felt that it, too, should be doing something faintly bizarre with its shiny, expensive equipment.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 7:02 pm IST

Twitter is taking applications for its paid 'Super Follows' subscriptions

Twitter is opening up applications for "Super Follows" and "Ticketed Spaces," as it looks for the first group of users to test the monetization features.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 7:00 pm IST

Marvel’s Avengers update flashes IP addresses on screen, dev promises fix

Enlarge / Artist's interpretation of today's unfortunate update to the Marvel's Avengers video game. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Square Enix)

On Tuesday, the latest patch for the Marvel's Avengers video game, developed by Crystal Dynamics, rolled out with a mix of feature updates, bug fixes, and gameplay and balance tweaks. But while today's patch notes detailed most of these changes, one unexpected error popped up for some players: a new on-screen display, which can't be disabled, that shows each player's home IP address.

The news emerged primarily as Twitch game streamers began jumping into the game and hosting their sessions to fans, only to notice the line of text—which also includes the player's console username (à la Xbox's "Gamertag") and other apparent numerical indicators—not only appeared on-screen but began bouncing from the top to the bottom of the screen in a way that would prevent a streamer from easily cropping the details for privacy's sake. In a rush to showcase the game's new content to their Twitch audience, many streamers inadvertently revealed that information to their audiences.

The game's social media account acknowledged the issue shortly after players began complaining about it, though they did so somewhat disingenuously by describing the IP address leak as merely "a floating string of text." An hour later, the same social media account asked players to "refrain from streaming" the game for the time being while an internal investigation was taking place. Shortly after, the developer owned up to the issue while saying that it was isolated to PlayStation 5 consoles.

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Source: Ars Technica | 22 Jun 2021 | 6:59 pm IST

Boston Dynamics is officially part of Hyundai Motor Group

Spot and Atlas meet a Hyundai Santa Fe. [credit: Hyundai ]

Hyundai Motor Group said Tuesday that it has officially completed its acquisition of robotics company Boston Dynamics. The deal was announced in December and valued Boston Dynamics at $1.1 billion. The purchase sees Hyundai pick up an 80 percent controlling stake in the company, with the previous owner, Softbank, retaining 20 percent ownership.

The deal will hopefully create a stable home for Boston Dynamics, which has continued to pump out the world's most impressive robots despite continual ownership changes. The company was spun off from MIT in 1992 and survived for most of its life on DARPA research grants. Google acquired the independent Boston Dynamics in 2013 as part of a brief interest in robotics led by Android co-founder Andy Rubin. Google freed the company from surviving on military contracts, but when Rubin left Google a year later, the executive interest in robotics left with him.

Google sold Boston Dynamics to the Japanese holding company Softbank in 2017 for a reported $165 million, a shockingly low price. By December 2020, Softbank found itself in dire financial straits after some of its other investments went south (Uber, WeWork, OneWeb) and started selling off crown jewels like Arm. Hyundai wanted to invest in more "mobility solutions," and Softbank was able to flip Boston Dynamics for a tidy profit.

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Source: Ars Technica | 22 Jun 2021 | 6:50 pm IST

Primary legislation needed over outdoor drinking

Primary legislation will be needed to ensure that pubs and restaurants can serve alcohol outdoors.

Source: News Headlines | 22 Jun 2021 | 6:48 pm IST

Microsoft expands 'Designed for Xbox' program to include HDMI 2.1 gaming monitors and TVs

Starting this summer, you’ll start to see some displays with a “Gaming Features for Xbox” badge, telling you

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 6:46 pm IST

Euro 2020: Uefa declines request to light up Allianz Arena in rainbow colours

Uefa declines a request to light up the Allianz Arena in rainbow colours before Germany's Euro 2020 match against Hungary on Wednesday.

Source: BBC News - Home | 22 Jun 2021 | 6:44 pm IST

Mike Schultz obituary

My friend Mike Schultz, who has died aged 64 after suffering a heart attack, was a social scientist working in policy application and evaluation in the field of international development. He had a particular interest in forest peoples, having lived with and studied a tribe in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in the 1980s.

Mike was born in Surrey and grew up in the village of Stanton St John, near Oxford, the second of four children of June (nee Mattheson), a research scientist, and Donald Schultz, a professor of engineering. At Magdalen College school in Oxford, where he and I first met, Mike did well academically and was active in sports, music and drama. After his A-levels he had two gap years, much of which he spent travelling, then went to King’s College, Cambridge, to study social anthropology, graduating in 1980.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Jun 2021 | 6:39 pm IST

Google Gets a New Rival as Brave Search Opens To the Public

Brave, the maker of a popular ad blocking browser, opened on Tuesday a public beta of its privacy-focused search engine, a first step in creating a product that could compete with market titan Google. From a report: Unlike other new search engines, which generally repackage results from Google and Microsoft's Bing, Brave is building an independent index of the web. (Brave Search will rely on Bing in some areas, like images, where its own results aren't yet good enough.) Initially, Brave Search won't show ads -- the chief way that Google monetizes its search results. Later, it'll offer free, ad-supported search and a paid option with no ads.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Jun 2021 | 6:25 pm IST

