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● Links 10/11/2022: Lots of Post-Election Policial Coverage (US)

Posted in News Roundup at 11:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

=> ↺ Nestbox hands-on: Run real Linux virtual machines on your Google Pixel phone

• If you’ve ever wanted to become a smartphone power user, then you’ve probably come across the likes of Termux. It’s an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment app, and some people have used it to develop Python scripts and even run Minecraft servers from their smartphones. Now you can take that a step further though with a rooted Pixel 6 or a regular Pixel 7, thanks to Nestbox by XDA Senior Member kdrag0n, available on his Patreon.

Applications

=> ↺ Linux Mint Upgrade Tool – Here’s How it Works

• The Linux Mint team announced that they built a new utility to upgrade the Linux Mint’s significant versions. It’s called the “mintupgrade2”. Development is complete, and It is currently under the support and planning for upgrading to the major versions—for example, Linux Mint 20 to 21 and not the minor version upgrades.

• Although you can upgrade the versions using the standard apt commands, the Mint team believes significant version upgrades are tricky. It would be difficult for the new users to perform a seamless upgrade because it involves the terminal and a set of complex steps with commands.

• Moreover, the GUI is a wrapper with additional features to the mintupgrade program, which brings a set of pre-system checks and upgrade processes with a one-click Fix.

• In addition, the mintupgrade checks basic checks, whether you are connected to power, the system is up to date, disk space availability and many more features.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Day 33: Mathematical expressions in min(), max(), clamp()

• You can use full math expressions in the comparison functions min(), max(), and clamp(). There’s no need to nest a calc() function inside.

Games

=> ↺ Taking Pokémon On A Walk

• Emulating old computers or video game systems isn’t always about recreating childhood nostalgia or playing classics on hardware that doesn’t exist anymore. A lot of the time it can be an excellent way to learn about the mechanics of programming a video game. Plenty of older titles have available source code that anyone can pour over and modify, and one of those is Pokémon Emerald. This was the first Pokémon game that [Inkbox] played, and he added a few modern features to it with this custom ROM file.

=> ↺ Soulstone Survivors might dethrone the likes of Vampire Survivors for me

• Soulstone Survivors is a new Early Access game that arrived with Native Linux support on November 7th, it’s also now already one of my favourite games. It works great out of the box too and it appears to be getting quite popular, with a Very Positive user rating and over 14,000 people playing it right now.

=> ↺ Rogue Legacy 2 had a major upgrade, and Native Linux support is coming

• Well this was unexpected. Rogue Legacy 2 from Cellar Door Games just had a massive upgrade and they’ve announced Native Linux and macOS versions are on the way.

=> ↺ FSR 2.1 is a game-changer for Cyberpunk 2077 on Steam Deck

• Cyberpunk 2077 from CD PROJEKT RED recently had a big 1.61 patch out, and with it came support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 2.1.

=> ↺ Proton Hotfix gets Halo Infinite working again on Steam Deck and Linux desktop

• Having issues with the latest major update for Halo Infinite on Steam Deck or Linux desktop? Valve has already released a Proton Hotfix update to sort it.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ KDE Plasma 5.27 Bringing Subtle Outline on Windows

• A recent merge request for the upcoming KDE Plasma 5.27 release (for 2023) shows how a nice, subtle window border can make a difference in the overall desktop look.

• Here’s how it looks.

Distributions and Operating Systems

New Releases

=> ↺ Deepin Linux 23 – Here’s What to Expect from This Release

•  Deepin, a Chinese-made Debian-based Linux distro, is well-known among beauty and aesthetics enthusiasts. Aimed at the average desktop computer user, the distro comes with the in-house developed DDE (Deepin Desktop Environment), one of the best-looking Linux desktop environments.

• After the Preview release of the upcoming Deepin 23 in August, we now have an alpha version available, giving us a good idea of what to expect from the final release.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ UNDP: Open Source Hardware Important in Global COVID-19 Response

• OSH solutions ranging from personal protective equipment (masks) and ventilators to thermometers supported the global response.

=> ↺ riscv64 porterbox

• A big thanks to SiFive for providing the HiFive Unmatched board and OSUOSL for assembling the hardware and hosting it.

=> ↺ Canonical Presence at RISC-V Summit 2022

• RISC-V Summit is a premier annual event that will bring together the RISC-V community for a multi-track conference, tutorials, exhibition, and more. It will be both an in-person event taking place in San Jose and a virtual event from December 12th to December 15th. 

• Canonical is proud to sponsor RISC-V Summit again! Welcome to meet us at booth S7 or talk to us at our virtual booth!

=> ↺ Out now: Hello World’s special edition on Computing content

• Hello World, our free magazine for computing and digital making educators, has just published its second special edition: The Big Book of Computing Content.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Daily Authority: Dear Google, all Android users need this feature

=> ↺ Android 13: Check out the list of supported devices and update timeline | Business Insider India

=> ↺ 5 advanced add-ons for the Gmail Android app | Computerworld

=> ↺ Android 13 is here to further improve the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro’s holiday appeal – PhoneArena

=> ↺ Android 12 rolls out for Nokia T20 tablet | Nokiamob

=> ↺ How to record a phone conversation with an Android phone – The Verge

=> ↺ How to fix the “No SIM card” error on Android – Android Authority

=> ↺ Here’s how to recover data after factory reset on Android

=> ↺ When Twitter Blue subscription for Android – Web will be available?

=> ↺ Carsifi wireless Android Auto review

=> ↺ Official COP27 Climate Summit Android App Poses Serious Security Risk | PCMag

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Some thoughts on organizations running their own Fediverse instance

• One of the current ideas floating around the Fediverse is that (significant) organizations should be encouraged to run their own instances, in part to implicitly verify the identities of people posting from them (one writeup of this idea is here). If someone with the name of my MP posts from the official instance run by the Canadian (federal) Parliament, for example, I can be pretty sure of what I’m getting. In related news, MIT has stood up their own Fediverse instance. This got me thinking some thoughts over on the Fediverse, which I’ll repeat here in slightly edited form with some annotations.

=> ↺ How does Fediverse work?

• But we don’t want to talk about the technical stuff behind the Fediverse. What do you want to talk about is simply how Fediverse and/or Mastodon work. Mastodon is just a part of Fediverse. Fediverse is a word built by mixing the two words of federation and universe.

Education

=> ↺ FOSDEM ’23 Accepted developer rooms

• We are pleased to announce the developer rooms that will be organised at FOSDEM 2023.

Licensing / Legal

=> ↺ Open source licenses as a reflection of values

• The first question is: Why do licenses exist and why do they matter? I’ll take a US-centric view here, because that’s what I’m most familiar with.

• In the US, all code is by default protected by copyright, both as the source code and in compiled form1. This means that other people don’t have the right to use your code (with some possible exceptions) without permission. Software is less useful without users (as are books without readers, etc.) so we want some way to let people use our software. That’s where copyright assignment and licenses come in.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Game of Trees 0.79 released.

• Version 0.79 of Game of Trees has been released (and the port updated): [...]

