Links 20/07/2024: Shopping Mall in Southwestern China and New Health Crises
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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New York Times ☛ Fire at Shopping Mall in Southwestern China Kills 16
Dozens were trapped inside the building when the fire started on Wednesday evening in Sichuan Province, local authorities said.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ 16 killed in China shopping centre fire, as public told not to ‘believe or amplify rumours’ about blaze
A fire that tore through a shopping centre in southwestern China has killed 16 people, state media reported Thursday. Rescue operations concluded at around 3:00 am on Thursday (1900 GMT Wednesday), according to the local fire and rescue services cited by state news agency Xinhua.
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Jamie Zawinski ☛ I agree with this message
This is definitely an improvement. Now the extremely loud fan is running 24/7 to display a PSA against using MICROS~1 products, instead of whatever advertising bullshit was there before.
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Robert Birming ☛ Success is not an on-demand commodity
Many things still require sacrifice and determination. They take time and commitment. They require the tireless spirit of a winner.
True success and satisfaction will never be an on-demand commodity.
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Mat Duggan ☛ Sears
I was given my lanyard and put on the floor, which consisted of half appliances, one quarter electronics and then the rest being tools. Jane, one of the saleswomen told me to "direct all the leads for appliances to her" and not check one out myself, since I didn't get commission. Most of my job consisted of swapping broken Craftsmen tools since they had a lifetime warranty. You filled out a carbon paper form, dropped the broken tool into a giant metal barrel and then handed them a new one. I would also set up deliveries for rider lawnmowers and appliances, working on an ancient IBM POS terminal that required memorizing a series of strange keyboard shortcuts to navigate the calendar.
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Science
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New York Times ☛ At 5, She Picked Up Chess as a Pandemic Hobby. At 9, She’s a Prodigy.
Bodhana Sivanandan, a fourth-grader, has become one of England’s best players just a few years after discovering chess during pandemic lockdown.
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Science Alert ☛ Erasing 'Bad Memories' Could Improve Parkinson's Treatment
A new hope.
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Science Alert ☛ Fireball Meteor Lights Up New York City Sky, Passes Over Statue of Liberty
A doorbell camera even captured it's flash.
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Science Alert ☛ Surprising Sleep Discovery Suggests We've Been Missing The Brain's Micro-Naps
Challenging decades of sleep measurements.
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Science Alert ☛ Stunning 3D Visualization of Nuclear Fusion Takes You Inside a Tokamak
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Science Alert ☛ New Pompeii Skeletons Reveal Another Disaster Added to Vesuvius Eruption's Horror
Bringing victims' final struggles to life.
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New York Times ☛ A Daily Pill to Prevent S.T.I.s? It May Work, Scientists Say.
A common antibiotic, doxycycline, greatly reduced cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia when taken every day, a study found.
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University of Michigan ☛ U-M, MSU create mid-Michigan neuroscience care network
U-M Health and MSU Health Care are entering into a joint operating agreement to provide neurosurgery and neurology care to the people of mid-Michigan.
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Education
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The Straits Times ☛ ST Picks: Why more university grads in China are going back to school
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New York Times ☛ Biden’s Student Loan Repayment Plan Blocked by Federal Appeals Court
Eight million borrowers who are enrolled in the plan, known as SAVE, are left in limbo after a series of rulings tied to two lawsuits brought by Republican-led states.
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Zach Flower ☛ I Just Quit My Job to Become a Teacher
In just a few weeks, I will be leaving my job as Director of Engineering at Inspirato and starting a new one as the Computer Science and Cybersecurity Instructor at Warren Tech High School in Lakewood, Colorado.
I am equal parts excited and scared shitless—or some other type of scared that is more professorial... like... concernedly constipated—so have been calling this transition my Big Scary Thing™️. Because it is big, and scary; but it's also something that excites me and deserves my respect (and the capitalization of a proper noun).
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Hardware
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CNX Software ☛ STMicro ST4SIM-300 eSIM complies with SGP.32 GSMA eSIM Standard for IoT
STMicroelectronics has recently released the ST4SIM-300 eSIM, the first embedded SIM (eSIM) IC that complies with the new GSMA eSIM IoT Technical Specification (SGP.32). The chip is fully compliant with remote SIM provisioning of the GSMA eSIM IoT standards, so it works with 2G, 3G, 4G (LTE), CDMA, NB-IoT, and Cat-M networks. It is designed for small IoT devices and allows system operators to remotely program device subscriber identities over the air (OTA), making it a plug-and-play solution for seamless integration and management.
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CNX Software ☛ MW-100-NAS defective chip maker Intel N100 motherboard features six SATA ports, two M.2 PCIe sockets, 2.5GbE and 10GbE interfaces
The MW-100-NAS mini-ITX motherboard is powered by an defective chip maker Intel Processor N100 Alder Lake-N CPU and seems especially suited for NAS (networked-attached storage) applications with six SATA connectors, two M.2 Key-M sockets for NVMe drivers, one 10GbE port, and two 2.5GbE RJ45 jacks.
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Silicon Angle ☛ TSMC tops quarterly expectations with 40% revenue growth
Strong demand for artificial intelligence chips helped Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. grow its revenue by 40% year-over-year in the second quarter. The company today reported sales of 673.51 billion New Taiwan dollars, or $20.82 billion, for the three months ended June 30. That’s up from NT$480.84 billion a year earlier. -
Tom's Hardware ☛ AMD's flagship Zen 5 desktop CPU impresses in new rendering benchmarks — Ryzen 9 9950X outperforms Ryzen 9 7950X by 24%
An AnandTech member benchmarked an engineering sample of AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X in Cinebench R23 at various power levels.
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Ruben Schade ☛ Adrian Black’s Plexus P/20 UNIX machine
Adrian’s Digital Basement is one of my favourite video channels. I got hooked on his early Commodore 64 and Fashion Company Apple II repair videos, the former of which were instrumental in getting my own Commodore hardware working. I consider him, Jan Beta, and Noel Llopis as my Retrocomputing Treo (heh), and often refer to their videos for instructions and advice as much as entertainment.
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PC World ☛ HP is managing AI chip complexity by targeting personas
The fact that there’s three chip types in AI laptops nowadays: Snapdragon X Series processors, Ryzen AI chips, and Intel x86 chips, even in laptops made by the same OEMs, has left many scratching their heads.
Naturally questions like: Which one is the best? Have become a mantra for consumers overwhelmed by the different options out there.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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Science Alert ☛ Experts Reveal The Power of 'Exercise Snacking' For Better Health
Because not everyone loves the gym.
