Musicians who lost instruments in Hurricane Helene get to pick out new ones
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/20/nx-s1-5327545/musicians-who-lost-instruments-in-hurricane-helene-get-to-pick-out-new-ones?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into U.S. News @u-s-news-npr
Two perspectives on the role of the courts in the early months of Trump's second term
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/20/nx-s1-5333634/two-perspectives-on-the-role-of-the-courts-in-the-early-months-of-trumps-second-term?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into U.S. News @u-s-news-npr
Federal judge denies request to block DOGE takeover of U.S. Institute of Peace
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/20/nx-s1-5333857/federal-judge-denies-request-to-block-doge-takeover-of-u-s-institute-of-peace?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into U.S. News @u-s-news-npr
Jury finds Greenpeace owes hundreds of millions for Dakota Access pipeline protest
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/20/nx-s1-5333868/jury-finds-greenpeace-owes-hundreds-of-millions-for-dakota-access-pipeline-protest?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Science @science-npr
As March Madness continues, we look at the qualities of a great 'Cinderella team'
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/20/nx-s1-5333658/as-march-madness-continues-we-look-at-the-qualities-of-a-great-cinderella-team?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Sports @sports-npr
๐จ Today, we filed our second complaint against OpenAI over ChatGPT hallucination issues
๐ When a Norwegian user asked ChatGPT if it had any information about him, the chatbot made up a story that he had murdered his children.
Find out more: noyb.eu/en/ai-hallucinations-cโฆ
AI hallucinations: ChatGPT created a fake child murderer
ChatGPT created a fake story about a Norwegian man, claiming that he killed his two children and went to jail. This never happenednoyb.eu
On #Lahore's disastrous approach to "development" - the american model of urban sprawl and real-estate capitalism fully in control, suffocating and drowning millions in heat and floods.
dawn.com/news/1892744/lahores-โฆ
#RealEstate #ClimateDiary #UrbanPlanning #Heatwave #Flood #Pakistan #SouthAsia #ClimateAdaptation
Lahoreโs urban disaster: From colonial sprawl to capitalist chaos
Lahoreโs urban planning is a tragic loop โ bulldozing farmland, displacing the poor, and destroying the environment โ all for soulless real estate. The Ravi Riverfront Project is its latest, most reckless gamble.Shehreen Umair (DAWN.COM)
Weaponizing antisemitism makes students 'less safe,' says drafter of definition
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/20/nx-s1-5326047/weaponizing-antisemitism-makes-students-less-safe-says-drafter-of-definition?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Politics @politics-npr
If #astroturfing in the Fediverse is a sign of its growing importance, then we're on a good track. ๐ฌ
Check out the fusionenergy hashtag. All identical/very similar posts hyping fusion energy, all coming from social.freysa.ai. And the accounts' avatars are all the same style. Interesting.
reshared this
Trump admin defends arrest of high-profile undocumented mother of 4 (three of them US citizens) as outraged supporters rally for her release.
"Jeanette Vizguerra started making international headlines in 2017, when she sought refuge in the basement of a Colorado church to avoid deportation." cnn.com/2025/03/19/us/jeannettโฆ
"Google says changes to the Play Store may expose users to malware and fraud"
Does this mean that Google isn't aware of the massive amount of malware and fraud in the Play Store? Or did Google borrow that line from Apple?
techcrunch.com/2025/03/19/googโฆ
Google search, Play Store falling foul of Digital Markets Act rules, says EU | TechCrunch
Google Search and its Play Store app marketplace are suspected of breaching the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), per preliminary findingsNatasha Lomas (TechCrunch)
*DO NOT TRAVEL TO THE US!*
โโI learned with concern that a French researcher,โ on a mission for the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), โwho was going to a conference near Houston was banned from entering American territory before being expelled,โ said the Minister of Higher Education and Research, Philippe Baptiste, in a statement sent to Agence France-Presse (AFP). โThis measure was allegedly taken by the American authorities because this researcher's phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friendly relationships in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration's research policy,โ he added.โ
lemonde.fr/international/articโฆ
#USA #fascism #EU #France #science #freedomOfSpeech #privacy #travelWarning
Etats-Unisย : un chercheur franรงais refoulรฉ pour avoir exprimรฉ ยซย une opinion personnelle sur laย politique menรฉe par lโadministration Trumpย ยป
Le ministre de la recherche franรงais a dit sa ยซย prรฉoccupationย ยป, mercredi, aprรจs cette dรฉcision des autoritรฉs amรฉricaines.Le Monde avec AFP (Le Monde)
Netanyahu has resumed bombing Gaza to save his own skin.