=> ↺ Modern vector programming with masked loads and stores

• In general, the operating system and the processor do not care when your program reads and writes anywhere within the pages allocated to it. These pages are the ‘segment’ that the process owns. When you do access a forbidden page, one that was not allocated to your process, then you normally get a segmentation fault. Most of the time, it means that your program crashes.

=> ↺ Pairing on Open Source

• In addition to talking about pairing in the group, we had developers who organized together to pair for Hacktoberfest. One made their first-ever contribution after their first pairing session. Then she wrote her first ever English blog post about the experience.

=> ↺ My contribution and first remote pair programming for OSS

• This is my first blog post in English. Please don’t mind a light weight mistake but I’m happy if you tell me the better expression when there’s something terrible wrong or something unsuitable.

=> ↺ Retrotechtacular: Programming By Card

• The recent Supercon 6 badge, if you haven’t seen it, was an old-fashioned type computer with a blinky light front panel. It was reminiscent of an Altair 8800, a PDP-11, or DG Nova. However, even back in the day, only a few people really programmed a computer with switches. Typically, you might use the switches to toggle in a first-level bootloader that would then load a better bootloader from some kind of storage like magnetic or paper tape. Most people didn’t really use the switches.

Python

=> ↺ Best Python IDEs for Linux

•  Whether a coder or not, you must have heard about Python Programming language in some capacity. Python is used extensively in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, some of the most popular buzzwords in computing.

• Being a popular programming language, you may already know or be interested in learning it.

• When someone learns a programming language, an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) comes in handy. It makes programming easy while giving you access to multiple utilities in a few clicks.

• Specifically, it provides features like Syntax Highlighting, Debugging, etc., in one place.

• If you are learning Python and want to use an IDE to test things, I have compiled a list of them to help you.

=> ↺ PyScript Updates: Bytecode Alliance, Pyodide, and MicroPython

• Earlier this year we unveiled PyScript to enable users to create Python applications in the browser. In order for PyScript to succeed, we at Anaconda must make strategic investments in both the project itself and its core technology dependencies, such as WebAssembly (Wasm) and the fantastic Pyodide open-source project (PyScript’s primary runtime). To that end, PyScript has been improving its technical foundations over the past few months, and today we have three special announcements to share: [...]

Leftovers

=> ↺ Growing Toward the Light

=> ↺ Kehua / I used to want to be the bait that caught Te Ika

• I lost my nerve for spirits when I was sixteen. Spent that whole spring playing chicken and betraying my grandparents’ liquor cabinets for homies who were too cool to say thank you but the slight acknowledgement, sunrise in their chin, suggesting warm and wicked days, eyes lighting up the colour of blunts, bark and honey, was enough to make me feel like Māui, full of confidence and concoctions, under pressure to slow the sun.

=> ↺ Teju Cole’s Elegiac Criticism

• Late in May 1606, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, the prodigious and mercurial master painter, ran his sword through a man named Ranuccio Tomassoni. Caravaggio had placed a bet on their game of tennis and lost, and Tomassoni wanted to collect on his win. Their extra set became physical combat, Teju Cole writes in his 2020 essay “After Caravaggio.” Tomassoni died; Caravaggio ran. “After two days of hiding in Rome, he escaped the city, first to the estates of the Colonna family outside Rome, and then, near the end of the year, to Naples. He had become a fugitive. Caravaggio’s mature career can be divided in two: the Roman period, and everything that came after his murder of Tomassoni. The miracle is that he accomplished so much in that second act, on the run.”

Science

=> ↺ Mathematicians Discover the Fibonacci Numbers Hiding in Strange Spaces

• Then earlier this year, McDuff uncovered another clue to this mystery. She and several others revealed not just infinitely more staircases, but intricate fractal structures. Their results are “not something that I remotely expected to see arising naturally in this kind of problem,” said Michael Usher, a professor at the University of Georgia.

• The work has revealed hidden patterns in seemingly unrelated areas of math — a reliable sign that something important is afoot.

Education

=> ↺ Are Americans Bad at Reading?

• In 2018, the writer Elaine Castillo released her debut novel, America Is Not the Heart, which is set in the Philippines and in California, following generations of the island nation’s diaspora. It’s a sprawling, vivid book, sensual and political and abundantly affectionate toward its characters. Yet not all readers, Castillo discovered on her book tour, seemed willing to treat those characters—or, indeed, their creator—as if they were multidimensional people. Instead, white readers kept asking Castillo why she’d used untranslated Tagalog, Pangasinan, and Ilocano words in the text, or expected her to teach them the history of the Philippines, or told her that the novel “made them feel terrible about your country,” as she writes in her bracing essay collection How to Read Now.

Hardware

=> ↺ This Wii Has An Apple M1 Inside

• The conveniently tiny logic board of the M1 Mac mini has lead to it giving the Mini ITX format a run for its money in case mods. The latest example of this is [Luke Miani]’s M1 Wii. (Youtube via 9to5Mac)

=> ↺ DIY SpaceNavigator Brings The Freedom

• [Pepijn de Vos] wanted a 6DOF HID. You know, a 6 Degrees Of Freedom Hardware Interface Device. Those are the fancy controllers for navigating in 3D space, for uses like Computer Aided Design, or Kerbal Space Program. And while we can’t speak to [Pepijn]’s KSP addiction, we do know that the commercially available controllers are prohibitively expensive. It takes some serious CAD work to justify the expenditure. [Pepijn] falls somewhere in-between, and while he couldn’t justify the expense, he does have the chops to design and 3D print his own.

=> ↺ $1 POV Display Goes Round And Round

• You don’t need much to do a persistence of vision display. A few LEDs and a processor is all it really takes. [B45i] made a simple PC board with five LEDs and an ATtiny CPU. There’s a battery and it connects to a fan to spin around.

=> ↺ Old 6809 Computer Lives Again On Breadboards

• Among old CPUs, the 6809 never got as much attention as some of its cousins. The Radio Shack CoCo used it and so did a construction article in Wireless World Magazine. Now [Dave] has reconstructed that computer on breadboards and it looks great. The files are on GitHub and there is even a series of videos about the machine. You can watch the first one below.

=> ↺ Automatic Candy Dispenser Takes The Hard Work Out Of Halloween

• Halloween may be behind us, but we couldn’t resist showing you [Mellow]’s latest project: an automatic candy dispenser that takes the hard work out of serving trick-or-treaters. It’s a cool build that might serve as an inspiration for next year’s Halloween project, or perhaps for a different occasion altogether: think birthday parties or Valentine’s Day. After all, when’s a bad time to give sweet treats to someone you love?

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ How the FCC Shields Wireless Providers From Safety Concerns

• The health complaints started rolling in within weeks of the activation of a new cellphone tower in August 2020 in Pittsfield, an old factory town in Massachusetts’ Berkshire Mountains. Seventeen residents reported headaches, dizziness, insomnia or confusion. A few children had to sleep with “vomit buckets” by their beds.

• Like many people, Bobbie Orsi had never paid close attention to questions about the health effects of cellphone technology. She mostly viewed it as an issue that had long ago been put to rest. But after becoming the chair of Pittsfield’s Board of Health as the complaints emerged, Orsi, a 66-year-old registered nurse who had spent much of her career in public health, decided to educate herself. She combed through a stack of research studies. She watched webinars. She grilled a dozen scientists and doctors.

