Would you care for a financial product in these trying times?
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IRS tax filing software released to the people as free software
Last week, the IRS published the majority of Direct File's source code to GitHub, with one of the people who worked on Direct File noting that "establishing trust with taxpayers was core to our approach for designing and building Direct File." IRS Direct File, commonly referred to as Direct File, is a tax-filing program offered by the IRS that allows US taxpayers to prepare and electronically file federal income tax returns at no cost. The majority of Direct File's source code getting uploaded to GitHub is a step forward for free software, both because of Direct File's scale and what it represents: that there is still a lot of power in collective action. It will protect the work of its developers regardless of whether Direct File will be offered for the 2025 tax season.
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IRS tax filing software released to the people as free software
Last week, the IRS published the majority of Direct File's source code to GitHub, with one of the people who worked on Direct File noting that "establishing trust with taxpayers was core to our approach for designing and building Direct File." IRS Direct File, commonly referred to as Direct File, is a tax-filing program offered by the IRS that allows US taxpayers to prepare and electronically file federal income tax returns at no cost. The majority of Direct File's source code getting uploaded to GitHub is a step forward for free software, both because of Direct File's scale and what it represents: that there is still a lot of power in collective action. It will protect the work of its developers regardless of whether Direct File will be offered for the 2025 tax season.
Over 150,000 protest across Europe against Gaza blockade and attack on “Madleen”
More than 150,000 people took to the streets across Europe, demanding an end to Israel’s Gaza blockade and condemning the assault on the vessel “Madleen”
France Moves to Classify X as an Adult Site Amid Digital ID Crackdown
France is moving to classify X as a pornographic website, a designation that would place it under the country’s mandatory age verification and digital ID laws.This step, if finalized, would force the company to either implement robust age-gating mechanisms or restrict access to adult content altogether to avoid being cut off from younger users.
It would also mean that users have to show ID to access the platform, introducing major implications for privacy and free speech.
France Moves to Classify X as an Adult Site Amid Digital ID Crackdown
France wants users to show ID at the door.Ken Macon (Reclaim the Net)
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France Moves to Classify X as an Adult Site Amid Digital ID Crackdown
France is moving to classify X as a pornographic website, a designation that would place it under the country’s mandatory age verification and digital ID laws.This step, if finalized, would force the company to either implement robust age-gating mechanisms or restrict access to adult content altogether to avoid being cut off from younger users.
It would also mean that users have to show ID to access the platform, introducing major implications for privacy and free speech.
France Moves to Classify X as an Adult Site Amid Digital ID Crackdown
France wants users to show ID at the door.Ken Macon (Reclaim the Net)
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Pavel Durov (CEO of Telegram) about the use of "the Gag order" in U.S against social media privacy
The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox)
But what Durov revealed next pulled the lens even wider. What happened in France, he said, is part of a larger pattern: governments exploiting legal systems to weaken privacy protections—and it’s even more extreme in the United States.Nitter
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If liberals refuse to say water is wet, eventually the Nazis will be trotting it out like they came up with it. Doesn't really help anyone to deny that intelligence collaboration with USA bloc is mandatory for tech companies.
Does Carlson, who wanted to join the CIA and supported all kinds of neoconservatives throughout his career, really pose any challenge to this? No, he is just going to inoculate Trump supporters from the information being used against the right, which paints itself as "against the New World Order". Fascism has done this since its inception, such as with Mussolini and others posing as anticapitalist critics as part of their eclectic strategy to gain support while out of power.
New apps help immigrants navigate Trump’s deportation crackdown
Hack Latino is an artificial intelligence-powered app for Latinos in the U.S., made by the Georgia-based entrepreneur Adrian Lozano Jr. It offers restaurant suggestions and consular information to more than 30,000 users, along with a key feature to keep them safe: a map of ICE sightings, launched in April.It is one of a slew of mobile platforms created by nonprofit organizations, independent developers, and foreign governments, which have cropped up amid a surge in immigration raids in the U.S. The Donald Trump administration has vowed to enact mass deportations from the U.S., home to some 13.7 million undocumented individuals. The digital tools provide services such as “Know Your Rights” guides, legal information, and emergency resources to help the community prepare for potential encounters with immigration authorities.