Peace would โalmost certainly plunge Netanyahu into a political crisis that could end his nearly uninterrupted 15-year rule.โ
apnews.com/article/israel-paleโฆ
Why Netanyahu ended the Gaza ceasefire with surprise strikes
The wave of Israeli strikes that killed hundreds of Palestinians across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday was the culmination of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuโs efforts to get out of the ceasefire with Hamas that he agreed to in January.Joseph Krauss (AP News)
Despite what news coverage may make it seem, protests against the Trump regime are more widespread now than they were at the same point in Trump's first term. And the types of protests being used by regime opponents are far more diverse.
#USPol #protests #resistance #TrumpRegime
wagingnonviolence.org/2025/03/โฆ
Resistance is alive and well in the United States
Protests of Trump may not look like the mass marches in 2017, but they're far more numerous and frequent โ and also becoming more strategic.Erica Chenoweth (Waging Nonviolence)
Stochastic eugenics is still eugenics. 
#FuckFascists
"The reason that the budget would have such an extreme impact on the wealth of the poorest 40 percent of the country, they explain, is because the GOP is looking at cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by $230 billion over ten years, while at the same time cutting Medicaid by $880 billion over ten years.โ
rawstory.com/republican-budgetโฆ
#USPol #StochasticEugenics #Eugenics
GOP budget plan would take from the poorest 40 percent and give it to the rich: Yale
The budget plan being contemplated by congressional Republicans would represent a massive transfer of wealth from the poorest 40 percent of Americans to the richest 1 percent of the country, according to a new analysis from Yale's Budget Lab.Brad Reed (Raw Story)
US-Aktivist Khalil: Eine Abschiebung, die einschรผchtern soll
Wegen seiner Rolle bei den Gaza-Protesten soll Mahmoud Kahlil abgeschoben werden - trotz unbefristeter Aufenthaltserlaubnis. Der Student ist in den USA zum Symbol fรผr die bedrohte Meinungsfreiheit geworden. Von G. Ucar.
โก๏ธ tagesschau.de/ausland/amerika/โฆ
#USA #NahostKrieg #Studentenproteste
US-Aktivist Khalil: Eine Abschiebung, die einschรผchtern soll
Wegen seiner Rolle bei den Gaza-Protesten soll Mahmoud Kahlil abgeschoben werden, trotz unbefristeter Aufenthaltserlaubnis. Der Student ist zum Symbol fรผr die bedrohte Meinungsfreiheit in den USA geworden.Giselle Ucar (tagesschau.de)
alecmuffett.com/article/112842
#EndToEndEncryption #StopThinkFraud
Turn on 2-step verification (2SV) | Stop! Think Fraud
Iโm amazed but not terribly surprised to find one part of the UK government attempting to shore-up cybersecurity of individuals, whilst another part simultaneously attempts to coerce a vendorโฆDropsafe
Sensitive content
"In a bad-tempered session at the Covid inquiry, the former health secretary repeatedly criticised the line of questioning describing it as "naive", "hostile" and "inappropriate"."
Rich.
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd65evโฆ
Matt Hancock criticises 'wholly naive' and 'hostile' Covid inquiry
The former health secretary was giving evidence about medical equipment deals during the pandemic.Jim Reed (BBC News)
A brief history of Medicaid and Americaโs long struggle to establish a health care safety net
Left out of FDRโs New Deal, the health insurance program for the poor was finally established in 1965.The Conversation
That was when Americans wanted public health "care" for those who could not afford it.
Now many just want health "business" for profit, forget the care part.
Time for an update on my book of walking tours around Glasgow. I've just finished the revisions suggested by the editior and have sent it off for a final proof copy to be printed. Barring any major issues with that, it should be available by the end of April.