=> ↺ Cannabis Crop Report, 2022

• Notice please that he uses the word “honestly.” He doesn’t just give honesty lip service, though it’s challenging to speak honestly in an industry that’s like many others in which hardworking, dedicated individuals want to put a smile on their own faces and offer good news to a public that’s eager for positive, hopeful stories.

• In 2022 in the world of cannabis those stories are hard to come by, though more Americans than ever before believe that cannabis ought to be legalized by the federal government and that cannabis can be good medicine.

=> ↺ Anger as Biden EPA Backs ‘Dangerous and Unnecessary’ Oil Export Project on Texas Coast

• Environmental and climate campaigners on Wednesday expressed outrage after the Biden administration backed the approval of a massive new fossil fuel project on the Texas coast that one opponent calls “dangerous and unnecessary.” 

• “Y’all have a terrible spill record. You choose to run these pipes right up our ass. We are against this project.”

=> ↺ Voters in Deep Red South Dakota Approve Medicaid Expansion

=> ↺ ‘The Right Thing to Do’: Voters in Deep Red South Dakota Approve Medicaid Expansion

• Defying their right-wing political leaders, South Dakota voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment to expand the state’s Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act, a move that will extend public health insurance coverage to around 45,000 low-income people.

• With Tuesday’s vote, which currently sits at 56% in favor of the amendment and 44% against, South Dakota is set to become the seventh state to expand Medicaid through a ballot measure, keeping the undefeated streak for Medicaid initiatives intact.

=> ↺ Abortion Rights Win in Several Statewide Ballot Initiative Contests

Security

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Twitter Files Paperwork to Enter Payments Business

• Businesses that conduct money transfers, exchange currency or cash checks are required to register with FinCEN, and to report suspicious transactions to the agency. A FinCEN spokeswoman said the agency does not comment on specific businesses. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• Turning Twitter into a payments processor would be a return of sorts for Mr. Musk to his early days in the tech industry. In 1999, he helped found X.com, an online bank that later became the digital payments company PayPal. Mr. Musk, 51, has often mused about incorporating payments into Twitter, saying he planned to transform the social media service into an “everything app.”

=> ↺ Sacramento County Resident Joins EFF Lawsuit After Illegal Sharing of His Electricity Usage Data Makes Him a Target of Law Enforcement

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ France Sliding toward Barbarity and Chaos

• Hundreds of thousands of immigrants enter Europe illegally each year. Many head for France and stay there. They have been benefiting, since 2000, from financial aid and free medical care to which even poor French citizens do not have access. If they are arrested, like Lola’s murderer, they are ordered to leave the country, but are not placed in a detention center so the order, never enforced, is not an order at all. In 2020, 107,500 orders to leave France were issued; fewer than 7% took place.

=> ↺ Islamist mob attacks Hindu procession in Mahottari: Nepal

• Dheeraj informed that the Muslim population in his district has risen to 15 per cent. He also accused the government and administration of favouring Muslims. Furthermore, he lamented that Hindu Samrat Sena (HSS) received no support from its own community members over the incident.

=> ↺ ‘Intervention Is Actively Destabilizing the Situation’

• Janine Jackson interviewed CEPR’s Jake Johnston about US intervention in Haiti for the November 4, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

=> ↺ The Perils of Fortress NATO, Gatekeepers to Europe’s Walled Garden

• Josep Borrell, the top diplomat of the European Union, has a brutal candor rare in his profession. On October 13, he addressed an audience of aspiring diplomats with a speech that contrasted Europe, which he described as a “garden,” with much of the rest of the world, which he condemned as a “jungle.” “Yes, Europe is a garden,” Borrell said. “We have built a garden. Everything works. It is the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity, and social cohesion that humankind has been able to build—the three things together.” He added, “Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden.” The purpose of diplomacy, by his account, is to defend the garden from the jungle. Borrell called on European diplomats to be “gardeners” who would “have to go to the jungle. Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us, by different ways and means.”

=> ↺ After the Attack on Paul Pelosi, the GOP Again Is the Party of No Shame

• Like every unhappy family, every political scandal is different. But the assassination attempt that targeted Nancy Pelosi and gravely injured her husband, Paul, offers some grim points of reflection for students of recent Republican politics. These lessons stand out in especially high relief when you cast your mind back to the last midterm cycle that brought an October surprise to the GOP faithful: the 2006 scandal involving Florida Representative Mark Foley, who sent a string of sexual e-mails and texts to adolescent boys who were working as pages for the House.

=> ↺ Japan’s Discomfort in the New Cold War

• Resolute Dragon 2022 followed the resumption in September of trilateral military drills by Japan, South Korea, and the United States off the Korean peninsula; these drills had been suspended as the former South Korean government attempted a policy of rapprochement with North Korea.

• These military maneuvers take place in the context of heightened tension between the United States and China, with the most recent U.S. National Security Strategy identifying China as the “only competitor” of the United States in the world and therefore in need of being constrained by the United States and its allies (which, in the region, are Japan and South Korea).

=> ↺ Will Our War-for-Profit System Lead to Nuclear Annihilation?

• The US continues to fan the flames of nuclear conflict with massive investments in the war department. How long can this last?

=> ↺ ‘Here forever’ – or not Russian leadership announces retreat from Kherson. The latest. — Meduza

• Russian troops will retreat from Kherson. Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Shoigu ordered the withdrawal of military equipment and personnel from the right (western) bank of the Dnipro River, where Kherson is located. “Proceed with troop withdrawal and take all measures for the safe transfer of equipment, weapons, and personnel across the Dnipro,” said Shoigu.

=> ↺ Kherson collaborationist official Kirill Stremousov killed in car crash — Meduza

• Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy head of the collaborationist administration in Ukraine’s partially-occupied Kherson region, was killed in a car accident on Thursday.

=> ↺ A ‘military necessity’ and an ‘invitation to negotiate’ What’s behind Russia’s retreat from Kherson? — Meduza

=> ↺ Russian leadership announces retreat from Kherson — Meduza

• Sergey Surovikin, the commander of Russia’s troops in Ukraine, suggested during a report to Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu that Russia should leave the right bank-region (west of the Dnipro) of Kherson. Surovikin’s report was broadcast live on television channel Russia 24.

=> ↺ ‘So Irresponsible’: US Condemned for Warning Australia Against Joining Anti-Nuclear Treaty

• Anti-nuclear weapons campaigners rebuked the Biden administration on Wednesday over its opposition to Australia’s newly announced voting position on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which could signal the country’s willingness to sign on to the agreement.

• “The TPNW offers the best chance for lasting global peace and security and a clear road map for nuclear disarmament.”

=> ↺ Ukraine reportedly retakes Snihurivka, important logistics hub for Russian troops on Dnipro River’s right bank — Meduza

• The Ukrainian Armed Forces have reportedly liberated the city of Snihurivka in the Mykolaiv region.