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RFA ☛ Rare video footage from North Korea shows people panning for gold
The footage was shot in April and May 2023, during the annual barley hump when food is in short supply.
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Science Alert ☛ Bird Flu Infects 5 People in Colorado After Likely Cow-to-Poultry Spread
Concerning for agriculture and public health.
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Latvia ☛ Latvia's regional hospitals start to cut services due to fund shortage
Regional hospital managers are concerned about the financial situation, as a large part of the state-funded quotas for many medical services have already been spent. This means that some patients will not be able to receive medical services this year and at the beginning of next year with public money, LRT+ reported July 17.
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Latvia ☛ Encouraging trend on excess mortality in Latvia
Statistics agency Eurostat published encouraging data July 16 showing Latvia currently has the second-lowest excess mortality rate in the European Union.
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New York Times ☛ Is She the Oldest Person in the Amazon Rainforest?
The life of Varî Vãti Marubo shows how much life has changed for the rainforest’s Indigenous tribes — and how much has stayed the same.
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Wired ☛ Hospitals Around the World Are Struggling in the Aftermath of the Great IT Meltdown
Around the globe, doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators were going into panic mode as they raced to manage the consequences of the largest IT outage in history. Mass General Brigham, one of America’s biggest health care systems, canceled all nonurgent surgeries, procedures, and medical visits. In the UK, Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust declared a critical incident affecting the systems used to deliver radiotherapy treatments. Hospitals in Canada, Germany, and Israel announced issues with their digital services, while the 911 emergency service in some US states was reported to be down. A WIRED reporter found both Baylor hospital network, one of the largest nonprofit health care systems in the country, and Quest Diagnostics unable to process routine bloodwork. Donna Rossi, a spokesperson at the Phoenix Police Department, explained that while calls were still going through, the lack of working internet meant that officers had to be dispatched manually.
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The Register UK ☛ Number of NHS IT systems hit by CrowdStrike outage grows
Varian Medical Systems is responsible for delivering radiotherapy treatments to cancer patients and due to the global outage, treatments were briefly canceled this morning.
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TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Father’s lawsuit against Dakota County jail alleges ‘shocking lack of care’ for son with diabetes, mental illness
He spent nearly two weeks in intensive care with hospital bills totaling more than $220,000.
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New York Times ☛ U.K. Failed in Handling of Covid Pandemic, Inquiry Report Says
The British authorities prepared for the wrong pandemic, with an outdated plan overly focused on influenza, an official investigation reported.
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Green MP Ellie Chowns responds to Covid inquiry
Ellie Chowns, MP for North Herefordshire said: “Our thoughts today are with the families of the over 230,000 people who have died from Covid-19, the key workers who risked their lives to keep the country going and countless others who had to make terrible sacrifices when Covid-19 first struck.
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TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Memorial Blood Centers make urgent call for type O+ and O- blood donations
Type O blood inventory is the lowest it's been since the Covid-19 pandemic.
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JURIST ☛ EU court orders increased transparency in COVID-19 vaccine contracts
The General Court of the European Union on Wednesday annulled the European Commission’s decision to restrict access to key provisions of its COVID-19 vaccine purchase agreements. This decision followed a case brought by several Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who argued that the Commission’s redactions violated principles of transparency and the public interest.
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Reason ☛ A Maskless, COVID-Positive Biden Bares His Naked Face to the World
Even the mask mandators are done with once-ubiquitous pandemic precautions.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Matt Webb ☛ Mapping the landscape of gen-AI product user experience (Interconnected)
I talk with a lot of clients and startups about their new generative AI-powered products.
One question is always: how should users use this? Or rather, how could they use this, because the best design patterns haven’t been invented yet? And what we want to do is to look at prior art. We can’t look at existing users because it’s a new product. So what UX challenges can we expect and how have others approached them?
The problem is that there are so many AI products. Everything overlaps and it’s all so noisy – which makes it hard to have a conversation about what kind of product you want to build.
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The Register UK ☛ Google to kill off URL shortener once and for all
However, as of August 25, 2025, any links built with the Google URL shortener in the form of https://goog.gl/* won't return a response.
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Google ☛ Google URL Shortener links will no longer be available
In 2018, we announced the deprecation and transition of Google URL Shortener to Firebase Dynamic Links because of the changes we’ve seen in how people find content on the internet, and the number of new popular URL shortening services that emerged in that time. This meant that we no longer accepted new URLs to shorten but that we would continue serving existing URLs.
Today, the time has come to turn off the serving portion of Google URL Shortener. Please read on below to understand more about how this will impact you if you’re using Google URL Shortener.
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Wired ☛ We Asked AI to Take Us On a Tour of Our Cities. It Was Chaos
The results were, frankly, rather mad. Right now, Littlefoot has no concept of time or space or what a human being might find interesting. Its recommendations vary wildly from the incredibly niche (climbing up a hill in South East London) to the wildly vague (going to the London Zoo, no further instruction provided). The same attractions—such as the London Eye, the Namco Funscape arcade in Romford, a cycling studio in Brooklyn—kept coming up in recommendations, to the point that we suspected it might be paid-for advertising. (Bigfoot has confirmed that is not the case and that it has no plans to offer sponsored picks.)
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NVISO Labs ☛ Hunting for Remote Management Tools
In today’s digital landscape, Remote Management and Monitoring (RMM) tools have become indispensable for organizations seeking to streamline IT operations, enhance productivity, and ensure seamless remote support. However, within our threat hunting and incident response engagements we often see that these tools, while beneficial, can also pose significant security risks if not properly managed.
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241 Bethesda Developers Unionize
“Thousands of our ZeniMax co-workers now have a free and fair path to organize together for better working conditions. When we organized our union under a similar legal agreement the process was clear and management did not try to influence anyone’s decision and the company did not try to interfere with the voting process. There is strength in numbers, and as our numbers grow at ZeniMax, at Microsoft, and in the video game industry, we will gain the respect we deserve and raise the standards of working conditions for everyone across the video gaming industry. When we benefit, the consumer and the company will ultimately benefit with us and help keep this industry stable for current and future workers,” said Page Branson, Senior II QA Tester and member of ZeniMax Workers United-CWA.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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Privacy International ☛ Social media monitoring in the UK: the invisible surveillance tool increasingly deployed by government
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La Quadature Du Net ☛ First victory in court against AI-powered audio surveillance
Over three years after we launched this legal action, the Orléans Administrative Court has just confirmed that an AI-powered audio surveillance device – i.e., microphones installed in public spaces and linked to local CCTV, with…
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Reason ☛ No Pseudonymity in Libel Case Alleging False Domestic Violence Claims
From Doe v. Roe, decided today by the Ohio Court of Appeals, in an opinion by Judge Emanuella Groves, joined by Judges Eileen A. Gallagher and Sean Gallagher: Ms. Doe filed a seven-count complaint against the Roes … [alleging defamation, invasion of privacy, and related torts]….