Cont./
#glasgow #book #architecture #glasgow850 #glasgowarchitecture #visitglasgow
PiEEG Kit is a Self-Contained Biosignal Labratory
hackaday.com/2025/03/20/pieeg-โฆ
PiEEG Kit Is A Self-Contained Biosignal Labratory
Back in 2023, we first brought you word of the PiEEG: a low-cost Raspberry Pi based device designed for detecting and analyzing electroencephalogram (EEG) and other biosignals for the purposes of eโฆHackaday
The Department of Education has been next.
We collected what we already did safeguard in this thread:
safeguarding-research.discoursโฆ
We got:
- data.ed.gov
- ocrdata.ed.gov
- nces.ed.gov
- eric.ed.gov
- nces.gov/programs/
- ope.ed.gov/dapip/
- studentaid.gov
- iog.ed.gov
- sites.ed.gov
Do you know of anything else from the DoE that needs safeguarding?
Please ping us!
cc @SafeguardingResearch
#SafeguardingResearch #DoE #Education
Collection: Department of Education
Things are looking grim for the DoE: Trump plans executive order to lay groundwork for shutting down Education Department, official says.Safeguarding Research & Culture (SRC) โ Distributing Cultural Memory
Paul Cantrell reshared this.
๐ฆ๐บAustralia: Covid-19 kills 5 times more people than flu in 2024.
"Five times as many Australians are dying from Covid-19 as the flu five years after the outbreak of the global pandemic, shock new research has revealed."
"New analysis by the Instituteโs Mortality Working Group of mortality between January and November 2024 found 3,676 people died from Covid-19 โ 69% more than predicted."
"Covid-19 deaths at 3,676 were five times more than the 728 recorded for influenza"
Source: archive.md/jV6Jt
#COVID19Australia #COVIDisNotFLU #COVIDisNotOVER @auscovid19
Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Ray Nayler's "Where the Axe Is Buried"; and more!
Archived at: pluralistic.net/2025/03/20/birโฆ
1/
I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel *Picks and Shovels*.
Catch me in SAN DIEGO next MONDAY (Mar 24):
And in CHICAGO with PETER SAGAL on Apr 2:
exileinbookville.com/events/44โฆ
More tour dates here:
2/
Authors on Tap: Cory Doctorow and Peter Sagal
Indie bookstore located in the historic Fine Arts Building on Chicago's Michigan Avenue. Where books and music meet.exileinbookville.com
In the latest episode of The Comfortable Spot podcast, my guest is author and social anthropologist Brian Milne. We discuss the current state of rights of children in conflict and ask whether our modern societies have become desensitized to their suffering.
#ChildAbuse #childslavery #childrights #UN #RightsOfTheChild #Palestine #Ukraine
thecomfortablespotpodcast.com/โฆ
Brian Milne
Lost Childhoods: Conflict, Migration, and the Fight for Childrenโs Rights with Brain Milne Apple Spotify Amazon Linktree Today, Iโm joined by author and academic Brian Milne. Brian is a sociaโฆThe Comfortable Spot Podcast
Ray Nayler's *Where the Axe Is Buried* is an intense, claustrophobic novel of a world run by "rational" AIs that purport to solve all of our squishy political problems with empirical, neutral mathematics:
us.macmillan.com/books/9780374โฆ
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2025/03/birchpโฆ
1/
Book details - Macmillan Publishers
All systems fail. All societies crumble. All worlds end.In the authoritarian Federation, there is a plot to assassinate and replace the President, a man who ...Macmillan
Sensitive content
Data breach at stalkerware SpyX affects close to 2 million, including thousands of Apple users
Data breach at stalkerware SpyX affects close to 2 million, including thousands of Apple users | TechCrunch
Another consumer-grade spyware operation was hacked in June 2024, which exposed thousands of Apple Account credentials.Zack Whittaker (TechCrunch)
What's this about a crypto reserve? : The Indicator from Planet Money
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/20/1239646557/crypto-bitcoin-government-trump?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Business @business-npr
Sesame Street : Throughline
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/20/1239646567/throughline-sesame-street?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Arts & Life @arts-life-npr
Happy Thursday to one and all. ๐ค
Itโs International Day of Happiness, which aims to highlight the importance of happiness within our lives.