=> ↺ General Surovikin’s ‘difficult decision’ revealed What Russia’s retreat from Kherson means for the future of the war — Meduza

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ How historically accurate is “The Crown”?

• We examined some of the most important moments of “The Crown” and researched which storylines were mostly real, and which ones leaned more toward fiction.

Environment

=> ↺ Opinion | Youth Are Demanding Loss and Damage Finance at COP27

• At the age of five, I was introduced to the climate crisis by way of a powerful rainstorm that destroyed the roof of my family’s home. This “natural hazard,” as it was framed in the local media, sparked my passion for learning about science, the world’s climate, and the overwhelming global crisis we’re facing. As I learned more during my university studies, I realized that those with the least culpability were shouldering a massive—and undeserved—punishment: The youth of my generation inherited a climate crisis that is gradually engulfing the world.

=> ↺ Critics Say US Carbon Offset Proposal ‘Poor Substitute’ for Real Climate Action

• The Biden administration faced sharp criticism from environmental justice champions on Wednesday after U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry unveiled a voluntary carbon offset scheme that he and philanthropic foundation partners say would unleash private investment to expedite a clean energy transition in low-income nations.

• “A voluntary carbon credit program won’t guarantee deep, real cuts in emissions.”

=> ↺ US Mega-Banks Behind 1/3 of Climate-Destroying Oil and Gas Expansion: Report

• Wednesday is Finance Day at COP27, the United Nations climate summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, and the advocacy group Rainforest Action Network published a report exposing how major U.S. banks are financing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of fossil fuel projects—even as they tout their purported commitment to a low-carbon future.

• “Global banks’ top fossil fuel clients amount to a rogues’ gallery of bad actors.”

=> ↺ Targeting ‘Big Oil Greed’ Helped Dems in Key Races, Say Climate Campaigners

• Election results are still rolling in and control of Congress has not yet been determined, but climate campaigners said Wednesday that one message proved to be a clear winner for Democrats in close races across the country: Big Oil is ripping off the American public.

• In a new memo, the Stop the Oil Profiteering (STOP) campaign points to key Democratic victories in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Michigan to argue that a “focus on Big Oil greed”—and Republicans’ refusal to do anything about it—was a significant factor, particularly given voters’ overriding concerns about high gas prices and inflation overall.

Energy

=> ↺ FTX: Cryptocurrency giant Binance walks away from bailout

• Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, has walked away from a bailout deal of its smaller rival FTX.

=> ↺ Binance Pulls Out of Deal to Acquire Rival [Cryptocurrency] Exchange FTX

• Over the last two years, Sam Bankman-Fried, a 30-year-old entrepreneur, built a [cryptocurrency] exchange called FTX into a $32 billion company. He spent hundreds of millions of dollars to prop up struggling [cryptocurrency] firms. And he became a major political donor to Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential campaign as well as a frequent, welcome presence in the halls of Congress.

• Then, in a matter of days, it was suddenly Mr. Bankman-Fried who needed a bailout, thanks in large part to Twitter posts from a rival that questioned the stability of FTX’s business. The tweets sparked what was essentially a three-day bank run of an estimated $6 billion that sent FTX into crisis.

=> ↺ Breaking: FTX’s Binance rescue deal falls apart in less than 48 hours

• On Nov. 9, less than 48 hours after Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao announced his intention to bail out troubled competitor FTX, Binance stated that it would not be pursuing the deal.

• A series of tweets by Binance confirmed that it would “not pursue the potential acquisition” of crypto exchange FTX citing “reports regarding mishandled customer funds and alleged US agency investigations.”

=> ↺ Is This [Cryptocurrency]’s Lehman Moment?

• Indeed, FTX’s fall — including a failed attempt to sell itself to the rival crypto exchange Binance — may turn out to be the most gripping [cryptocurrency] narrative of the year, a “Succession”-level drama involving feuding billionaires, rumors of sabotage and high-stakes battles over the future of the industry. It’s a stunning, sudden fall from grace for one of the [cryptocurrency] world’s biggest celebrities. And it signals that the industry, already reeling from a brutal year of losses, may be in for even tougher times.

• Making sense of this deal, though, requires knowing some of the complicated back story that got us here. Here’s a rough outline: [...]

=> ↺ Poland Goes Nuclear

• With breathtaking myopia, the Polish government has signed a deal to partner with the US company, Westinghouse, in the construction of three nuclear reactors in Poland.

• Apparently, everyone concerned is happy to ignore the fact that Westinghouse was bankrupted by its disastrous nuclear projects in South Carolina and Georgia. The former was canceled mid-construction and the latter, at Plant Vogtle, is now years behind schedule and well beyond its originally predicted 2016 start-up date, with ever-ballooning cost over-runs that have now topped $30 billion.

=> ↺ Opinion | Poland’s Sad Love for These U.S. Nuclear Lemons

• Congratulations must go to Poland—and to US vice president, Kamala Harris, and US energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm for brokering the deal—for its commitment to purchase a triad of American nuclear lemons.

=> ↺ Clean Energy Is Booming. Now Here’s the Bad News.

• When it comes to building more clean energy, there’s good news all around. New wind and solar generation surged 22 percent this year, which is part of a longer-term trend. Environment America found that the United States generated three times as much power from wind and solar as it did in 2012. This shift is also global: A report analyzing data from dozens of countries finds that wind and solar account for most of the growth in new electricity generation.

Finance

=> ↺ Smartphones Are Like Cars. So Why Don’t We Maintain Them?

• Another motivator may be doing the math. For about $70, you can replace your phone’s battery at a repair shop, which makes this a relatively cost-effective fix. Let’s say that in two years, you trade in your $800 phone for $300 in credit toward the new $800 model. That’s spending $500 on a phone every two years; over eight years, you will have spent $2,800 on phones. In contrast, if you hold on to an $800 phone and replace two batteries for $70 each, you will spend $940 in the same period. For many, especially families with multiple phones, that adds up to major savings.

• [...]

• But the situation for phone repairs is improving. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it would crack down on companies that prevented people from fixing their products. And a New York state law that was passed in June, which would require tech companies to open access to electronics repair and diagnostics tools, awaits a signature from Gov. Kathy Hochul.

=> ↺ How the Inflation Reduction Act May Transform the Corporate Income Tax

• There are two main reasons that this provision matters. The first is straightforward—while buybacks are often demonized for silly reasons, their current tax treatment is a very real issue. Share buybacks and dividend payouts are alternative mechanisms through which companies pay out profits to shareholders. Dividend payouts are directly taxed at the individual level. However, the money that companies pay out in buybacks, which gets to shareholders in the form of higher share prices, is not subject to tax.

• There is zero logic to this asymmetry. The government has no reason to prefer that companies pay out money as share buybacks rather than dividends, but the tax treatment gives them a clear incentive to do so. As a result, the share of after-tax profits paid out as dividends fell to less than 43% in the last decade from more than 56% in the 1960s, before the legality of buybacks had been established.