Marvel's Avengers showed players' IP addresses on screen after the latest patch

It's best to avoid livestreaming the game right now.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 6:16 pm IST

USA's efforts to stop relying on Russian-built rocket engines derailed by issues with Blue Origin's BE-4

Government Accountability Office warns of build-your-own-booster delays

Things aren't looking too good for a certain American-produced rocket engine, according to the US Government Accountability Office - and it isn't SpaceX's Merlin.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 6:14 pm IST

Liability admitted in wrongful termination case

Liability has been admitted by the defendants in a case taken by a couple who claimed their healthy unborn baby boy was terminated after they were wrongly advised he had a fatal foetal abnormality.

Source: News Headlines | 22 Jun 2021 | 6:03 pm IST

Calls to sell site of new NMH rejected

The St Vincent's Healthcare Group has rejected calls to sell the site of the new National Maternity Hospital.

Source: News Headlines | 22 Jun 2021 | 6:02 pm IST

Wembley to be allowed at least 60,000 fans for Euro 2020 semi-finals and final

The crowd capacity at Wembley will be increased to more than 60,000 for the semi-finals and final of Euro 2020, says the UK government.

Source: BBC News - Home | 22 Jun 2021 | 5:48 pm IST

Turkmenistan's capital tops list of most expensive cities for expats

The annual report ranks 209 cities based on the cost of expenses such as housing, transport and food.

Source: BBC News - Home | 22 Jun 2021 | 5:44 pm IST

24 arrests for terrorism offences in Ireland in 2020

Twenty-four people were arrested for terrorism offences in Ireland last year, 18 of them for suspected Jihadist terrorist offences according to a new report by the European Policing agency Europol.

Source: News Headlines | 22 Jun 2021 | 5:41 pm IST

The best gadgets you can get on Prime Day for less than $100

Here are the best Amazon Prime Day 2021 deals you can get for under $100, including sales on Instant Pots, portable battery packs, speakers, earbuds and more.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 5:30 pm IST

Intel sponsors report on tech's role in decarbonisation and the irony isn't lost on us

Making computer components is a dirty business

Intel has sponsored a report by nonprofit Resilience First highlighting the role of tech in efforts to reach net-zero carbon emission goals – though Chipzilla's own environmental impact can't be downplayed.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 5:30 pm IST

Microsoft Edge makes it easier to share webpages between devices

Microsoft has started rolling out the latest public release of Edge, and it includes a handy feature for those who use the browser on multiple devices.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 5:29 pm IST

EU launches antitrust probe into Google banning third-party cookies in Chrome

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto )

The European Commission today said it has begun investigating Google for "possible anticompetitive conduct" in the market for online advertising technology.

The EC announcement said the formal antitrust investigation will "assess whether Google has violated EU competition rules by favoring its own online display advertising technology services in the so-called 'ad tech' supply chain, to the detriment of competing providers of advertising technology services, advertisers and online publishers." The EC said it will "examine whether Google is distorting competition by restricting access by third parties to user data for advertising purposes on websites and apps, while reserving such data for its own use."

Chrome and Android figure into the investigation. The EC said it will investigate "Google's announced plans to prohibit the placement of third-party 'cookies' on Chrome and replace them with the 'Privacy Sandbox' set of tools, including the effects on online display advertising and online display advertising intermediation markets." Google's Privacy Sandbox includes FLoC, or Federated Learning of Cohorts, a technology that would replace third-party cookies for advertising purposes.

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Source: Ars Technica | 22 Jun 2021 | 5:19 pm IST

How Brexit could hit British drama exports

With the UK no longer in the EU, its programmes could be excluded from European content quotas.

Source: BBC News - Home | 22 Jun 2021 | 5:17 pm IST

Mixhalo will harness 5G for low-latency audio at live events

The company is making it easier for venues to send audio from the soundboard to attendees' phones.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 5:15 pm IST

GoPro aims to develop an action camera ecosystem with its new API

GoPro's new API could let you control the Hero Black 9 with a smartwatch or voice control.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 5:00 pm IST

Brave's privacy-focused search engine is available in beta

Brave has launched its privacy-oriented search engine in beta, and you don't need the company's browser to try it.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 5:00 pm IST

India Covid: What are the claims around the 'free vaccine' policy?

India has given out a record eight million vaccine doses in a single day - we've put that into context.

Source: BBC News - Home | 22 Jun 2021 | 4:50 pm IST

What knocked out Brit cloud slinger Memset for the night? A busted fibre cable upstream of its data centre, apparently

Multi-hour outage and customers left in the dark

Updated UK cloud hosting outfit Memset has blamed yesterday's lengthy outage on some iffy fibre infrastructure.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 4:45 pm IST

Cricketer hits huge six through his own car window

Asif Ali smashed the boundary - and his car's back window - during a cup match.