Apps such as Hack Latino or digital tools like Stop ICE Alerts function much like the community patrols of the 1990s, when neighbors and activists in neighborhoods with a large Hispanic presence would warn others about the arrival of authorities — except these apps have the added benefit of real-time technology, said Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that supports migrants and refugees.
Immigration raids fuel demand for migrant safety apps like ConsulApp - Rest of World
Tools like Hack Latino, ConsulApp, and Know Your Rights 4 Immigrants offer real-time alerts and legal help, but some are going offline under pressure.Karla Zabludovsky (Rest of World)
An LAPD helicopter claimed to have ID'ed protesters from above and threatened to "come to your house"
Cool...
This one goes out to all the small government, privacy loving, Republicans out there, supposedly hating invasive big brother tactics and representing the values of the American heartland.
Would be much appreciated if you could have a word with your people about this.
A LAPD helicopter claimed to have ID'ed protesters from above and threatened to "come to your house"
The practice, an expert warns, could lead to "reprisals and retribution by the police for your politics.”Mother Jones
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Any software defined radio that can transmit on these bands and RF amplifiers.
The ham radio community also has all the information on how to build them out of of basic components, power RF transistors being the most expensive components, but that is still dollars not tens of dollars.
Sometimes ready made gps jammers can be obtained off the shelf from overseas markets outside of the hegemon's reach.
But active protest does require being smart about it. No point in just causing irritation with the population while leaving the enemy able to operate unencumbered.
That means performing observation, OSINT, signals intelligence to understand their system and find their weaknesses.
They will have covered most vulnerabilities from their own guerilla warfare manuals so study those and find their blind spots.
Find where they have become overconfident in their hardware's ability. Where they have started taking from granted technologies that remain only reliable in peacetime.
Use their systems against them
Are you a bot? Or a paid troll? There's no way anyone has the ability to post as much drivel online as do you without having a sponsor.
First, you make an illogical statement, suggesting that social services somehow equates demographics (it doesn't) and then don't do anything to show how Russia and China have better social services. Even if they did (they don't), it wouldn't make a demographic argument.
Your first linked study is odd. It suggests that almost 70% of women and almost 60% of men will have post-secondary degrees by 2070. Even if that was realistic (it isn't), what jobs do you think these Chinese people are going to have? They would have to abandon their current economy and adopt an entirely new economy. That means someone else would have to become the world's factory. The Chinese would be too busy in other jobs. Some things scale easily. If you want to build more engines, you can ramp-up production and quickly increase the supply of engines. If you want more professors of mathematics, that takes a generation. The people have to be born, educated, and then employed. It doesn't happen at once. The rate of growth is necessarily slow. Sure, you could get post-grad garbage degrees that require very little cognitive skill, but that's not what your article is suggesting.
Second, See also here.
Your video on demographics is misleading because it looks at population growth rate. We already know China's future growth is well below what's needed because their birth rates are much, much lower. Population growth is a lagging indicator as China's "Great Leap" decimated China's population and therefore their population is missing many people who were born before 1962. These people born after the "great leap" are just now hitting retirement age. They will be dead in the next 20 years, give or take. This is why the author does not extrapolate data as it is projected into the future.
Your youtube guy also suggests that immigrants are a problem to the US. They aren't. I am friends with a LOT of immigrants. Their children are just the same as mine. One of my friends told me she was sad because her daughter cries in English. To her that was an emotional disconnect. People used to say the same of Irish and Italian Catholics, that it'll break the US. They were wrong. Both integrated very well. Hispanics integrate well. Asians integrate well.
Speaking of immigration, you still haven't replied to why nobody is immigrating to China and the US is very popular to immigrate to. It was a big part of your youtube guy's argument. But nobody on your side wants to tell us why immigrants want to go to the US but do not want to go to China.