=> ↺ Deal Between Israel and Lebanon Could Usher in Additional Agreements

• I grew up in San Miguel de Tucumán, a city in northern Argentina. At the beginning of the 1900s, Tucumán received numerous immigrants from Arab countries, among them my father who emigrated from Lebanon. Tucumán was also home to a robust Jewish population that had fled persecution during WWII. It was in Tucumán where I witnessed, as an adolescent, a microcosm of peaceful co-existence and collaboration between Arabs and Jews. Dozens of businesses owned by Arabs and Jews lined the main street of the city’s business center. Many of these businesses continue to co-exist today.

• In many cases, Arab and Jewish business-owners collaborated with each other because of shared commercial interests. Hugo Japaze, an Argentinian physician whose father had a well-known store on that street, recently told me, “Both Arabs and Jews were immigrants in a new land, and they realized that they had much more to gain by working together on a friendly atmosphere than by reviving old animosities.”

=> ↺ To Defend Social Security and Medicare, Dems Urged to Lift Debt Ceiling Before 2023

• With Democrats still at risk of losing control of one or both chambers of Congress after Tuesday’s midterm elections, calls mounted for federal lawmakers and President Joe Biden to raise the debt ceiling before the new year.

• As votes were still being counted in several states Wednesday, the advocacy group Social Security Works tweeted that Democrats, led by Biden, “focused heavily on Social Security during the campaign. They made sure voters knew about Republican threats to the program, and promised that Democrats would protect Social Security.”

=> ↺ Meta Hops on Layoff Bandwagon, Zuckerberg Says ‘I Got This Wrong’

• More than 11,000 Meta employees were laid off Wednesday morning issuing another blow to the big tech job market.

=> ↺ DC Voters Overwhelmingly Pass Measure to End Tipped Minimum Wage – Truthout

=> ↺ ‘Congress Needs to Get the Message’: Nebraskans Vote to Raise Minimum Wage to $15 an Hour

• Nebraskans voted Tuesday to incrementally raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026 as corporate price hikes continue to eat into workers’ paychecks and the federal wage floor remains stuck at a paltry $7.25.

• The ballot measure, known as Initiative 433, succeeded by a vote of 58.2% to 41.8% despite opposition from influential corporate lobbying groups in the state, including the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce.

=> ↺ Opinion | Wall Street Is Gambling With Our Future. The Federal Reserve Must Act Now

• Hurricane Ian, slated to be one of the costliest storms in history, torpedoed through Cuba, Florida, and South Carolina, leaving entire neighbourhoods underwater and millions without electricity. The damages in Florida alone were catastrophic, potentially costing up to $70 billion, grinding the local economy to a halt. After a summer of crushing heat, drought, and raging wildfires, it’s clear that the physical impacts from climate change are mounting. By one estimate, climate change could cause up to $23 trillion in losses by 2050, far surpassing the 2008 financial crash. The climate crisis is pushing us into an era of profound economic instability.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Is the fediverse about to get Fryed? (Or, “Why every toot is also a potential denial of service attack”)

• In fact, this should be built right into the software. Mastodon instances should be limited from growing beyond a certain size. Instances that are already too large should have ways of encouraging people to migrate to smaller ones.

• As a community we should approach large instances as tumours: how do we break them up so they are no longer a threat to the organism?

=> ↺ Facebook parent company Meta sheds 11,000 jobs in latest sign of tech slowdown

• Facebook parent company Meta announced extensive layoffs on Wednesday, shedding 11,000 jobs, or about 13% of its staff, amid an industrywide slowdown that has rattled Silicon Valley in recent months.

=> ↺ Meta Lays Off More Than 11,000 Employees

• Since Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004, the Silicon Valley company has steadily hired more employees. At the end of September it had amassed its largest-ever number of workers, totaling 87,314 people.

• But on Wednesday, the company — now renamed Meta — began cutting jobs, and deeply.

• Meta said it was laying off more than 11,000, or about 13 percent of its work force, in what amounted to the company’s most significant job cuts. The layoffs were made across departments, though some areas, like recruiting, were affected more than others.

=> ↺ In New York, Sean Patrick Maloney’s Out. Good.

• Sean Patrick Maloney didn’t deserve to win.

=> ↺ Robert Reich: Democrats Can No Longer Compromise with “Authoritarian” Republicans

• Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich says President Biden must “push back as hard as he can” if Republicans take control of even one chamber in Congress following Tuesday’s midterm elections. He says the administration needs to be clear there is no compromise on the debt ceiling, which he expects a Republican-controlled Congress would challenge, potentially triggering a repeat of the political crisis in 2011 under former President Obama.

=> ↺ Did Gerrymandering Prevent Democrats From Winning Georgia and Ohio?

=> ↺ Summer Lee, Others Score Decisive Wins in Triumphant Night for Progressives

=> ↺ Democratic Socialist Summer Lee’s Victory in Penn. Gives Progressives a Boost in House

• Pittsburgh community organizer Summer Lee was elected the first Black woman to represent Pennsylvania in Congress after winning the state’s 12th Congressional District in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Lee, currently a state representative, faced off against Republican Mike Doyle — who happened to share the same name as the outgoing Democratic incumbent. We speak with Aimee Allison, president and founder of She the People, who explains how Lee successfully fended off a massive negative ad campaign funded by the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC. Allison also speaks about the mayoral race in Los Angeles, where progressive Karen Bass is in a tight race with billionaire Rick Caruso, as well as other races where strong progressive candidates fell short. “The heartbreaking loss of some of the nation’s best candidates demonstrates that the Democrats need to invest early and very, very strongly in these excellent candidates in order to protect and build up their capacity to turn out the votes,” says Allison.

=> ↺ Red Tsunami? More Like a Red Ripple.

• In the middle of an election night when Democrats were supposed to lose just about everything, CNN chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju stood at the edge of the House Republican Caucus “victory party” and reviewed the results as of midnight on the East Coast. The news ticker at the bottom of the screen read, “McCarthy waits to address crowd as many races remain too close to call.”

=> ↺ In Georgia, Abrams Loses, While Warnock Hangs On

• The symbolism was tough to miss: The Stacey Abrams campaign’s election-night “watch party” sat adjacent to Senator Raphael Warnock’s, one hotel away, but in an entirely different world.

=> ↺ Every Time Biden Defies Expectations, Trump’s Strength Weakens

• One result of the outcome of the midterms is that President Joe Biden will be more likely to stand for re-election in 2024 and former President Trump, who will soon announce if he will stand again for the presidency, has been weakened. Republican candidates who got his full and active support have generally fared poorly or failed to get a boost from his backing.

• The final outcome of the midterms will take time to emerge, particularly in closely fought Senate races in Georgia, Nevada and Arizona.

=> ↺ After Victory, What Will Lula’s Foreign Policy Look Like?

• But it also marked a radical turning point on a subject that receives little public attention in general: foreign policy. It’s not just that the Bolsonaro government has transformed Brazil, a giant in land area and population, into a kind of diplomatic dwarf. Nor is it just the fact that Bolsonaro turned the country’s back to Latin America and Africa. The most serious thing is that in his pursuit of aligning Brazil to the United States, Bolsonaro broke with a long tradition of Brazilian foreign policy: the respect for constitutional principles of national independence, self-determination of the peoples, non-intervention, equality between States, defense of peace, and peaceful solution of conflicts.