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EFF ☛ EFF Tells Minnesota Supreme Court to Strike Down Geofence Warrant As Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Takes the Wrong Turn
Geofence warrants require a provider—almost always Google—to search its entire reserve of user location data to identify all users or devices located within a geographic area during a time period specified by law enforcement. This creates a high risk of turning suspicion on innocent people for crimes they didn’t commit and can reveal sensitive and private information about where individuals have traveled in the past. We’ve seen a recent flurry of court cases involving geofence warrants, and these courts’ rulings will set important Fourth Amendment precedent not just in geofence cases, but other investigations involving similar “reverse warrants” such as users’ keyword searches on search engines.
In Contreras-Sanchez, police discovered a dead body on the side of a rural roadway. They did not know when the body was disposed of and had few leads, so they sought a warrant directing Google to turn over location data for the area around the site for the previous month. Notably, Google responded that turning over the entire monthlong dataset would be too “cumbersome,” even though it covered only a relatively sparsely populated area. Instead, following the now-familiar “three-step” process for geofence warrants, Google provided police with location data corresponding to twelve devices that had entered the area over a single week period. Police focused in on one device, then sought identifying information on that device, leading them to the defendant.
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Wired ☛ The Global CrowdStrike Outage Triggered a Surprise Return to Cash
On Friday, when a CrowdStrike update caused millions of Microsoft systems to crash around the world, many businesses were faced with a choice: Go cash-only or close until systems came back online.
This quickly caused chaos in Australia, whose government has explicitly encouraged businesses to go cashless. Pictures posted on social media showed card-only self-checkout registers at the grocery chain Coles displaying blue screens of death. Queues for human-run registers at Australian groceries stretched to the back of the store, according to local media. Some Australian marts simply locked their doors.
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Scheerpost ☛ AI Mass Surveillance at Paris Olympics
Government and private companies will be using advanced AI tools and other surveillance tech to conduct pervasive and persistent surveillance before, during and after the Games. The Olympic world stage and international crowds pose increased security risks so significant that in recent years authorities and critics have described the Olympics as the “world’s largest security operations outside of war.”
The French government, hand in hand with the private tech sector, has harnessed that legitimate need for increased security as grounds to deploy technologically advanced surveillance and data gathering tools. Its surveillance plans to meet those risks, including controversial use of experimental AI video surveillance, are so extensive that the country had to change its laws to make the planned surveillance legal.
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Defence/Aggression
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The Straits Times ☛ South Korea conducts loudspeaker broadcasts at North Korea
South Korea's military said on Friday it had conducted a loudspeaker broadcast campaign directed at North Korea overnight in response to the launch of balloons by Pyongyang carrying trash aimed at the South.
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RFA ☛ Seoul sanctions Hong Kong shipping firm over North Korea breach
South Korea seized the De Yi in March at the request of the United States.
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RFA ☛ Philippines reports fewer Chinese ships in South China Sea
Manila, Washington vow to enhance defense ties amid ongoing tensions in the disputed waters.
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New York Times ☛ Carlos Espina is a One-Man Telemundo on TikTok [Ed: Prop of Beijing's CPC in Fentanylware (TikTok)]
Carlos Espina is among a new kind of social control media personalities whom politicians, especially those in the Biden White House, view as modern-day broadcasters.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China suspends nuclear arms talks with US over Washington’s weapons sales to Taiwan
China said Wednesday it had suspended negotiations with the United States on nuclear non-proliferation and arms control in response to Washington’s weapons sales to Taiwan — a move the State Department called “unfortunate.”
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France24 ☛ Families still wait for justice 30 years after deadly attack on Buenos Aires Jewish center
Hundreds of Argentines on Thursday gathered to demand justice for a 1994 bomb attack on a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and wounded hundreds. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights in June found Argentina responsible for failing to prevent or properly investigate the attack.
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Defence Web ☛ Famine fears escalate in Sudan, talks ongoing, while violence continues in South Sudan
Hunger and the spectre of famine “stalk” Sudan, particularly the North Darfur capital El Fasher where an estimated 800 000 are trapped without food, water and medical support.
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JURIST ☛ France security services arrest far-right extremist for allegedly plotting Paris Olympics attacks
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced Wednesday that French security forces detained a far-right extremist in eastern France on suspicion of organizing attacks during the Paris Olympics, in a statement made on X (formerly Twitter).
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JURIST ☛ Venezuela opposition leader’s security chief arrested
The security chief of Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was arrested Wednesday, less than two weeks before the country’s presidential election, the Vente Venezuela political party said on X (formerly Twitter).
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France24 ☛ Israeli lawmakers vote to oppose the formation of a Palestinian state
Israel's parliament voted to oppose the formation of a Palestinian state, which it said would "encourage Hamas and its supporters", in a symbolic vote on Thursday. The Palestinian Authority said Israel's government was "plunging the region into an abyss" while France said the vote contradicted UN Security Council resolutions.
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France24 ☛ Deadly Israeli air strikes pound Gaza as Netanyahu vows to ramp up pressure
Israel launched more air strikes on Gaza Wednesday, with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu defending the deadly attacks, saying Hamas is "under pressure". Ceasefire negotiations have so far proven unsuccessful.
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Spiegel ☛ Star Economist Acemoglu Discusses Trump: "It's Likely To Be Much Worse Now Than Eight Years Ago"
DER SPIEGEL: Do you think Trump could really establish a dictatorship if he were returned to the White House?
Acemoglu: I am very concerned. He was already a threat to democracy in his first term. It is likely to be much worse now than it was eight years ago.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Prospect of Trump's return stokes anxiety in Europe
Rafael Loss, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), said that if Trump is voted the next US president, it could unleash ''a crisis in leadership" ― after all, the US has often led a western alliance on key global questions.
''If Trump decides on any arrangement with Putin to end the war in Ukraine and throws Ukraine under the bus, then that severely increases the threat to the rest of Europe,'' added Loss.