Source: BBC News - Home | 22 Jun 2021 | 4:25 pm IST

Jacob deGrom First to be Inspected by Umpires for Sticky Substances

Jacob deGrom was the first pitcher inspected as part of baseball’s crackdown on foreign substances. It did not stop him from dominating Atlanta.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Jun 2021 | 4:20 pm IST

Death of Romany man knelt on by Czech police compared to that of George Floyd

Video footage challenges official claims that the cause of death was unrelated to man’s arrest

Video footage of a police officer kneeling on the neck of a Romany man who later died in an ambulance is being shared among Czechs on social media, leading many to compare his treatment to that of George Floyd.

The video, shot on 19 June, shows three police officers in Teplice, a town in the north of the Czech Republic, detaining a Romany man on the floor. As one officer holds the man’s feet, another appears to kneel on his neck, and a third tries to handcuff him. Voices of several Roma bystanders are heard in the video.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Jun 2021 | 4:20 pm IST

Tide is making the first laundry detergent for space

Tide and NASA are developing the first laundry detergent meant for space, and it will remove stains aboard the ISS in 2022.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 4:12 pm IST

White House Says The U.S. Will Narrowly Miss Its Vaccination Goal

President Biden set a goal of 70% of U.S. adults at least partially vaccinated by July 4. The White House is acknowledging Tuesday that it will likely come up short of that.

(Image credit: Damian Dovarganes/AP)

Source: News : NPR | 22 Jun 2021 | 4:12 pm IST

These are the 9 worst states to buy an electric car in

Enlarge / America is a land of contrasts. (credit: stellalevi/Getty Images)

William Gibson's quote about the future being here, just not very evenly distributed, is a cliché at this point. But I was reminded of it this morning when I saw a new report on electric vehicle accessibility. Compiled by the Consumer Choice Center (CCC), the report scores all 50 states based on how hard they make it to buy an EV, whether that's banning direct-to-consumer sales or requiring extra registration fees or road charges. Unsurprisingly, the United States is a bit of a patchwork in this regard. But it's not quite as simple as red states making it hard and blue states making it easy to buy an EV.

The top 10

Ten states score top marks with the CCC: Alaska, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. All these states will allow direct sales of cars to individuals, and none will make you pay more to register your new EV than you'd pay for a new car with an internal combustion engine (ICE). (The District of Columbia would also go in this group if DC-based CCC had included it.)

California is conspicuous by its absence in that top 10. The state is the leading market for EVs within the US, with the highest adoption rate and the most public chargers. Nearly half of all US-registered EVs are on its roads. But California also has an escalating EV license fee that's currently $100 but is now linked to the consumer price index.

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Source: Ars Technica | 22 Jun 2021 | 4:08 pm IST

Signs of geological activity found on Venus

Scientists find evidence parts of Venus's rocky surface move around like bits of ocean pack ice.

Source: BBC News - Home | 22 Jun 2021 | 4:04 pm IST

Have you tried turning server cores off and on again? HPE wants to do it for you from GreenLake

For those times when you run software on a box bigger than your license

HPE Discover HPE has given its GreenLake cloud the power to control the numbers of cores that are active on servers and pay for usage depending on the number of cores a customer presses into service.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 4:01 pm IST

Circuit Rhythm is a portable $400 sampler for budding beatmakers

The budget-friendly groovebox brings the best of the Circuit workflow to lo-fi hip hop beat making.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 4:00 pm IST

Here are 10 amazing deals on apps including Parallels Pro and Blinkist

Nab some of the best deals on apps and computer software.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 3:55 pm IST

Mind the gap(ing mouth): London's Underground to get ubiquitous mobile phone coverage

That's. Just. Great

Mobile phone coverage is to be extended across the whole of the London Underground – including every station and every tunnel - by 2024, it was confirmed today.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 3:44 pm IST

Several Anker charging gizmos hit record low prices for Prime Day

A GaN fast charging hub is down from $61 to $39.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 3:39 pm IST

Tinder boss says Covid changed how we swipe right

"They want to slow things down and get to know people first a lot more before they decide to match."

Source: BBC News - Home | 22 Jun 2021 | 3:35 pm IST

What It Was Like Welcoming a Baby During the Covid Pandemic

Readers share life lessons from an extraordinary year.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Jun 2021 | 3:24 pm IST

Peloton wants to take over your company's fitness plan

Peloton now lets companies offer discounted access to its subscriptions — in other words, to serve as your corporate fitness plan.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 2:44 pm IST

Monero emerges as crypto of choice for cybercriminals

Enlarge (credit: 53 Studios | Getty Images)

For cybercriminals looking to launder illicit gains, bitcoin has long been the payment method of choice. But another cryptocurrency is coming to the fore, promising to help make dirty money disappear without a trace.

While bitcoin leaves a visible trail of transactions on its underlying blockchain, the niche “privacy coin” monero was designed to obscure the sender and receiver, as well as the amount exchanged.

As a result, it has become an increasingly sought-after tool for criminals such as ransomware gangs, posing new problems for law enforcement.