• Despite the different foreign policies adopted by Brazilian governments over the years, no president had ever so openly broken with these principles. Never had a Brazilian president expressed such open support for a candidate in a U.S. election, as Bolsonaro did to Trump and against Biden in 2020. Never had a president so openly despised Brazil’s main trading partner, as Bolsonaro did with China on different occasions. Never had a Brazilian president offended the wife of another president as Jair Bolsonaro, his Economy Minister Paulo Guedes, and his son Representative Eduardo Bolsonaro did in relation to Emmanuel Macron’s wife, Brigitte. And never, at least since re-democratization in the 1980s, has a president talked so openly about invading a neighboring country as Bolsonaro did toward Venezuela.

=> ↺ Sowing Seeds of Economic Democracy

• But it’s an error to gaze only where the light shines most brightly. Important developments pertaining to our democracy, particularly to economic democracy, are unfolding in many places outside the spotlight. At first glance, the developments may seem modest. But they have far-reaching consequences for the well-being of working people and for civil society at large.

• In a northeast corner of Los Angeles, not far from where I live, there’s a neighborhood called Atwater Village, and in that neighborhood an enterprise called the Proof Bakery does a thriving business selling a wide range of pastries, cakes, sandwiches, coffees, and other popular items. Three years ago, its founder and owner, Na Young Ma, decided to relinquish ownership after running the business for almost 10 years. But instead of selling the bakery to an outside owner, with all the possible consequences that could accrue from such a sale (including the firing of employees), she took the more challenging, time-consuming path of initiating a transition to a worker-owned cooperative, inspired by the long-running, successful Cheese Board Collective and Arizmendi Bakeries in California’s Bay Area (Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, San Rafael, Emeryville)

=> ↺ Joe Biden Holds Red Wave to a Ripple in Surprising Midterms

• Juan Cole considers what the 2022 midterm election results (so far) mean for both Biden and his predecessor.

=> ↺ How John Fetterman Defeated Dr. Oz, Flipping Key Senate Seat

• Jake Johnson reports on John Fetterman’s critical win for the Pennsylvania senate seat Democrats desperately need.

=> ↺ Summer Lee, Maxwell Frost Among New Progressive Champions Heading to US House

• A number of newly elected progressives from across the country are poised to join the “Squad” of left-wing champions in the U.S. House following Tuesday’s midterm elections, with Reps.-elect Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, Maxwell Frost of Florida, and others crediting their working people-focused campaigns for their victories.

• Voters “care about how much their basic needs cost,” Lee told WESA in Pittsburgh after winning in Pennsylvania’s 12th District. “Their groceries and their gas bills. They care about a living wage. These are things that truly connect us. And I believe that’s actually what makes progressives and our progressive messaging resonate.”

=> ↺ Opinion | Trump Falls Flat as Democrats Turn Red Wave Into a Puddle

• Over the past 40 years, midterm elections have typically quiet affairs in which only 38% to 40% of voters show up at the polls, and those who vote skew toward the older, wealthier and whiter spectrum of the electorate. In contrast, in presidential election years, the turnout tends to be between 58% and 66% (in 2020).

=> ↺ Opinion | Despite a Seemingly Calm Election, a Storm of Voter Suppression Is Still Brewing

=> ↺ ‘Young People Saved This Election’ for Democrats, Say Progressives

• While control of Congress remained unclear as of Wednesday afternoon, young voters who turned out for Democrats on Tuesday played a key role in blocking a “red wave” that had been anticipated based on previous midterm elections and widely predicted by political pollsters and pundits.

• “Young people proved that Gen Z is a vital voting bloc that can and will be the bedrock of the Democratic Party.”

=> ↺ ‘Seismic Win’: Michigan Voters Approve Constitutional Amendment to Protect Abortion Rights

• Michigan residents on Tuesday voted to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution, a major victory in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s deeply unpopular decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and amid a nationwide GOP assault on reproductive freedom.

• The initiative, one of several abortion-related measures on the ballot across the country Tuesday, currently leads by a margin of 55.6% to 44.4% with 84% of the votes counted.

=> ↺ Opinion | Did the Fascist Mantle Just Pass to Ron DeSantis?

• The elections appear to be a mixed bag, with young people and women, in particular, rejecting the rightwing Supreme Court Dobbs abortion decision. The early youth vote in Wisconsin, for example was 360% higher than in 2018 according to Ben Wikler, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

=> ↺ ‘Humiliating’: DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney Concedes in New York

• U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney—a powerful Democrat running in a blue New York district—conceded Wednesday to his Republican opponent in what observers are calling a “humiliating” loss after an election night in which Democratic congressional candidates collectively outperformed expectations.

• Maloney, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), admitted defeat to freshman state Assemblyman Mike Lawler (R-97) in a stinging loss for a candidate who controversially decided to run in New York’s 17th Congressional District—currently represented by progressive Rep. Mondaire Jones—after a court-appointed special master redrew district maps earlier this year.

=> ↺ 210+ GOP Candidates Who Spread Doubt and Lies About 2020 Election Won Their Races

• More than 210 Republicans who cast doubt on President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory won congressional seats and races for governor, secretary of state, and attorney general on Tuesday night, underscoring the extent to which right-wing election denialism has become entrenched in the GOP and threatens to remain a noxious force in U.S. politics for the foreseeable future.

• In a recent investigation of Republican candidates’ statements,The New York Times identified more than 370 so-called “election skeptics” who sowed doubt in some way about the 2020 contest. According to the newspaper’s Wednesday morning analysis, over half of them have won their midterm campaigns so far. It may take days or weeks for the final results to be tallied.

=> ↺ Soft Corruption At Work: Guy Who Paid Millions To Create California’s Complex & Unworkable Privacy Regime Added To Board To Enforce It

• We’ve talked in the past about “soft corruption,” a term I first heard from Larry Lessig. Lots of people have a general sense of what actual corruption is, but less understanding of the specifics. But, in general, people feel uncomfortable with the ways in which money can influence politics, even when it’s legal. Lessig’s concept of “soft corruption” is the sort of thing that is legal, but feels corrupt to most people upon seeing it. Lessig’s point is that even if the actions around soft corruption are legal, they lead to a lot less trust in the government, because no matter how legal it is, it sure feels sketchy.

=> ↺ Elon’s Twitter: Classist Blue Check System… Reinvented As Even More Elitist Gray Checks, Goes Live, Then Elon Says He’s Killed It

• I keep pointing out that Twitter was already doing most of what Elon seems to want to do, but he (and his fans) has not quite realized that. Also, while Twitter was often slow in rolling stuff out, and not the best at explaining what it was doing, many of its features were created pretty thoughtfully and carefully, taking a variety of trade-offs and issues into account. I’ve also tried to get across some of the basic realities of content moderation that Elon seems to have had difficulty grasping, including how he totally misunderstood the purpose and intent of Twitter’s verification process.