In my A-Z of simple steps to a better world, step J is โJourney Jovialโ, which includes some methods anyone can adopt to try to bring more happiness in to their lives: ethicalrevolution.co.uk/journeโฆ
In particular it highlights methods of breaking free from the negative 24 hour news cycle that can lock us in to perpetual states of anxiety.
This yearโs #InternationalDayOfHappiness theme is โSharing and Caringโ - both of which also feature in my A-Z steps:
๐คฒ Sharing:
ethicalrevolution.co.uk/share-โฆ
๐ซ Caring:
ethicalrevolution.co.uk/know-kโฆ
Journey Jovial - Ethical Revolution
Join me in taking step J, โJourney Jovialโ, in the A-Z of simple steps to a better world: Donโt let the bastards grind you down!Ethical Revolution
AxWax reshared this.
NEVER FORGET this evergreen quote from Pierre Poilievre:
"Former residential school students need a stronger work ethic, not more compensation dollars."
That's REAL prime ministerial material right there, folks. Another whitey telling Indigenous people what's good for them.
I see the tough guy approach is going well.
โ Today, when the phone call [with Trump] was scheduled, Putin was on stage at an event. When his interviewer asked if he needed to go because he would be late for the call, Putin dismissed the question and laughter broke out. Brett Bruen, president of the Global Situation Room public relations firm wrote: โMaking leaders wait is an old Putin power play. But, this is pretty brutal. Putin is publicly mocking Trump.โ โ
So the 4chan trolls #MAGA sadists have put in charge of the #DoD website have gone after #JackieRobinson
People with more than 2 braincells knew attacking #DEI was just a stand in for simple #racism all along
So now what. Now that #bigots are just openly bigots and no one with even 1 braincell can deny it without being laughed at, now what
We just let our honored heroes be pissed on by MAGA turds and we shrug? Forget about it? Accept it?
This country is a fucking joke
doesn't matter
they're laughing the whole time. they knew it would not stand. the point is to push with radioactive racist shit to elicit pain
because it's funny to them
the Trump administration is literally internet trolls. it's the back of the 4th grade class saying something outrageously ugly by design to be gleeful when the teacher gets upset
our fucking GOVERNMENT
then we forget about it, and next election go "HURR DURR EGG PRICES... *snort*"
americans are fucking morons
So, science friends.
When in the 1930s would you have decided โno, Iโm not going to go to that conference in Germanyโ?
Because the question now needs to be posed looking westwards across the Atlantic.
If your phone can be taken on arrival & searched for messages critical of the government & then you can be denied entry (or perhaps worse in the future), why would you even think of going in the first place?
Absolutely horrifying slide into totalitarianism.
theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mโฆ
French scientist denied US entry after phone messages critical of Trump found
Franceโs research minister said the scientist was traveling to Houston for a conference when his phone was searchedRobert Mackey (The Guardian)
#Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner is stepping down after #DOGE leader #ElonMusk called for the #transit service to be #privatized.
Amtrak, also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, is the national passenger #rail service for the #US. It is nationally chartered, meaning the federal government is the majority stockholder. It also means Amtrak board members are nominated by the president & confirmed by the Senate.
independent.co.uk/news/world/aโฆ
Amtrak CEO steps down as Musk insists โsadโ rail service needs to be privatized
Stephen Gardner left position to โensure that Amtrak continues to enjoy the full faith and confidence of this administrationโKatie Hawkinson (The Independent)
Gabe Ortรญz
in reply to Gabe Ortรญz • • •โโฆ Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers showed up at the Denver-area Target where she worked. The cashier was taking a shift break outside the store when ICE swooped in and took her into custody.โ
Multiple federal officers hunting down a working mom at her job. We all feeling safer yet?
Gabe Ortรญz
in reply to Gabe Ortรญz • • •"Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, also a Democrat, described Vizguerraโs arrest as 'Soviet-style political persecution.'
'This is not immigration enforcement. This is a mother of American citizens, a Target employee and a non-profit founder,' Johnston said in a Facebook video. 'This does not make our community safer. It makes it lawless.'"
cnn.com/2025/03/19/us/jeannettโฆ