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Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
Meta is reportedly making a $15 billion bet on AGI
Meta is reportedly making a $15 billion bet on AGI
Meta is close to finalizing an almost $15 billion investment in Scale AI, the training data giant with clients including OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta.Hayden Field (The Verge)
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk: vita del padre della Turchia moderna
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk: vita del padre della Turchia moderna
La vita, le imprese e la morte di Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, eroe e fondatore della Turchia moderna e laicaAlessandro Sabelli (Fatti per la Storia)
Airlines Don't Want You to Know They Sold Your Flight Data to DHS
Full text to bypass paywall:
A data broker owned by the country’s major airlines, including Delta, American Airlines, and United, collected U.S. travellers’ domestic flight records, sold access to them to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and then as part of the contract told CBP to not reveal where the data came from, according to internal CBP documents obtained by 404 Media. The data includes passenger names, their full flight itineraries, and financial details.
CBP, a part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), says it needs this data to support state and local police to track people of interest’s air travel across the country, in a purchase that has alarmed civil liberties experts.
The documents reveal for the first time in detail why at least one part of DHS purchased such information, and comes after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detailed its own purchase of the data. The documents also show for the first time that the data broker, called the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), tells government agencies not to mention where it sourced the flight data from.
“The big airlines—through a shady data broker that they own called ARC—are selling the government bulk access to Americans' sensitive information, revealing where they fly and the credit card they used,” Senator Ron Wyden said in a statement.
ARC is owned and operated by at least eight major U.S. airlines, other publicly released documents show. The company’s board of directors include representatives from Delta, Southwest, United, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, and European airlines Lufthansa and Air France, and Canada’s Air Canada. More than 240 airlines depend on ARC for ticket settlement services.
****Do you work at ARC or an agency that uses ARC data? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.****
ARC’s other lines of business include being the conduit between airlines and travel agencies, finding travel trends in data with other firms like Expedia, and fraud prevention, according to material on ARC’s YouTube channel and website. The sale of U.S. flyers’ travel information to the government is part of ARC’s Travel Intelligence Program (TIP).
A Statement of Work included in the newly obtained documents, which describes why an agency is buying a particular tool or capability, says CBP needs access to ARC’s TIP product “to support federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to identify persons of interest’s U.S. domestic air travel ticketing information.” 404 Media obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
A screenshot of the Statement of Work. Image: 404 Media.
The new documents obtained by 404 Media also show ARC asking CBP to “not publicly identify vendor, or its employees, individually or collectively, as the source of the Reports unless the Customer is compelled to do so by a valid court order or subpoena and gives ARC immediate notice of same.”
The Statement of Work says that TIP can show a person’s paid intent to travel and tickets purchased through travel agencies in the U.S. and its territories. The data from the Travel Intelligence Program (TIP) will provide “visibility on a subject’s or person of interest’s domestic air travel ticketing information as well as tickets acquired through travel agencies in the U.S. and its territories,” the documents say. They add this data will be “crucial” in both administrative and criminal cases.
A DHS Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) available online says that TIP data is updated daily with the previous day’s ticket sales, and contains more than one billion records spanning 39 months of past and future travel. The document says TIP can be searched by name, credit card, or airline, but ARC contains data from ARC-accredited travel agencies, such as Expedia, and not flights booked directly with an airline. “[I]f the passenger buys a ticket directly from the airline, then the search done by ICE will not show up in an ARC report,” that PIA says. The PIA notes the data impacts both U.S. and non-U.S. persons, meaning it does include information on U.S. citizens.
“While obtaining domestic airline data—like many other transaction and purchase records—generally doesn't require a warrant, there's still supposed to go through a legal process that ensures independent oversight and limits data collection to records that will support an investigation,” Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology's Security and Surveillance Project, told 404 Media in an email. “As with many other types of sensitive and revealing data, the government seems intent on using data brokers to buy their way around important guardrails and limits.”
CBP’s contract with ARC started in June 2024 and may extend to 2029, according to the documents. The CBP contract 404 Media obtained documents for was an $11,025 transaction. Last Tuesday, a public procurement database added a $6,847.50 update to that contract, which said it was exercising “Option Year 1,” meaning it was extending the contract. The documents are redacted but briefly mention CBP’s OPR, or Office of Professional Responsibility, which in part investigates corruption by CBP employees.