=> ↺ Georgia: Warnock-Walker Senate Race Could Head to Runoff; Gov. Kemp Defeats Abrams

• Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and his opponent Republican Herschel Walker will likely head to a runoff if neither candidate wins 50% of the vote needed to win the election outright. Warnock was able to capture more white and rural votes than Stacey Abrams, who lost to Georgia’s incumbent Republican Governor Brian Kemp, explains ​​LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter Fund. “Voter suppression has had an impact in this election,” says Brown, who joins us from Atlanta and notes how mail-in ballots in Georgia went down since 2018. We also continue our conversation with John Nichols, who describes the impact of gerrymandering in the tight House races and the Ohio Senate race, which he says was a “big loss for Democrats.”

=> ↺ Too Close to Call: Control of Senate Hinges on Races in Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona & Nevada

• The balance of power in Congress is still up in the air after Democratic candidates outperformed expectations in much of the country in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Control of the Senate now rests on four states: Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. We speak with The Nation’s John Nichols, who says Democratic Senate candidate Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes could still close the gap with Republican incumbent Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, who now has the advantage. He also says that while Republicans look favored to win the Senate seat in Nevada, the race has ended up closer than expected. “Nevada can surprise you at the end,” says Nichols.

=> ↺ Hungarian press abuzz with resignation of minister overseeing energy – official government communication all about Uzbekistan

=> ↺ Gulyás on new price caps and changes in public procurement law

=> ↺ Voters Rebuked Trump’s Bid to Seed the US Political System With MAGA Loyalists

=> ↺ Young Voters Are Driving “Generational Shift” to the Left, Ocasio-Cortez Says

=> ↺ The Right Did Worse Than Expected, But That Shouldn’t Satisfy Progressives

=> ↺ Don’t Let the “Red Ripple” Overshadow the Local-Level Progressive Victories

=> ↺ Experts Say GOP House Takeover Would’ve Been Impossible Without Gerrymandering

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

=> ↺ ‘The Crown’ Season 5 takes dramatic liberties, but here’s where they lean into history

• Esteemed actress Dame Judi Dench cosigned in a letter to The Times, calling on Netflix add a disclaimer to the series.

• “No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged,” Dench wrote. “Despite this week stating publicly that The Crown has always been a “fictionalised drama” the programme makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode.”

=> ↺ What Truth Does The Crown Owe the Monarchy?

• The scene might as well be a metaphor for The Crown itself, and show creator Peter Morgan is smart enough to recognize it. The series is fictional, which means it should not be treated with the authority of biography. It’s a dramatization rooted in well-established fact, scandalous rumors, and historical accounts from hundreds of sources with differing ulterior motives, including those within Buckingham Palace’s walls. Not everything depicted on screen actually happened. Plenty of it did. Either way, like in all fiction, there is a truth Morgan is attempting to uncover as his characters re-trace the known footsteps of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign. There is a truth that the palace tried (and continues to try) to bury, whether out of duty, embarrassment, or a tepid brew of both.

=> ↺ Princess Anne actor says disclaimers on The Crown would ‘patronise’ viewers

• Adding disclaimers to The Crown would “patronise” its worldwide audience, claims the actor who plays Princess Anne in the fifth series of the hit Netflix miniseries.

• Claudia Harrison, 46, was responding to criticism of the drama after the Queen’s death, which included former prime ministers Sir John Major and Sir Tony Blair objecting to their depictions – while Dame Judi Dench called for a disclaimer to be added to each episode.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Apple changes AirDrop sharing in China — limits anti-government protesters from bypassing censorship

• That means that individuals won’t be able to get an AirDrop transfer from a stranger without actively turning on the feature in the preceding few minutes.

• It makes it harder for anyone seeking to distribute content and reach people in a discreet manner.

• Apple made the change to AirDrop on iPhones sold in China.

• The shift came after protesters in the country used the service to spread posters opposing Xi Jinping and the Chinese government.

=> ↺ Muslim dad says daughter suffering ‘psychological trauma’ from Charlie Hebdo cartoon shown to class

• A Muslim father in Melbourne, Australia says his daughter was left with “psychological trauma” after being shown a “blasphemous” cartoon of Muhammad during a high school class.

• Posting on social media, the father said the incident occurred at a Melbourne college last month during a media studies class, where the teacher played a video showing “banned, explicit and blasphemous cartoon material developed somewhere in Europe against our Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)”.

=> ↺ Belarusian government adds slogan ‘Long live Belarus’ to list of banned ‘Nazi symbols’ — Meduza

• The Belarusian Interior Ministry has added the slogan “Zhive Belarus,” or “Long Live Belarus,” to its official list of “Nazi symbols,” the independent news outlet Zerkalo reported on Thursday, citing a decree published on the ministry’s official website.

=> ↺ Belarusian government grants amnesty to thousands of prisoners — but not to 2020 protest participants — Meduza

• Deputies from the Belarusian National Assembly’s House of Representatives voted Thursday to pass a law that will grant amnesty to 4,545 people, according to the parliament’s press service.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ ‘Arrested for doing my job’: LBC’s Charlotte Lynch tells of being held in a cell while covering M25 protest

• I showed my press card, and I was handcuffed almost immediately. My phone was snatched out of my hand. I was searched twice, held in a cell for 5 hours, and I wasn’t questioned whilst in custody.

• I asked if I could quickly call my editor to tell him that I was being taken into custody, but this was refused. All of my devices including my watch were taken away.

=> ↺ ‘She shouldn’t be arrested for doing her job’: Minister blasts cops who nicked LBC reporter covering Just Stop Oil

• “My rights were read to me so at that point I kept my mouth shut,” she said.

• She said she knew she had not committed an offence but it was still a frightening experience.

• Upon arrival at the police station she was searched again, samples of her DNA, her fingerprints and a mugshot were taken, and she was escorted down a cell.

=> ↺ Just Stop Oil: Reporter speaks about her arrest at M25 protest

• A broadcast journalist said she was handcuffed and in police custody for five hours after being arrested while reporting on a Just Stop Oil protest.

=> ↺ Three journalists locked up for covering M25 protests – police force says the arrests were justified

• Shami Chakrabarti, the former shadow attorney general, told LBC today: “If the police are now going to start arresting journalists for conspiracy to commit a public nuisance – in other words for knowing that a demonstration is about to take place – then they are effectively shutting down the free press, the free media, in this country.

• “And that means the public don’t get the opportunity to judge for themselves whether the police have policed a particular demonstration well or badly, or indeed whether the protesters behaved well or badly.

• “So this is very, very serious.”

=> ↺ Secret Power: The War on WikiLeaks

• Owen Bowcott on Italian investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi’s new book documenting attempts to demonise and destroy Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and her seven-year battle to access government information.

=> ↺ How Much Do Journalist Shield Laws Matter When A Journalist Is Murdered?

• Jeff German, a forty-year veteran investigative reporter residing in Las Vegas, Nevada, was murdered earlier this year, allegedly by a local government official whose actions had received recent criticism in articles bylined by German.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ The Story of Baby O—and the Case That Could Gut Native Sovereignty

• On November 9, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Haaland v. Brackeen. It is a sprawling case—one of the most important of the term—with potentially seismic implications for Indigenous nations in the United States. In addition to the Librettis, it hinges on the stories of two other pairs of non-Native foster parents, who collectively wanted to adopt four Native children: Chad and Jennifer Brackeen of Texas and Danielle and Jason Clifford of Minnesota. The plaintiffs are joined in trying to overturn the law by the State of Texas; defending ICWA are four federally recognized tribes (the Cherokee Nation, Oneida Nation, Quinault Indian Nation, and Morongo Band of Mission Indians) and the federal government.