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The Atlantic ☛ A searing reminder that Trump is unwell
The speech wasn’t written that way, of course, but Trump can’t stick to a script. You can always tell when Trump is trying to read the teleprompter: His shoulders tense up, he cocks his head and squints, and he rushes through words he has clearly never seen before. It doesn’t help that Trump’s writers stuff his speeches with baroque constructions that are supposed to be soaring and majestic but that always end up sounding more like dollar-store Churchill imitations. Trump struggles with these complex sentences, and then he abandons them—and that is when the real Trump comes out, in all his whiny and aggrieved glory.
I do not have the space (or the endurance) to relive those moments with you, but they were the ramblings of a man who has serious psychological problems. All of it was on display last night: rage, paranoia, pettiness, desolating selfishness.
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Digital Music News ☛ TikTok Live Music Buildout Continues With Eventbrite Partnership
The ByteDance-owned platform unveiled the tie-up via a brief release, and under the straightforward pact, TikTokers “can add Eventbrite links directly to” videos, thereby enabling fans to buy passes in-app.
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Brookings Institution ☛ The TikTok debacle: Distinguishing between foreign influence and interference
Though often used interchangeably, foreign influence and foreign interference are distinct. While the former may be more tolerable, the latter is not. And to sculpt policies that protect national security and safeguard human rights, policies should focus on combating malign interference wherever it occurs, not merely on specific platforms like TikTok.
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International Business Times ☛ 'I'm Sick Of Elon Musk And His Rich Buddies Trying To Buy This Election': Biden Slams Elon's $45M/Monthly Pledge To Trump
Notably, the Biden Administration is sparing no effort to undermine Musk, sending an email to supporters earlier this week that stated: "Musk already ruined Twitter by allowing hate speech and disinformation to ruin the platform. Now, Musk is using his vast fortune to try and control our democracy."
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Los Angeles Times ☛ We who oppose political violence must dissuade those who support it
Fortunately, there is a growing body of research on what leads to political violence, who’s most at risk for committing it and how it might be prevented. Here at UC Davis, we have been conducting a large, annual, nationally representative survey of American adults on all those topics since 2022. We’re contacting the same people each year, which allows us to measure real change over time.
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Defence Web ☛ SAPS to recruit additional members to combat crime
The South African Police Service (SAPS) is set to recruit additional members to bolster its ranks over the three-year Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) period in an effort to combat crime in the country.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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RFERL ☛ In U.K. For European Summit, Zelenskiy Urges Unity After Orban 'Peace Mission'
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has rejected talk of making a deal with Russia without Kyiv's approval after Hungarian Prime Minister met with President Vladimir Putin as Ukraine's embattled troops continue to suffer from inadequate defenses in the face of a Russian onslaught in the east.
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RFERL ☛ EU Chief Slams Hungary's Orban For Rogue 'Appeasement Mission' To Moscow
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on July 18 savaged a rogue diplomatic trip made by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to Moscow to discuss ways for ending the war in Ukraine, calling it an "appeasement mission."
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Insight Hungary ☛ Charles Michel debunks Orbán's claims
Donald Trump will swiftly push for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine if he wins the upcoming US presidential election, according to Hungary’s far-right prime minister Viktor Orbá, the Financial Times reported this week.
Orbán suggests the EU could rekindle direct diplomatic channels with Russia and initiate "high-level" negotiations with China to seek a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict. The Hungarian prime minister stated this in a confidential letter to EU leaders, following visits to Moscow and Beijing.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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Reason ☛ Discrimination Lawsuit Against N.Y. City Official Can't Be Totally Sealed at Plaintiff's Behest
From Doe v. City of New York, decided today by Judge Gregory Woods (S.D.N.Y.): One distinguishing facet of the American legal system is its commitment to public access to the trial process. This legacy of "open justice" is as old as America itself. The plaintiff in this action asks that the Court deviate from that…
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Techdirt ☛ The Real Money In Modern ‘Journalism’ Now Involves Filling The Internet With ‘AI’-Generated Garbage
Last year both Gannett and Sports Illustrated were caught creating fake, “AI” generated journalists to create fake, plagiarism and mistake-prone “journalism.” In both instances the kind of brunchlord executives that fail upward at these kind of dying media companies thought it would be great to replace real human journalism with automated junk — without informing their actual human employees.
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Raw Story ☛ 'It’s bizarre': Doctor questions nature of injuries Trump suffered in shooting
In a Thursday post on X, Dr. Jonathan Reiner — a professor of medicine at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. — writes, "It's an understatement to say that it's bizarre that a presidential candidate has sustained an injury from an attempted assassination and no medical report is issued to describe his evaluation and the extent of his injury."
Journalist Brian Beutler, in response, tweeted, "My read: If the medical evaluation matched Trump's description, he would have OK'd its release. He wants the cred of having been shot; being shot *at* and lightly injured incidentally isn't good enough for him. So as always he chose a lie and a coverup."
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Environment
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Science Alert ☛ Earth's Water Is Rapidly Losing Oxygen, And The Danger Is Huge
"The observed deoxygenation of the Earth's freshwater and marine ecosystems represents an additional planetary boundary process," the authors write, "that is critical to the integrity of Earth's ecological and social systems, and both regulates and responds to ongoing changes in other planetary boundary processes.
"Relevant, critical oxygen thresholds are being approached at rates comparable to other planetary boundary processes."
The concentration of dissolved oxygen in water drops for a number of reasons. Warmer waters can't hold as much dissolved oxygen, for instance, and with greenhouse gas emissions continuing to raise air and water temperatures above their long-term averages, surface waters are becoming less able to hold on to this vital element.
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Energy/Transportation
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[Repeat] Bruce Schneier ☛ Criminal Gang Physically Assaulting People for Their Cryptocurrency
This is pretty horrific:
…a group of men behind a violent crime spree designed to compel victims to hand over access to their cryptocurrency savings. That announcement and the criminal complaint laying out charges against St. Felix focused largely on a single theft of cryptocurrency from an elderly North Carolina couple, whose home St. Felix and one of his accomplices broke into before physically assaulting the two victims—both in their seventies—and forcing them to transfer more than $150,000 in Bitcoin and Ether to the thieves’ crypto wallets...
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CBC ☛ This couple was asked to check their carry-ons. They protested — and were booted from the flight
The couple's case highlights a growing problem of more Canadians travelling with carry-on luggage, leading to delays and passenger frustration as they vie for often-limited overhead space.
"It's getting to be chaos," said John Gradek, lecturer and co-ordinator of the aviation management program at McGill University.