Read 22 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Source: Ars Technica | 22 Jun 2021 | 2:35 pm IST

Gabon is first African country paid to protect its rainforest

It is the first African country to get money for reducing carbon emissions through forest protection.

Source: BBC News - Home | 22 Jun 2021 | 2:34 pm IST

Roland's new mobile mixer has better support for Android and headset mics

The Pro-X offers small, but useful, improvements on the Pro.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 2:32 pm IST

The best TV and home entertainment deals we found for Prime Day

Here are the best Amazon Prime Day 2021 TV and home entertainment deals you can get, including sales on LG, Samsung and Vizio devices.

Source: Engadget | 22 Jun 2021 | 2:30 pm IST

UK health secretary Matt Hancock follows delay to GP data grab with campaign called 'Data saves lives'

As ever, the devil is in the detail for privacy activists

Following UK government's U-turn on the deadline for grabbing GP patient data, under-fire Health Secretary Matt Hancock is launching a policy paper to convince the public of the benefits of sharing their medical data.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 2:30 pm IST

Covid vaccine map: how are countries around the world doing?

More than 2bn Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered worldwide. Find out which countries are vaccinating the most

Since the first Pfizer vaccine against Covid-19 was injected into the arm of a British woman in December 2020, hundreds of millions of vaccine doses have been administered worldwide.

Dozens of countries now have advanced vaccination campaigns as they rush to protect their people and get their economies back up and running. Many are in a position where the most vulnerable people are fully vaccinated, raising hopes that the pandemic’s worst effects may be over.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Jun 2021 | 2:07 pm IST

Congress isn’t happy about SpaceX’s lunar lander and may vent this week

Enlarge / Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, chairs the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. (credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson will appear at a committee meeting of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee on Wednesday, and the meeting could be full of intrigue when the subject of NASA's Artemis Program to land humans on the Moon and SpaceX comes up.

We can probably expect some happy talk as Nelson—who as a US Senator in 2011 championed the development of the Space Launch System rocket alongside Kay Bailey Hutchison—references the recent stacking of the booster's core stage with its solid rocket motors at Kennedy Space Center. After a decade and more than $20 billion in costs, NASA's large SLS rocket is indeed finally getting closer to its first test launch.

But the real intrigue will involve the Human Landing System needed as part of the Moon program to take astronauts down to the lunar surface and back up to orbit. In April, due in part to a lack of funding from Congress, NASA selected SpaceX and its Starship vehicle as a sole provider for this critical component of Artemis. The space agency awarded $2.89 billion to SpaceX for the lander.

Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Source: Ars Technica | 22 Jun 2021 | 2:03 pm IST

Intel to put SiFive's latest CPU cores into 7nm dev system to woo customers to RISC-V

Horse Creek platform to 'showcase' new 64-bit P550 processor engine

SiFive says it has designed its most powerful RISC-V CPU core yet, and Intel is going to put it under the noses of customers to gauge their interest.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 2:00 pm IST

NASA and ESA Astronauts Continue Installing Space Station Solar Arrays

Spacewalkers Shane Kimbrough of NASA (left) and Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency worked to install new roll out solar arrays on the space station.

Source: NASA Image of the Day | 22 Jun 2021 | 1:44 pm IST

Zephyr OS Bluetooth vulnerabilities left smart devices open to attack

The 'S' in 'IoT' stands for 'security'

Vulnerabilities in the Zephyr real-time operating system's Bluetooth stack have been identified, leaving a wide variety of Internet of Things devices open to attack – unless upgraded to a patched version of the OS.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 1:30 pm IST

Covid-19: Dept of Health reports 294 new cases

The Department of Health has reported 294 new coronavirus cases, while the number of people with the virus being treated in intensive care is unchanged at 13.

Source: News Headlines | 22 Jun 2021 | 1:06 pm IST

Containers have security problems and flexibility issues. VMs will make them viable

Never bet against a technology that has matured over decades

Register Debate Welcome to the latest Register Debate in which writers discuss technology topics, and you – the reader – choose the winning argument. The format is simple: we propose a motion, the arguments for the motion will run this Monday and Wednesday, and the arguments against on Tuesday and Thursday.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 1:00 pm IST

Bahraini prisoners allege brutal crackdown in response to Covid protest

Authorities deny reports that inmates were beaten after a 10-day sit-in over concerns about virus spread and lack of medical care

In early April, inmates at Bahrain’s Jau prison crowded into the corridors to protest. They were angry about a lack of medical treatment and fearing for their lives after the death of another inmate. Their sit-in at building 13 lasted 10 days, and spread to other blocks in Jau, an infamous prison complex in the south of the kingdom.