• For the last three years, I have researched Brackeen, digging through the underlying custody cases along with my colleagues Amy Westervelt, Maddie Stone, and Anh Gray. In the process, I found persistent and troubling similarities. Two of these stories—those of the Brackeens and Cliffords—became the basis of the second season of This Land, a podcast I host. This is the first time I’m sharing the story of the Librettis.

=> ↺ The Kerala Story: Film on India women in Islamic State sparks row

• In the teaser – for an upcoming movie called The Kerala Story – an actress claims her character is one among 32,000 women from the state who were “converted” into Islamic terrorists.

• Some politicians from the state have called for the film to be banned.

• A journalist has written to the state’s chief minister seeking an inquiry.

=> ↺ ‘This Case Was Never About Defending Asian Americans’

• Janine Jackson interviewed Coalition for a Diverse Harvard‘s Jeannie Park about affirmative action at Harvard University for the November 4, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

=> ↺ The Rise of the Police-Advertiser

• All these stories have two things in common: One, they are all about the same brand of ALPRs, Flock Safety. And two, they’re all reminders of how surveillance technology companies are coaching police behind the scenes on how best to tout their products, right down to pre-writing press releases for the police.

• Flock Safety has distributed a Public Information Officer Toolkit, providing “resources and templates for public information officers.” A Flock draft press release states:

• This Mad Libs of a press release is an advertisement, and one Flock hopes your police departments will distribute so that they can sell more ALPRs.

=> ↺ EFF Award Winner: Kyle Wiens

• The EFF Awards is a new ceremony dedicated to the growing digital rights communities whose technical, social, economic, and cultural contributions are changing the world. We can feel the impact of their work in diverse fields such as journalism, art, digital access, legislation, tech development, and law.

• All are invited to attend the EFF Awards ceremony! The celebration will begin at 6 pm. PT, Thursday, November 10 at The Regency Lodge, 1290 Van Ness Ave. in San Francisco. Register today to attend in person. At 7 pm PT, the awards ceremony will stream live and free on Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

• We are honored to present our three winners of this year’s EFF Awards: Alaa Abd El-Fattah, Digital Defense Fund, and Kyle Wiens. But before the ceremony kick off, we want to take a closer look at each of our honorees. Up next, Kyle Wiens, EFF Award for Right to Repair Advocacy:

=> ↺ Voters in Four States Approve Bans on Forced Prison Labor

• Voters in Alabama, Tennessee, Oregon, and Vermont approved ballot measures Tuesday that would bar forced labor as punishment for those convicted of crimes in those states—an effort to close what some characterize as a “slavery loophole” contained in many state constitutions as well as within the U.S. Constitution’s 13th Amendment, which put an end to chattel slavery in 1865.

• “The idea that we as a state have said that no human being—regardless of their past—should be considered a slave or involuntary servant, how is that not exciting?”

=> ↺ Forced Prison Labor Was Also on the Ballot

• Terrancé Akins worked the entire seven years that he was incarcerated in the Hardeman Correctional Facility, a private prison contracted to imprison people in Tennessee.

=> ↺ ‘Nothing Works’: Europe Must Stop Blaming Others for Its Own Crises

• Borrell’s recent comments that “Europe is a garden” and that “the rest of the world is a jungle” were duly condemned as ‘racist’ by many politicians around the world, but mostly in the Global South. Borrell’s remarks, however, must also be viewed as an expression of superiority, not only of Borell personally, but of Europe’s ruling classes as a whole.

• Particularly interesting about the EU top diplomat’s words are these inaccurate depictions of Europe and its relationship with the rest of the world: “We have built a garden”, “everything works” and “the jungle could invade the garden”.

=> ↺ After years of EU funding: Maritime emergency centre in Libya „not operational“

• Since 2017, the EU has invested in one project alone at least €57 million to counter migration from Libya. The Brussels backers also are worried about their reputation.

=> ↺ Tomsk man prosecuted for using secure messaging app — Meduza

• A court in Tomsk has sentenced a 31-year-old man to three years of “restricted freedom” for “using a harmful program” on his computer.

=> ↺ “Abortion Rights Are Deeply Popular”: Voters Back Reproductive Freedom in State Ballot Initiatives

• Voters supported the right to abortion in at least four of the five states where reproductive rights were on the ballot in Tuesday’s midterm elections. “Abortion rights are deeply popular, and when you put the question before voters, they say yes,” said The Nation’s Amy Littlefield. She also discusses Vermont becoming the first state to enshrine abortion rights in its constitution, as well as the “historic win” in Kentucky, where voters defeated an anti-abortion ballot initiative.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ As Predicted, Starlink Launches Broadband Usage Caps, Overage Fees

• We’ve noted for a while that the laws of physics would prohibit Elon Musk’s satellite broadband service from being truly disruptive at any real scale. Analysts had been quietly noting for a while that Starlink lacked the capacity to handle its projected user load. That recently resulted in obvious slowdowns, raising the question of when the company would inevitably examine throttling and usage caps.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Ad-Based Netflix Arrives, But It’s A Bit Of A Mess

• After years of explosive growth, Netflix lost nearly a million subscribers between April and July of this year. In part due to new competition in streaming, but also because Netflix executives are stuck in this auto-cannibalism loop; sacrificing what’s popular about the service (affordability, no ads, few weird restrictions, decent content) to feed Wall Street’s insatiable need for quarterly growth.

Monopolies

=> ↺ The Most Evil Company in the World?

Patents

=> ↺ The UK Wants A Trade Deal With India That Would Boost The Already Healthy Profits Of Big Pharma, And Cause Millions Of People To Sicken

• Although trade deals are nominally about, well, trade, Techdirt readers know that they have become an important way to force through changes in areas like copyright and patents without any meaningful democratic scrutiny. That’s because trade deals are negotiated in secret, and then presented as done and dusted once talks have been concluded. The argument typically rolled out is that it was “necessary” to make various concessions in the area of copyright and/or patents in order to obtain a deal, and that now the final text has been agreed, nothing can be done about it.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Once Branded Notorious Pirates, Sites Agree to Filter Out Pirated TV Shows

• Around a decade ago, when the RIAA informed the USTR that two Czech ‘cyberlockers’ were causing problems, their chances of survival seemed somewhat limited. Today, Hellspy and Hellshare are still going strong but after months of negotiations with local TV companies, significant change lies ahead. More serious problems with the music industry could derail everything.

=> ↺ Court Upholds Piracy Blocking Order Against Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 DNS Resolver

• The Court of Rome has confirmed that Cloudflare must block three torrent sites through its public 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver. The blockade was requested by several major record labels and arrives after Italy’s telecoms regulator ordered local ISPs to block the sites. Cloudflare is not pleased with the order and previously noted that such broad measures set a dangerous precedent.

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