“CBP is committed to protecting individuals’ privacy during the execution of its mission to protect the American people, safeguard our borders, and enhance the nation’s economic prosperity. CBP follows a robust privacy policy as we protect the homeland through the air, land and maritime environments against illegal entry, illicit activity or other threats to national sovereignty and economic security,” a CBP spokesperson said in a statement. CBP added that the data is only used when an OPR investigation is open and the agency needs to locate someone related to that investigation. The agency said the data can act as a good starting point to identify a relevant flight record before then getting more information through legal processes.
On May 1, ICE published details about its own ARC data purchase. In response, on May 2, 404 Media filed FOIA requests with ICE and a range of other agencies that 404 Media found had bought ARC’s services, including CBP, the Secret Service, SEC, DEA, the Air Force, U.S. Marshals Service, TSA, and ATF. 404 Media found these by searching U.S. procurement databases. Around a week later, The Lever covered the ICE contract.
A screenshot of the Statement of Work. Image: 404 Media.
Airlines contacted by 404 Media declined to comment, didn’t respond, or deferred to either ARC or DHS instead. ARC declined to comment. The company previously told The Lever that TIP “was established after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to provide certain data to law enforcement… for the purpose of national security matters” and criminal investigations.
“ARC has refused to answer oversight questions from Congress, so I have already contacted the major airlines that own ARC—like Delta, American Airlines and United—to find out why they gave the green light to sell their customers' data to the government,” Wyden’s statement added.
U.S. law enforcement agencies have repeatedly turned to private companies to buy data rather than obtain it through legal processes such as search warrants or subpoenas. That includes location data harvested from smartphones, utility data, and internet backbone data.
“Overall it strikes me as yet another alarming example of how the ‘Big Data Surveillance Complex’ is becoming the digital age version of the Military-Industrial Complex,” Laperruque says, referring to the purchase of airline data.
“It's clear the Data Broker Loophole is pushing the government back towards a pernicious ‘collect it all’ mentality, gobbling up as much sensitive data as it can about all Americans by default. A decade ago the public rejected that approach, and Congress passed surveillance reform legislation that banned domestic bulk collection. Clearly it's time for Congress to step in again, and stop the Data Broker Loophole from being used to circumvent that ban,” he added.
According to ARC’s website, the company only introduced multifactor authentication on May 15.
U.S. Counterintel Buys Access to the Backbone of the Internet to Hunt Foreign Hackers
Getting information from the NSA would take too long, according to internal documents from a counterintelligence agency. So it turned to Team Cymru to buy netflow data that can allow analysts to track activity through virtual private networks.Joseph Cox (404 Media)
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Greta Thunberg deported to Paris after Israel illegally invades humanitarian aid boat "Madleen" on international waters and kidnappes crew.
Greta Thunberg speaking with France 24 after her deportation from Israel:
Greta Thunberg arrives in Paris after deportation from Israel
Greta Thunberg arrived in Paris after being deported by Israel, saying she was “illegally attacked and kidnapped”.Al Jazeera
IAEA an 'instrument for Israel,' secret documents seized by Iran reveal
IAEA an 'instrument for Israel,' secret documents seized by Iran reveal
Iranian media says the documents show that Tehran’s confidential letters to the IAEA were passed on to Israelthecradle.co
"Write a program that does this."
"Fix this part"
"And this part"
"And this part"
"Wait you fucked up the first part again, change it back to when you first fixed it."
"Ok now fix this last part."
"Damnit why do you keep changing the first part I already told you it was fine!"
Chat length limit reached, please start a new chat.
Pentagon draws up rules on possible use of force by Marines deployed to LA protests
Pentagon was scrambling Monday to establish rules to guide U.S. Marines who could be faced with the rare and difficult prospect of using force against citizens on American soil, now that the Trump administration is deploying active duty troops to the immigration raid protests in Los Angeles.
U.S. Northern Command said it is sending 700 Marines into the Los Angeles area to protect federal property and personnel, including federal immigration agents. The 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines are coming from Twentynine Palms, California, and will augment about 4,100 National Guard members already in LA or authorized to be deployed there to respond to the protests.