Inmates claim authorities regularly delay or deny vital medical care to prisoners – especially prisoners of conscience. The concern has grown since late March when Covid-19 began to tear through the prison system. Prisoners and rights groups claim authorities failed to prevent the outbreak and have denied some inmates their choice of vaccine.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Jun 2021 | 12:59 pm IST

Post-lunch snooze plans dashed as the UK tests its Emergency Alerts... again

Maybe turn your phone off if you don't fancy a 'loud, siren-like noise'

Mobile networks across the UK are once again set to panic their users this afternoon as part of a test of the government's Emergency Alerts system – causing selected mobiles to "make a loud, siren-like sound."…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 12:45 pm IST

UK set for 'adequacy' status on data sharing with EU, but it all depends on how much post-Brexit law diverges

TIGRR threatens to bounce through unacceptable changes to the rules

The European Union has formally voted for proposals to give the UK "adequate" status in its data protection laws, allowing data sharing to continue in the post-Brexit world.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 12:30 pm IST

Jeffrey Donaldson declared new DUP leader

Jeffrey Donaldson has been declared the new leader of the Democratic Unionist Party after becoming the sole candidate.

Source: News Headlines | 22 Jun 2021 | 12:00 pm IST

Endangered Species review – bizarrely perky safari thriller deserves a mauling

The serious anti-poaching message of this savanna-set family drama gets lost in the comic register of a US sitcom

The days of Africa-set films featuring white protagonists using glowing savannas as set dressing for first-world problems seemed to be numbered, but hold on: here is a fist-bitingly self-regarding family drama with Philip Winchester and X-Men’s Rebecca Romijn as Jack and Lauren Halsey, a seemingly dream couple off on a dream safari with son Noah and daughter Zoe, and her pothead boyfriend Billy. “Penny for them,” Lauren actually says to Jack, as they are Cessna-ing in. What is on this buff oilman’s mind, though, is that he has just been put on extended leave following an industrial accident.

His secret soon spills too, and Jack is so desperate to please his wife that he ignores safari-park protocol and lets them get too close to the fauna: a female rhinoceros and calf. “Wait, we shouldn’t be getting between them, right?” says Billy, a brief lapse into sensible ideas. One upended van later, with Jack’s leg gored, no mobile phone reception or water, and diabetic Lauren’s insulin levels running on empty, the Halseys find themselves in a world of hurt.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Jun 2021 | 12:00 pm IST

MI5 still risks breaking the law on surveillance data through poor controls – years after it was first warned

Yet spy agency overseer IPCO seems to be working as the public hoped

Exclusive MI5's storage of personal data on espionage subjects is still facing "legal compliance risk" issues despite years of warnings from spy agency regulator IPCO, a Home Office report has revealed.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:46 am IST

'Get vaccinated or I will have you jailed': Duterte – video

Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to jail people who refuse to be vaccinated against the coronavirus as the country battles one of Asia’s worst outbreaks, with a cumulative total of more than 1.3 million cases and 23,000 deaths.

“You choose, get vaccinated or I will have you jailed,” Duterte said in a televised address on Monday following reports of low turnouts at vaccination sites in the capital, Manila

Philippines president Duterte: ‘You choose, Covid vaccine or I will have you jailed’

Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:40 am IST

Flexispot Deskcise Pro V9: Half desk, half exercise bike, and you're all sweaty. How much does it cost again?

Not ideal for when you rejoin colleagues in the office

Review Tech journalists don't exactly file copy from the front lines, testing software while dodging AK-47 fire. The major risk to our health - like millions of office workers - comes from dozens of Mars Bars or other snacks eaten while tapping away on the keyboard at home.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:01 am IST

Tucker Carlson Distorted My Reporting in His Latest Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theory

Gracia Van Uum insurrectionists are seen breaching security and entering the U.S. Capitol as Congress debates the ratification of the 2020 presidential election results in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021.

Photo: Brent Stirton/Getty Images

I don’t take Tucker Carlson seriously. No one should. Carlson’s own employer, Fox News, even says as much about its primetime host.

So I was amused last week when a Google News alert told me that Carlson mentioned my name in his June 15 monologue. “Trevor Aaronson’s book ‘The Terror Factory’ analyzed every terrorism prosecution from 2001 to 2013,” Carlson told his viewers. “Aaronson found that at least 50 defendants were on trial because of behavior that the FBI had not only encouraged, but enabled. FBI agents were essentially the plotters in these crimes. They made the crimes crimes.”

I’ve covered the FBI for more than a decade, and a lot of my reporting has focused on the FBI’s use of informants and sting operations in the so-called war on terror. During the last two decades, the Justice Department has prosecuted 350 defendants on international terrorism charges that emerged from FBI stings. In many of these stings, informants or undercover agents provided all the money and weapons for terrorist plots, and sometimes even the ideas — raising significant questions about whether any of these people would have committed the crimes were it not for the FBI’s encouragement. Many targets of these FBI stings were mentally ill or otherwise easily manipulated.

But Carlson didn’t mention my book because he’s suddenly concerned about the entrapment of Muslims in aggressive FBI stings. He used it to support a theory for which he has zero evidence: that the January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol was some sort of FBI-engineered plot.