"If you are the last one on board the airplane, last 20 or 30 people, the odds are that overhead cabin space is all taken up by your fellow passengers."
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European Commission ☛ EU and Serbia sign strategic partnership
The Partnership builds on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement ('SAA') entered into force on 1 September 2013 and is in line with EU's New Growth plan for the Western Balkans. It represents a building bloc in advancing Serbia's integration within the EU's single market, and further boosting its economic, social and environmental convergence with the EU.
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Wildlife/Nature
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The Revelator ☛ Wolverines Continue Their Comeback — This Time in Colorado
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Overpopulation
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New York Times ☛ As Many South Koreans Shun Marriage, Two Women Try to Redefine Family
Hwang Sunwoo and Kim Hana, who are single and live together, say South Korea’s laws should reflect the alternative unions that many of its people have chosen.
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Overpopulation ☛ World population revised upwards again
On 11 July, the United Nations published its new population estimates and projections. While trumpeting the promise of a lower global peak as “a hopeful sign [for] reduced environmental pressures” in the press release, they don’t mention there are now 43 million more people than they anticipated as recently as 2022. Not such a hopeful sign.
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Finance
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Layoffs in US: Despite Employers Adding Jobs, More People in United States Apply for Jobless Benefits Amid Rising Layoffs, Struggle To Land Job
Economic Times reported that the jobless people rose by 20,000 on July 13, to a total of 2,43,000 numbers seeking benefits. The previous week, the number of unemployed people filing was 2,23,000. The report highlighted that it was the eighth straight week when the number of unemployment benefits claims rose above the 2,20,000 mark. Earlier, the numbers were below that mark in 2024.
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Yahoo News ☛ Netflix earnings, housing market, layoff concerns: Wealth!
On today's episode of Wealth! host Brad Smith breaks down key personal finance stories from the CrowdStrike (CRWD) outage to what home buyers need to know before entering the housing market.
A recent CrowdStrike update caused a global outage that impacted Microsoft Windows (MSFT) systems across multiple industries. The incident has affected or even halted operations in banking, airline operators, and even emergency services around the world. Yahoo Finance tech editor Dan Howley provides a detailed analysis of the incident, shedding light on the concerns surrounding the small group of companies that are responsible for operating internet systems globally.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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RFA ☛ To Lam takes over from Nguyen Phu Trong as Vietnam’s top leader
The president adds duties as Communist Party general secretary while ailing Trong receives medical treatment.
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JURIST ☛ Vietnam files UN submission to extend continental shelf in central South China Sea
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) of Vietnam filed a claim to the UN’s Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) to extend the limits of its underwater continental shelf in the South China Sea, according to a statement published by the ministry on Thursday.
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The Straits Times ☛ US opens embassy in Vanuatu, latest step in China competition
WASHINGTON - The United States opened an embassy in the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu on Thursday, the latest U.S. move in a long-running competition with China for influence in the Asia Pacific region.
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RFA ☛ Vietnam files new claim on boundary in South China Sea
After Manila, Hanoi is seeking the U.N.’s recognition of an extended continental shelf.
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JURIST ☛ New Zealand associate health minister asks pharmaceuticals agency to cease Indigenous considerations
New Zealand Associate Minister of Health David Seymour on Tuesday delivered a letter of expectation directing the government agency responsible for funding pharmaceuticals, Pharmac, to cease considerations of the country’s founding constitutional document the Treaty of Waitangi/te Tiriti o Waitangi.
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RFA ☛ China's third plenum offers little in the way of economic help
A meeting expected to focus on the economy delivers 'empty words' and vows to boost top-down control, analysts say.
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New York Times ☛ Dig at Meloni’s Height Could Cost Reporter in Italy 5,000 Euros
A lawsuit that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni won is one of several she has filed against critics. Press-freedom groups say it is a concerning practice.
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New York Times ☛ Lou Dobbs, Former Fox Business Host and Trump Booster, Dies at 78
He used his platforms on CNN and Fox Business to share baseless conspiracy theories. His tenure at Fox ended after the network was sued for defamation over claims of voting machine fraud.
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New York Times ☛ Friday Briefing: U.S. Presidential Race at a Crossroads
Plus, security failures at the Trump rally.
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RFERL ☛ Romanian Member Escorted Out Of European Parliament For Heckling
A Romanian far-right member of the new European Parliament has been escorted out of the Strasbourg chamber after repeatedly heckling member Valerie Hayer during a debate following European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's speech.
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New York Times ☛ Biden Appears to Begin Considering Dropping Out, People Close to Him Say
Also, lawmakers call Secret Service’s mistakes inexcusable. Here’s the latest at the end of Thursday.
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New York Times ☛ Pressure Builds on Netanyahu as Visit to Washington Nears
A planned speech to Congress by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear the serious divisions he faces back home.
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New York Times ☛ Pressure Mounts on Netanyahu to Seal a Cease-Fire Deal Before Speech to Congress
The Israeli leader’s speech before a divided Congress next week is likely to be contentious, particularly if he does not close a deal with Hamas to end the war before he travels to Washington.
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The Man Behind Trump’s VP Pick: It’s Worse Than You Think
While J.D. Vance has his own controversies, his close connection to billionaire Peter Thiel, who is poised to have unprecedented influence in a new Trump administration, should deeply unsettle every American who cares about freedom, privacy and reigning in the surveillance state.
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Craig Murray ☛ Scotland’s Rampant Corruption
Under Sturgeon, Scotland was in thrall of an incredible degree of rampant corruption that included government, civil service, police, prosecutors and judiciary.
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Futurism ☛ Crowdstrike CEO Visibly Agitated On Camera After Massive Outage
In the aftermath of Microsoft and Crowdstrike's disastrous glitch on Thursday that left Wall Street, airlines, and hospitals without computer services overnight and into Friday, the company's CEO may be making things worse.
As footage from his cringe-worth TODAY Show interview shows, Crowdstrike CEO and cofounder George Kurtz seemed nearly as stumped as the rest of us when trying to explain why, exactly, a glitch left so many industries hamstrung.
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404 Media ☛ CrowdStrike Outage Impacted U.S. Government Agencies
Multiple U.S. government agencies were impacted by the faulty CrowdStrike software update that has caused mass disruption around the world, spokespeople for various agencies told 404 Media.
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Wired ☛ J.D. Vance Left His Venmo Public. Here’s What It Shows
According to Venmo, when someone first uses the app, they are prompted to allow it to access their phone contacts. If they agree, Venmo will find any contacts already using the app and automatically populate the user’s friend list. Users can also intentionally add or remove friends. Along with the user’s transactions, their friends list is public by default. This means it’s likely that Vance’s list of friends was largely populated by the contacts in his phone when he set up his account in December of 2016.