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Israel says it is keeping Rima Hassan because hostage taking is only wrong when Hamas does it
Israel has already proven it’s the good guy by spraying the Madleen with an unknown chemical, ramming the vessel, boarding it and making the crew throw their mobile phones overboard.Israeli commandos were so nice during the encounter that they agreed not to kill anyone as long as they showed total obedience. In fact, the commandos showed such restraint that they didn’t even strip anyone naked. Well, not that I know of…
Israel was temporarily nice to the crew of the Madleen so it could get a propaganda picture and then it took them ashore where it tried to make them watch footage of October 7. When the crew refused, it demanded they sign deportation papers accepting they had illegally entered Israel, even though they were in international waters and it was Israel who took them to Israel!
I understand some of the Madleen crew signed the deportation papers and were sent on their way, but disgracefully, Rima Hassan refused to be repatriated. Apparently, she wouldn’t confess to something she hadn’t done because she has “principles”. Israel says it therefore has no choice but to keep her as a hostage, I mean an, um, prisoner.
Obviously, prisoner is the only accurate word to describe someone who is being illegally detained, having committed no crime. Hassan can’t be a hostage because she smiled defiantly and ate a sandwich and no hostage would ever eat a sandwich. It disrespects all those who were captured on October 7 to call Hassan a hostage, just because she is being held against her will after being abducted by armed men.
I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but Hassan is Palestinian and it’s fine to treat Palestinians this way. It’s what Israel has always done x
Israel says it is keeping Rima Hassan because hostage taking is only wrong when Hamas does it
She refused to sign a false confession...Laura (Normal Island News)
FundMECFS likes this.
From a more credible source:
France’s foreign minister said that crew members who refused to agree to depart voluntarily would be deported.
“Last night our consul was able to see the six French nationals who were arrested by the Israeli authorities. Their families have been contacted. One of them agreed to a voluntary departure and is expected to return today. The other five will be deported,” Jean-Noël Barrot wrote in a post on X.
Israel’s foreign ministry had said earlier that anyone who refused to sign deportation documents and leave Israel would be brought before judicial authorities to authorize their deportation.
edition.cnn.com/2025/06/10/mid…
So they are free to leave if they want. They do not want to and now Israel has to the whole judical due process to deport someone as they can't simply deport people who do not want to leave. Somehow this article is claiming that this is the same as a terror group invading peaceful villages, murdering civilians, taking hostages and keeping them prisoner for years.
Israel is demanding that she signs an illegal deportation order, Even though they were kidnapped on international waters and being held hostage inside Israel.
Israel is demanding that she signs an illegal deportation order, Even though they were kidnapped on international waters and being held hostage inside Israel.This is outrageous and sadly not many politicians seem to care protesting it and calling for Israel to be held accountable
#France #FreeTheHostages #FreedomFlotilla #Genocide #Israel #EUpol #EUparliament #SanctionIsrael #Gaza #Genocide #FreeRima
Free Free Palestine!
Free Free Palestine! A space for activists and Palestinians to connect and amplify their efforts for the liberation of Palestine. Promote Palestinian solidarity events, or document and share here.Mastodon hosted on freefree.ps
Hang on, did the iPad just become a computer?
Hang on, did the iPad just become a computer?
At WWDC, Apple announced a new version of iPadOS with much more powerful window management. It turns the tablet into a surprisingly capable computer.David Pierce (The Verge)
Google’s AI search features are killing traffic to publishers
Google’s AI search features are killing traffic to publishers | TechCrunch
Google’s AI Overviews and other AI-powered tools, including chatbots, are devastating traffic for news publishers, per a Wall Street Journal report.Rebecca Bellan (TechCrunch)
Microsoft Edge is getting an AI-powered browser history that works with typos
Microsoft Edge is getting an AI-powered browser history that works with typos
Microsoft is adding an AI-powered browser history search feature to Edge. It lets you find websites in your browser history by using phrases and synonyms.Tom Warren (The Verge)
Practical bicycles / Velocars at the SPEZI bike show 2025
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Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
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Mergulhe em Aventuras Digitais com a MerwomanPG
Se você gosta de emoção, estratégia e recompensas, a MerwomanPG é uma plataforma que merece a sua atenção. Com um ambiente moderno e recheado de opções de jogos interativos, ela se consolidou como um dos principais destinos para quem busca diversão e praticidade no mundo digital.