Carlson’s claim fits an existing and well-established argument: that the FBI creates crimes through aggressive stings where no crimes would otherwise exist. But in the specific case of the insurrection at the Capitol, there is no evidence I’ve seen to support the claim. In fact, the evidence Carlson and others have presented is based on a misunderstanding of the terms that the FBI and the Justice Department use in court records.

Carlson’s theory is based on a story published by Revolver News, a site that refers to Chicago as “Chicongo” and which the Fox News host described with a straight face as “one of the last honest outlets on the internet.” The Revolver story focused, in part, on a 65-year-old Oath Keeper named Thomas Caldwell, who was indicted for his alleged role in the Capitol riot. In Caldwell’s court records, the FBI identified two unindicted co-conspirators — termed Person Two and Person Three in the records — as having assisted Caldwell. According to the indictment, Caldwell wrote to another man who was indicted, Donovan Crowl, about how he was working with Person Two and Person Three around the time of the Capitol riot:

[PERSON TWO] and I are setting up shop there. [PERSON THREE] has a room and is bringing someone. He will be the quick reaction force. Its going to be cold. We need a place to spend the night before minimum. [PERSON ONE] never contacted me so [PERSON TWO] and I are going our way. I will probably do pre-strike on the 5th though there are things going on that day. Maybe can do some night hunting. Oathkeeper friends from North Carolina are taking commercial buses up early in the morning on the 6th and back same night. [PERSON THREE] will have the goodies in case things go bad and we need to get heavy.

Revolver’s theory is that Person Two and Person Three are in fact FBI agents, and the Justice Department redacted their names to protect them and cover up for how the agents entrapped Caldwell, in a manner similar to the way we’ve seen FBI agents set up unsuspecting Muslims. Carlson has adopted this theory in full. “They were almost certainly working for the FBI,” he said in his June 15 monologue, referring to these two unidentified people. “So FBI operatives were organizing the attack on the Capitol on January 6, according to government documents.”

This may seem like a good theory, but anyone who commonly reviews these types of court records knows the FBI and the Justice Department do not describe undercover agents and informants as “unindicted co-conspirators.” Agents are identified in such records as “undercover employees,” and informants as “cooperating witnesses” or “confidential human sources.” An “unindicted co-conspirator” is someone who takes part in the crime, but who, as the term clearly suggests, hasn’t been indicted.

The theory put forward by Revolver and Carlson requires you to believe that the FBI and the Justice Department disregarded long-standing practices and policies to cover up for the fact that Person Two and Person Three were government agents. And in the very unlikely event that did happen, there’s nothing in the records to suggest the Capitol riot occurred because of Person Two or Person Three.

There are a variety of potential reasons why Person Two and Person Three, in the Caldwell case, haven’t been indicted yet, including the possibilities that the FBI has not found them or that revealing their identities in court records at this time would harm ongoing investigations.

Despite this theory being based on ignorance of FBI and Justice Department terms, it’s had legs. The New York Times and the Washington Post, among other news media, felt compelled to publish stories addressing it. And since Carlson’s mention of my book, I’ve received about a dozen requests to be a guest on conservative radio talk shows — an example of how the right-wing media echo chamber quickly tries to reinforce narratives, however dubiously constructed.

At the same time, I think it’s worth noting that there’s a reason for the cultural stickiness of the claim by Revolver and Carlson. It might be a conspiracy theory, but it’s not exactly “baseless,” as the Post described it. That’s because there are genuine concerns that the sting tactics used over the past two decades against impressionable Muslims will be used against equally impressionable Americans with right-wing ideologies. In the supposed plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, for example, FBI agents and an informant played significant roles, raising the same question that surrounds so many supposed Islamic State and Al Qaeda cases in the United States: Would this plot have happened were it not for the FBI?

In addition, there is evidence the FBI is assigning informants to infiltrate groups based solely on right-wing ideology. And the increase in right-wing violence in recent years has prompted calls for new anti-terorrism laws that would give the FBI even more power.

I think the FBI’s investigation of potential right-wing threats, and the degree to which the bureau replicates its abusive post-9/11 tactics, will be a critically important story in the coming years. How news organizations report on it will be a significant test.

But so far, there’s no evidence to support the claim that the Capitol riot was an FBI-led plot.

The post Tucker Carlson Distorted My Reporting in His Latest Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theory appeared first on The Intercept.

Source: The Intercept | 22 Jun 2021 | 11:00 am IST

Monitoring is simple enough – green means everything's fine. But getting to that point can be a whole other ball game

Don’t take no for an answer, but be prepared to give it.

Feature Monitoring seems easy in principle. There is nothing particularly complex about the software or the protocols it uses to interrogate systems and deliver alerts, nor is deciding what to monitor or the act of setting up your chosen product.…

Source: The Register | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:15 am IST

Police Commissioner Pick Will Be an Early Test for New York City’s Next Mayor

When Bill de Blasio was elected mayor eight years ago, he won New Yorkers over by pitching a progressive vision for the city that included transforming the New York Police Department through sweeping reforms. But just a month after his landslide victory, de Blasio appointed as commissioner William Bratton, a veteran police leader who had already helmed the NYPD under Mayor Rudy Giuliani and who had also run the Boston and Los Angeles police departments.