Vance’s Venmo account was first discovered by a law enforcement and extremism researcher who asked to remain anonymous, citing security concerns. WIRED verified the senator’s account through its connections to his wife, Usha Vance, as well as actors or producers in the 2020 film adaptation of his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. In total, Vance is connected directly to 211 people.
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Pratik ☛ So theories much mystery wow
(emphasis mine) I’ve always believed that if an assassin reaches the place from where he plans to shoot his target, you have already lost the plot. But in this case, the poor depressed dude was doing all he could to attract attention and stopping just shy of announcing his plans from the literal rooftop. All the “good guys with a gun” slowly backed off like they did in the elementary school at Uvalde. No sire, all that military-grade police equipment is being saved for the upcoming Black Lives Matter protest.
But the much-vaunted Secret Service takes the cake. The tallest structure (basically two-stories) falls juuuussssst outside the security perimeter they are supposed to secure. I bet they measured it with tape to delineate their jurisdiction (yup, I’ve seen too many cop dramas).
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Jason Becker ☛ Tech has no answers for you
Everything I read about Silicon Valley’s support of Trump comes down to this:
These are people who believe in spending massive amounts of public money to enrich themselves while they make shitty tunnels under Las Vegas or drop off scooters on city sidewalks or chase self-driving cars, so firmly believing that these are total solutions ready to solve all problems right now, in complete ignorance of any existing systems or mechanism or solutions that exist.
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Vox ☛ California AI bill: Scott Wiener explains the fight over his proposed bill, SB 1047
California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) is generally known for his relentless bills on housing and public safety, a legislative record that made him one of the tech industry’s favorite legislators.
But his introduction of the “Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models” bill, also known as SB 1047, which requires companies training “frontier models” that cost more than $100 million to do safety testing and be able to shut off their models in the event of a safety incident, has inspired fury from that same industry, with VC heavyweights Andreessen-Horowitz and Y Combinator publicly condemning the bill.
I spoke with Wiener this week about SB 1047 and its critics; our conversation is below (condensed for length and clarity).
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Citizen Lab ☛ Citizen Lab at CBC Ideas Week – Brave New Worlds: The rights to privacy and the freedom of thought and expression
The Citizen Lab’s director Ron Deibert and researchers Lex Gill and Noura Al-Jizawi are slated to speak at CBC Ideas Week, part of the Stratford Festival, on July 18 and July 20.
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Digital Music News ☛ Long-Awaited Prince Documentary, Now Running Nine Hours, Reportedly Shelved Due to Estate Objections
Netflix’s years-in-the-making Prince documentary is reportedly being shelved due to objections from the seven-time Grammy winner’s estate. This latest hurdle for the long-awaited film, which was set in motion in 2018, came to light in a paywall-blocked Puck report.
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JURIST ☛ Vietnam court sentences Facebook (Farcebook) user to 7 years in prison for ‘anti-state propaganda’
A Vietnam court sentenced Facebook (Farcebook) user Pham Van Cho to seven years in prison and two years of probation for his allegedly anti-state propaganda posts on Tuesday. The police of the Hung Yen province arrested Phan Van Cho in January and decided to prosecute him on January 29.
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ACLU ☛ Our First Amendment Rights Don’t Disappear at the Schoolhouse Gates
Our First Amendment rights do not disappear at the schoolhouse gates. Students of all ages can, and have, exercised their right to free speech, assembly, religion and expression since America’s founding.
At the same time, schools can place reasonable restrictions on how students express themselves if their speech would be disruptive to the school environment or infringe on the rights of others. Importantly, students under 18 enrolled in K-12 have different protections than adult-age college or university students. Whether schools can punish students for speaking out depends on when, where, and how someone expresses themselves.
That’s why it’s important that everyone — including students and allies — learn about students’ rights.
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JURIST ☛ Vietnam court sentences Facebook user to 7 years in prison for 'anti-state propaganda'
The Vietnamese government was criticised in the past for its tight restriction on freedom of expression and press freedom, as it often uses the Penal Code to imprison journalists and those speaking out about issues in Vietnam. Prominent journalists Pham Doan Trang and Truong Huy San were both arrested and imprisoned for being critical of the government regime. Reporters Without Borders reported on the matter in 2023, alleging that Vietnam has routinely participated in the arbitrary imprisonment of journalists, stating that: [...]
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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RFA ☛ Wall Street Journal fires Hong Kong journalist who took up union role
Selina Cheng is let go after an editor told her she shouldn't run in Hong Kong Journalists Association election.
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Press Gazette ☛ Free daily Metro now profitable after 2023 restructure
Metro is growing commercially even as free London rival Evening Standard forced to reduce print output.
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Press Gazette ☛ Newspaper ABCs: i circulation higher than Daily Star for first time
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Futurism ☛ OpenAI Demands to See All Notes by New York Times Reporters
OpenAI apparently wasn't satisfied with using the entire internet to train ChatGPT.
The Microsoft-backed startup now wants to see all the notes from reporters at the New York Times whose articles were allegedly fed to the chatbot, as part of the discovery process in the newspaper's lawsuit against OpenAI.
OpenAI needs to see these notes, its lawyers argue, to assess the newspaper's copyright claims. This is an "unprecedented" ploy, reports Bloomberg, that more than anything seems designed to waste everyone's time — and empty the Gray Lady's coffers with exorbitant legal costs.
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CPJ ☛ Russia sentences US journalist Evan Gershkovich to 16 years
“He did nothing wrong. Russian authorities have failed to present evidence of a crime or justify Evan’s continued detention,” the U.S. Embassy in Russia said in statement on Thursday.
“This disgraceful, sham conviction comes after Evan has spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, away from his family and friends, prevented from reporting, all for doing his job as a journalist,” said Almar Latour, CEO of Dow Jones and publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and Emma Tucker, editor in chief of the publication, in a statement on Friday.
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New York Times ☛ Opinion | Evan Gershkovich’s Conviction in Russia Won’t Stop Journalists From Seeking the Truth
Independent Russian news outlets have been almost entirely shut down and their journalists imprisoned or forced to leave the country, so foreign correspondents are among the few remaining sources of independent reporting from inside Russia. Mr. Gershkovich’s last published article before his arrest, on March 29, 2023, was headlined “Russia’s Economy Is Starting to Come Undone” — just the sort of vital independent journalism that challenges Mr. Putin’s claims of a strong and vibrant Russia fighting a just war.