A proposta da MerwomanPG vai além de apenas oferecer jogos: ela proporciona uma verdadeira jornada interativa. Cada seção do site é pensada para facilitar a navegação e oferecer uma experiência fluida. A estética é vibrante e os menus são intuitivos, permitindo que o jogador encontre seus títulos favoritos com poucos cliques.
A grande estrela da plataforma são suas máquinas temáticas, que transportam os usuários para diferentes universos: mundos mitológicos, aventuras espaciais, piratas, tesouros perdidos e muito mais. Cada jogo traz gráficos de alta definição, trilhas sonoras envolventes e diversas formas de acumular prêmios, como rodadas bônus, multiplicadores e níveis especiais.
Além disso, a MerwomanPG promove eventos e campanhas com frequência. Os jogadores podem participar de torneios, desafios relâmpago e sorteios com premiações atrativas. Isso cria uma comunidade ativa, onde os participantes compartilham experiências e celebram conquistas.
A acessibilidade é outro ponto forte. O site é compatível com dispositivos móveis e permite que o usuário jogue sem travamentos, mesmo em conexões mais simples. O registro é rápido e os métodos de pagamento são variados, com destaque para opções nacionais como PIX.
Para quem procura uma plataforma divertida, segura e recheada de oportunidades, a MerwomanPG é uma escolha certeira. Experimente hoje mesmo e descubra tudo o que ela pode oferecer!
EU holds back on taxing US Big Tech
In April, EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen floated an 'Amazon tax' on digital ads as a counter to US tariffs. But with the EU now limiting retaliation to goods, the bloc appears to be backing away from that threat.
Archived version: archive.is/newest/euobserver.c…
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Spain | Supreme Court to prosecute Attorney General for disclosing confidential information
Supreme Court probe finds evidence Spain’s top prosecutor leaked confidential data in a politically sensitive case tied to Madrid’s regional government.
Fatal shooting in secondary school in Graz, Austria
Several people have been killed in a shooting that took place in a secondary school in south-eastern Austria.
Archived version: archive.is/newest/euractiv.com…
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Landmark High Seas Treaty now ‘inches away’ from ratification
The High Seas Treaty, adopted in 2023, would allow countries to establish marine protected areas in international waters.
Archived version: archive.is/newest/euronews.com…
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Londra e Parigi cercano di trattenere gli USA in Europa il più a lungo possibile
Politica interna, europea e internazionale reshared this.
California Governor calls out Alabama murder rate after Senator Tuberville says LA is ‘a third world country’
Gavin Newsom calls out Alabama murder rate after Tuberville says LA is ‘a third world country’
Tuberville joined Trump in saying the California governor should be arrested.Heather Gann | hgann@al.com (al)
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“Alabama has 3X the homicide rate of California,” Newsom wrote Monday in a post to X.
Meanwhile, over here in California, kids are literate. Alabama can't claim that.
Fuck you, Tommy, you stupid piece of shit. I don't love my gov (I quite dislike him, though he's been all right in the last two days). At least his name doesn't sound childish: Tommy Tuberville, the guy who held up military promotions because he's a bigot. Get fucked, bud.
Meanwhile, over here in California, kids are literate.
California, shockingly, has the lowest literacy rate of any state
“We really haven’t been investing” for decades, she said. “We’ve been underspending the entire time.”California, currently sitting on a surplus bigger than many states’ entire budgets, has for years spent less – about 13 percent less – than the national average on K-12 schools. Recent research shows that even high-performing California students score lower on standard tests than their counterparts in better performing states.
School spending, of course, is only one factor shaping California’s dismal literacy rate. The state has the most diverse population in the country, more than 200 languages are spoken here. California also has the biggest wealth chasm.
...