Bratton, an old-school cop with tremendous influence in New York politics, was best known in the city for having pioneered CompStat, a controversial crime-tracking system, and for having ushered in an era of “broken windows” policing targeting low-level, quality-of-life offenses. He was also widely perceived as the mind behind stop-and-frisk, the racially discriminatory police tactic that de Blasio had criticized throughout the campaign.

Bratton’s appointment dealt the first of many blows to those who had put their hopes in de Blasio to reform New York police. “That was an immediate red flag that things weren’t going to be as progressive on the policing front as the campaign had seemed to suggest,” Darius Charney, an attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights who led litigation against stop-and-frisk, told The Intercept last year. “That was a bad sign for those of us in the police accountability movement.”

Now, as New Yorkers vote to elect their next mayor after a campaign that was once again defined by policing issues, the question of who will be tapped to run the NYPD looms large. The next mayor’s pick for police commissioner is likely to set the tone for the new administration’s approach to public safety, which became a central focus in the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s primary election.

All eight leading candidates indicated that they would replace current Commissioner Dermot Shea, who has faced an onslaught of criticism for his handling of last year’s George Floyd protests. The Intercept asked the top candidates whom they would select as commissioner, what they would be looking for as they fill the role, and whether they support restricting the commissioner’s authority. Five of the campaigns responded to The Intercept’s questions, repeating comments they have made publicly about seeking diversity in leadership or someone from outside the department without naming prospects for the role.

The new commissioner will take over at a time of heightened tensions over policing in the city and amid legislative efforts to reform that position’s authority over the department. The commissioner currently has the last word on whether and how to discipline officers who have been found to engage in various abuses. While the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the independent body that investigates allegations of police abuse, can make disciplinary recommendations, the commissioner has regularly been more lenient, departing from CCRB guidance in 71 percent of cases during the last two decades.

Last March, the New York City Council passed a resolution to strip the commissioner of final authority over officer discipline. But doing so would first require repealing a state law that limits independent oversight of police discipline, a proposal currently before lawmakers in Albany. Shea has fiercely opposed this effort; now, the question of officer discipline will be one of the first facing the next mayor and commissioner.

“Ask yourself, ‘Do I trust this person’s plan for managing the NYPD? Do they have the skills and the vision to make New York City safe for me and my family?’” Anthonine Pierre, deputy director of the community group Brooklyn Movement Center, told viewers before moderating a recent mayoral forum on policing. “Because we’ve already got a mayor who’s forgotten the job that we sent him to City Hall to do. And we definitely don’t need another.”

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea attends a press conference in New York on May 14, 2021.

Photo: Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Ge

The Candidates’ Pledges

Most candidates have indicated support for the call to limit the commissioner’s authority on matters of discipline.

Eric Adams, a former cop who has made his two decades with the department a cornerstone of his campaign, has previously told reporters that he has spoken with three women about the job. A top contender for Adams is reportedly Juanita Holmes, the first female chief of patrol, the highest-ranking Black woman in the department, and a member of a family of cops, with 16 relatives currently employed by the NYPD. A spokesperson for Adams reiterated to The Intercept that the candidate has committed to hiring a police commissioner who is a woman. “More important to him than race or gender though is hiring someone who has lived the life of struggling citizens, understands the needs of struggling citizens, and someone of character who would help transform the NYPD into what it should be,” the spokesperson said. Adams also indicated that he would shift the authority to fire abusive officers from the police commissioner to the mayor himself. He said he is looking for a candidate who is “emotionally intelligent.”

A spokesperson for Andrew Yang said the candidate has always said he would replace Shea with a civilian commissioner from outside the department. “As mayor, I will appoint an NYPD commissioner whose career experience is not primarily in law enforcement, because whoever leads the NYPD in my administration will need to be able to meaningfully reform the culture and support my vision for integrating the department into a larger, more holistic public safety strategy,” Yang said in a statement.

Shaun Donovan, a former federal housing secretary, wrote in a statement to The Intercept that he would “absolutely not” keep Shea in his position. “Especially considering how he overpoliced the BLM protests last summer,” he wrote. Shea repeatedly defended police’s actions last summer, even after officers physically assaulted peaceful protesters, left them with broken noses and fingers, and trapped them in the streets before arresting hundreds of them without probable cause.

Donovan said that he would require all NYPD officers to live in the city and that he would appoint a person of color as commissioner. “In order to build mutual respect between the police and the communities they are policing, it’s critically important that our police force better reflect the communities they are policing, and that starts at the top,” he wrote. The commissioner, he added, would be required to follow disciplinary recommendations made by the CCRB.

Ray McGuire, a former banking executive, wrote in a statement that he would pick a commissioner whose mandate would be to “drive down crime, and hold officers accountable when needed,” focusing on violent crime and instilling “a culture of respect, accountability and proportionality throughout the department,” he wrote. McGuire added that the commissioner would be expected to make decisions that are “fully informed by the findings of the CCRB” and to continue to base disciplinary actions on the NYPD “disciplinary matrix ,” a set of disciplining guidelines the city introduced this year to increase transparency in the process.