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RFA ☛ Wall Street Journal fires Hong Kong journalist who took up union role
Cheng said she was approached by senior editors last month after they heard she was running in elections for the chair of the union.
"My supervisor in the U.K. directed me to withdraw from the election. She also asked me to quit the board - which I have served on since 2021 even though the Wall Street Journal approved this when I was hired,” Cheng said. “This was the day before our election.”
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Russian court sentences US reporter to 16 years in prison
"This disgraceful, sham conviction comes after Evan has spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, away from his family and friends, prevented from reporting, all for doing his job as a journalist," Wall Street Journal publisher Almar Latour and its editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, said in a joint statement after the verdict was read out.
President Joe Biden said he was "pushing hard for Evan's release" adding that the journalist had "committed no crime," but was being "targeted" by Moscow due to his work and his US citizenship.
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France24 ☛ Russian court hands 16-year prison sentence to detained US reporter Gershkovich
A Russian court found U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich guilty of espionage charges on Friday and jailed him for 16 years, Russian news agencies reported, in a case his employer, the Wall Street Journal, has called a sham.
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Axios ☛ Evan Gershkovich trial: WSJ reporter sentenced to 16 years in prison in Russia
A Russian court on Friday convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich of espionage charges and sentenced him to 16 years in prison, multiple outlets reported.
Why it matters: Gershkovich, the newspaper and the U.S. government denounced the charges and the trial as a "sham." The verdict could pave the way for an eventual prisoner swap to free Gershkovich, who the U.S. has deemed "wrongfully detained."
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Deccan Chronicle ☛ Russia jails US reporter Gershkovich for 16 years on espionage charges
Russia has a policy of not exchanging prisoners internationally unless they have already been convicted, potentially paving the way for Gershkovich to be swapped in a deal.
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VOA News ☛ Closing arguments due in ‘sham’ trial of American journalist Evan Gershkovich
Addressing the U.N. Security Council, Thomas-Greenfield said the U.S. will not rest until Russia ceases its “barbaric practice of holding human pawns.”
Russia is also detaining former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan and American Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva.
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VOA News ☛ Wall Street Journal firing shocks chair of Hong Kong journalists group
The reporter says Wall Street Journal editors had warned her that her HKJA role could be a conflict of interests because the Journal covers press freedom issues in Hong Kong.
Cheng said in a news conference that the Journal's actions called into question its commitment to press freedom, saying management is blocking employees "from advocating for freedoms the Journal reporters rely on to work, in a place where journalists and their rights are under threat."
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TMZ ☛ U.S. Journalist Evan Gershkovich Sentenced to 16 Years in Russia After Conviction
Dow Jones, the WSJ's publisher, issued a statement Thursday, condemning Evan's "sham" trial. After his arrest, Evan was incarcerated at Moscow's infamous Lefertovo prison, where he spends almost every waking moment in his cell.
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Scheerpost ☛ Never Forget Julian Assange
Although Julian Assange is free and home in his native Australia, his story and decade-long suffering at the hands of the U.S. government must never be forgotten for the sake of the survival of the First Amendment. In this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast, host Robert Scheer is joined by Kevin Gosztola, who runs The Dissenter newsletter and has been reporting on the Assange case and whistleblowers in the U.S. for more than a decade. Together, they underscore the significance of the Assange case and delve into the details explored in Gosztola’s recent book, “Guilty of Journalism.”
Gosztola makes clear one of the main points of the whole ordeal, which is the inconsistency in the U.S.’s interpretation of its own laws. “The First Amendment and the Espionage Act are in conflict in this country. You can’t reconcile the two, at least the way that the Justice Department wants to use the Espionage Act against people who aren’t even just U.S. citizens. They’re trying to apply U.S. law to international journalists,” Gosztola told Scheer.
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Semafor Inc ☛ Other news orgs are also pressuring HK-based journalists to not join press clubs
Former Wall Street Journal Selina Cheng alleged she was fired from her position Wednesday after refusing to step down as the chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, a press advocacy group. But The Wall Street Journal isn’t the only major international publication trying to dissuade its employees from taking leadership roles in the city’s key journalism organizations, the HKJA and the venerable Foreign Correspondents’ Club.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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New York Times ☛ Same-Sex Couples in South Korea Win Landmark Rights Ruling
The country’s Supreme Court said same-sex couples qualify for dependent coverage under the national health insurance, a decision that could have wider ramifications.
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JURIST ☛ Supreme Court of South Korea rules in favor of same-sex couple in national health insurance case
The Supreme Court of South Korea ruled on Thursday in favor of a same-sex couple concerning the recognition of their union. The plaintiff’s same-sex partner, who had become an employed subscriber in 2016, submitted a notification of the plaintiff’s eligibility for dependent status in the National Health Insurance system.
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New York Times ☛ Why Levan Akin Won’t Show His New Movie ‘Crossing’ in Georgia
The director Levan Akin is worried that his latest film, “Crossing,” will inflame tensions around L.G.B.T. visibility in the post-Soviet nation.
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Mexico News Daily ☛ The murky world of surrogacy in Mexico
Human rights organizations are warning that a lack of legislation governing surrogacy is putting vulnerable women at risk of exploitation.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Over 80% of Hongkongers think criticism of gov’t should be allowed, survey finds
More than 80 per cent of Hongkongers think people should be able to publicly criticise the government if they disagree with the authorities’ actions, a survey has found.
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JURIST ☛ More than 100 protesters arbitrarily detained in Egypt since July 1
Egyptian security forces have detained 119 people, including at least one child, since the start of July for participating in anti-government protests, human rights advocacy organization Amnesty International reported Thursday.
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France24 ☛ French police start locking down parts of central Paris ahead of Olympics
French police have set up traffic and security perimeters in Paris to ensure the safety and protection of residents, athletes and visitors over the duration of the Olympic games, which begin Friday 26 July.
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France24 ☛ Paris police seal off River Seine areas ahead of Olympics opening ceremony
Paris police on Thursday began blocking Parisians and tourists alike from accessing areas near the River Seine ahead of an ambitious Olympics opening ceremony set for July 26. Anyone looking to access the several-kilometres-long riverside security barrier will need a special QR code.
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Citizen Lab ☛ Noura Al-Jizawi speaks at Montreal Institute of Genocide and Human Rights Studies’ online event
Activists and dissidents living in Canada are impacted by digital transnational repression (DTR) – a tool used by authoritarian governments to continue to harass and intimidate individuals online, even after leaving their country of origin.