Parental education might be the biggest factor. But income disparity – which is linked to parental education – plays a role as well. A big role. States with large percentages of highly literate parents unsurprisingly had highly proficient 8th graders, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.Those states also had, among other things, more libraries per capita than the national average.
California has the most public libraries of any state, with 1,130, said State Librarian Greg Lucas, but because of its huge population, the state falls below the per-capita national average. California has 4.5 libraries per 100,000, and the national average is 5.2.
Lucas said public libraries help school kids who speak one of California’s 200-plus languages to find reading material, while also helping adults whose hopes of a better job require some level of literacy.
...
“There are stacks of studies that show that caregivers who talk, read and sing help build an appetite for reading. And there’s another big stack that says a kid succeeds better at a school with a teacher librarian,” he added.California, unfortunately, trails the pack on that measure, too. The state has about 900 teacher-librarians (credentialed teachers with a library sciences degree) for its more than 6 million school kids. Texas has around 4,300 such specialists and a million fewer kids.
California, shockingly, has the lowest literacy rate of any state - Capitol Weekly
One in four people over the age of 15 lack the skills to decipher the words in this sentence, says the nonpartisan World Population Review.WILL SHUCK (Capitol Weekly)
False:
google.com/search?q=literacy+b…
Top hit. Try harder.
U.S. Literacy Rates by State 2025
Discover population, economy, health, and more with the most comprehensive global statistics at your fingertips.worldpopulationreview.com
Even with this revised data, California has some of the worst literacy rates in the nation to the point of being worse that Alabama
Colorado bill to hold social media companies responsible for protecting children fails
They hoped their children’s deaths would bring change. Then a Colorado bill to protect kids online failed
Parents who lost children to online harms helped draft the bill – then watched it collapse under political pressureKatie McQue (The Guardian)
China's electric cars are becoming slicker and cheaper - but is there a deeper cost?
China's electric cars are cheaper, but is there a deeper cost?
The future for EVs will inevitably involve China. But where does that leave the UK and Europe markets – and what of the questions around national security?Theo Leggett (BBC News)
Abbas calls Hamas 'sons of dogs' and demands release of hostages
Abbas calls Hamas 'sons of dogs' and demands release of hostages
Palestinian Authority president says that Hamas has given Israel "excuses" to continue the Gaza war.Sebastian Usher & David Gritten (BBC News)
Ten Things
This year our Ten Things column each month is alternating between composers and artists a century at a time from pre-1500 to 20th century. As always, there’s no guarantee you will have heard of them all!
Ten Artists Born in 17th Century
- Claude Lorrain
- Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
- Willem van der Velde the Younger
Willem van der Velde the Younger
Calm: Fishing Boats under Sail - Johannes Vermeer
- Wenceslaus Hollar
- Aelbert Cuyp
- Pieter de Hooch
- Antoine Watteau
- William Hogarth
- Peter Lely
Monolinugal people thinking that the pronounciation of some rare words is the big issue when learning languages...
Dude, try memorizing the correct grammatical gender for every single noun or every single exception to regular declinations. And that's just for a medium-difficulty language like German.
You know how there's simple English versions of news articles? The same thing exists with German. And the language in these Simple German articles is more difficult than the regular English version.
English is THE easy mode language of the world, which is why e.g. pretty much anyone in Europe defaults to it if they are speaking to anyone who speaks a different native language. Like, if someone from Austria speaks with someone from Ukraine, they will use English.
‘Wildly underprepared’: National Guard troops seen sleeping on floors in exclusive photos
President Donald Trump’s rush to deploy California National Guard troops to Los Angeles has left dozens of soldiers without adequate sleeping arrangements, forced to pack together in one or more federal buildings, resting on the floors of what appear to be basements or loading docks, the Chronicle has learned.
Archived version: archive.is/20250610022639/sfch…
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db2
in reply to Pro • • •Maybe they should do taxes like every other civilized society instead of the bait and switch they do now.
Better yet, tax businesses and the top 10%, eliminate income tax for everyone else. It's a net gain and not a small one.
SabinStargem
in reply to Pro • • •witten
in reply to SabinStargem • • •SabinStargem
in reply to witten • • •