“In cases in which the commissioner declines to act on the recommendation of the CCRB, that information will be publicly reported,” McGuire added. “And in cases of serious misconduct, if I do not agree with the disciplinary decision of the commissioner, I will be prepared to direct them to take additional actions.”

Dianne Morales, a nonprofit executive who has called for a significant reduction to the NYPD’s budget, wrote in an email to The Intercept that she would “immediately” remove Shea and that she would work with community groups and activists “to identify leadership that would be in alignment with the vision for transformation of the NYPD.” She added that “it is important to have a Commissioner that is representative of the communities that have been most harmed by the NYPD.”

Morales also said that she would limit the commissioner’s authority over discipline, “advance increased, timely transparency around police/civilian interactions and implement a democratically elected CCRB with published findings and authority to discipline officers.” She added that “the role of the commissioner should be finding ways to de-escalate the NYPD’s presence in our communities while empowering local groups that are investing in public safety through transformative programs to address gun violence and other violent crime.”

The campaigns of Kathryn Garcia, Maya Wiley, and Scott Stringer did not respond to The Intercept’s queries, though each candidate has made public statements about what they are looking for in a police commissioner.

Garcia, a sanitation commissioner under de Blasio, has spoken before of her experience running a uniformed force. She pledged “zero tolerance” for abusive officers and said that her commissioner would be “someone who has law enforcement experience, but has done the culture change that we need, in another organization.”

Wiley, a civil rights attorney with a mixed record during her own tenure at the helm of the CCRB, has pledged to appoint a civilian to the NYPD top job and to strip the commissioner of final authority over disciplinary matters. “I am going to have a civilian commissioner and a civilian commissioner that’s going to hold the police accountable and make sure we are safe from crime but also from police violence,” Wiley said at a recent debate.

Stringer, the city’s comptroller, also pledged to remove disciplinary authority from the police department and give the CCRB the final say on such matters, as well as expand its investigatory powers. “We know that that this kind of discipline is not discipline, it’s a slap on the wrist,” Stringer said of the current system. “The police commissioner I appoint is going to be somebody who is aligned with my values and my thinking.”

De Blasio’s Legacy

While welcoming calls to restrict the commissioner’s authority on disciplinary matters, police reform advocates told The Intercept they were frustrated by the vague manner in which some candidates talked about the position and cautioned against calls for more diversity in police leadership over more substantial changes. (All three commissioners who served under de Blasio were Irish American men, as was Raymond Kelly, who ran the NYPD throughout Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration.)

“Talking about demographics in relationship to commissioner criteria doesn’t seem like the right way to go; it seems like what we should be doing is rethinking what’s the role,” said Joo-Hyun Kang, executive director of Communities United for Police Reform, a coalition of several community groups. “Whoever the commissioner is, it should be somebody who understands that the NYPD’s role has been outsized and needs to actually be shrunk in the city in order for resources to go where they are needed to build up community safety.”

Monifa Bandele, a longtime community organizer, also stressed that restricting the commissioner’s power over the NYPD would be far more consequential.

“I’m the first one to say that we absolutely need more Black women in leadership throughout the country, on every level of government, but that alone isn’t going to change the conditions in our communities,” Bandele said. “It really is not going to matter who’s the commissioner of the police if they are the sole person responsible for discipline. There needs to be an independent body. The mayor needs to have some power in that, and the City Council needs to have some power in that.”

“It really is not going to matter who’s the commissioner of the police if they are the sole person responsible for discipline. There needs to be an independent body.”

In fact, in a mayoral race that has often left those calling for less policing and more police accountability dissatisfied with the tenor of the debate, many organizers’ focus has shifted toward policy and preparing to put pressure on whichever candidate prevails on Tuesday.

Their skepticism is driven by the memory of how de Blasio let down New Yorkers who had elected him in large part to reform police, as well as a general lack of enthusiasm for even the more progressive candidates.

“I think that everyone is watching the debates with an eye of criticism, like, that sounded like what de Blasio said,” said Bandele. “De Blasio was so completely destructive and poisonous to the movement to actually reform policing, he completely destroyed the trust that communities have in people who talk about wanting to change the safety structures.”

Brandon Holmes, an organizer with the grassroots group Freedom Agenda, which advocates for an end to mass incarceration and has fought to close Rikers Island jail, told The Intercept that many justice reform advocates had developed a deep ambivalence for candidates’ progressive rhetoric.

“The real work is going to have to happen when this person takes office, and the commitments they make on the campaign trail are going to have to turn into action,” he said. “Many of us are just prioritizing accountability and collecting information from candidates so that we can strategize around whoever that nomination is moving forward.”

The post Police Commissioner Pick Will Be an Early Test for New York City’s Next Mayor appeared first on The Intercept.

Source: The Intercept | 22 Jun 2021 | 10:00 am IST

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