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Public Knowledge ☛ Privileged Conversations | Aug. 2024
Public Knowledge has the pleasure of inviting you to a multifaceted program focused on training and developing the next generation of tech policy experts and public interest advocates that reflects the diversity of voices and experiences in our society. Please join us for our monthly Career Breakfast Series.
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Public Knowledge ☛ Public Knowledge Welcomes FCC Action To Keep Incarcerated People Connected
The FCC action follows nearly 20 years of public interest advocacy championing the needs of incarcerated people.
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AccessNow ☛ A pathway forward for digital rights
Brett Solomon shares insights from 15 years as Access Now Co-founder and Executive Director.
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AccessNow ☛ UN cybercrime convention: open letter to EU-commission and member states
EU member states must not sign the latest draft of the UN cybercrime convention if critical flaws are not addressed.
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AccessNow ☛ Access Now welcomes Alejandro Mayoral Baños, new Executive Director
Access Now is excited to announce the appointment of Alejandro Mayoral Baños as the organization’s new Executive Director.
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CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: FCC strikes a blow against prison profiteering
That familial suffering isn't merely the constant pain of life without a loved one, either. America's prison profiteers treat prisoners' families as ATMs who can be made to pay and pay and pay.
This may seem like a losing strategy. After all, prison sentences are strongly correlated with poverty, and even if your family wasn't desperate before the state kidnapped one of its number and locked them behind bars, that loved one's legal defense and the loss of their income is a reliable predictor of downward social mobility.
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Los Angeles Times ☛ Inside San Quentin's experiment: Can California change prison culture?
The changes are modeled after prison operations in Norway and other Scandinavian countries, where incarceration is considered less a tool for punishment than an opportunity for recovery and rehabilitation.
Newsom said he envisions a prison system that doesn’t just confine lawbreakers but better prepares them for reintegrating into communities after their release. That means expanding job training and substance-use treatment, but also replacing a prison culture built on hierarchy and fear with opportunities for connection and normalized social interactions.
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Task And Purpose ☛ Navy exonerates Black sailors from World War II ammo explosion
The forgotten blast killed over 300. The 256 Black sailors who later demanded better safety measures were court-martialed
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Gregory Hammond ☛ Why I don’t think I could be a digital nomad
Digital nomad, some of whom don’t have a permanent address and can move around as they see fit. Blog posts, videos, and photos are fairly easy to come across online about the life of someone who does that.
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Public Knowledge ☛ Public Knowledge Applauds FCC Move To Unlock Mobile Wireless Market
Today, the Federal Communications Commission voted to approve a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to propose handset unlocking policies to improve competition in the mobile wireless market. Public Knowledge commends the Commission for moving to improve consumer choice.
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Public Knowledge ☛ Public Knowledge Applauds FCC Move To Update E-Rate Program in Next Step Toward Closing Digital Divide
Today, the Federal Communications Commission voted to approve a Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to update the E-Rate program to allow schools and libraries to buy Wi-Fi hotspots and wireless internet services that can be loaned to students and patrons off their respective campuses.
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Patents
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Kangaroo Courts
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Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t”? – Ex parte PIs at the UPC: how effective are protective letters? [Ed: UPC is illegal and unconstitutional; it's a miracle that the EU still pretends that this is OK, which means the patent system is at the hands of a crooked cabal]
In June 2023, the UPC – at the Düsseldorf Local Division – granted its first ex parte provisional injunction (“PI”) in myStromer AG v Revolt Zycling AG (“myStromer v Revolt”), despite the defendant having previously filed a protective letter.
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Trademarks
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TTAB Blog ☛ TTAB Sustains Instagram's 2(d) Opposition to INSTASIZE for Photo Editing Software
In a 95-page opinion, the Board sustained this opposition to registration of the mark INSTASIZE for "Downloadable mobile applications for photo editing," finding confusion likely with the registered mark INSTAGRAM for "Downloadable computer software for modifying the appearance and enabling transmission of photographs." The Board found the goods legally identical, the INSTAGRAM mark famous, and the marks more similar than dissimilar. In addition, the extent of potential confusion (the twelfth DuPont factor) and evidence of the effect of use (the thirteenth DuPont factor) weighed in favor of Instagram. This blog post will attempt to hit the high points, if there are any. Instagram, LLC v. Instasize, Inc., Opposition No. 91253078 (July 15, 2024) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge Martha B. Allard).
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Copyrights
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Digital Music News ☛ NetEase Cloud Music Partners with Timbaland’s Beatclub to Kick China’s Beat Marketplace Up a Notch
NetEase Cloud Music partners with Timbaland’s Beatclub to revolutionize and foster innovation across China’s ever-growing music scene. China’s leading interactive music streaming service provider, NetEase Cloud Music, has announced a new partnership with Timbaland’s Beatclub to “unleash creativity and foster innovation” across China’s growing music scene.
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Public Domain Review ☛ The Plague of Lust: Being A History of Venereal Disease in Classical Antiquity (1901 edition)
A 650-page philological foray into ancient sexuality, surprisingly light on STDs.
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Torrent Freak ☛ What Killed Fmovies? Death By a 1000 Cuts, One Killer Blow, Or Possibly Both
The sudden closure of RARBG in 2023 left many unanswered questions. However, after studying political events in Bulgaria and the United States, it was possible to provide plausible information on potential contributing factors. Similar questions are now being asked about Fmovies. Did it die from a single blow or collapse under the cumulative effects of many?
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Torrent Freak ☛ Sports Streaming Services Fight Piracy With... a Very Affordable Bundle
Sports streaming piracy is booming. Rightsholders are repeatedly sounding the alarm bell, calling for tougher legislation, website blocking, and instant takedowns to prevent further losses. In Greece, two of the largest streaming platforms are trying to battle the piracy issue with a highly experimental approach; cheap bundles, to lower the costs for legitimate viewers.
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The Verge ☛ An X ‘hashmoji’ of Donald Trump used the AP’s famous photo without permission
It temporarily featured a low-res version of a now-famous image showing Trump with his fist raised while being lifted to his feet by Secret Service agents following an assassination attempt during his campaign event last weekend. However, that image, taken from that angle, looks just like the one owned by The Associated Press and its photographer, Evan Vucci.
Asked about the hashflag, Associated Press communications VP Lauren Easton responded, “This is not an authorized use of our photo,” which is “available for editorial use only.”
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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