Two babies died of starvation in Gaza due to Israel’s continuing blockade of vital aid. The deaths come as the US approved $30 million in funding for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed while trying to get food from its aid centres.

Babies starve to death in Gaza as US approves more GHF funding

^{Al Jazeera}

Normalization between Damascus and Tel Aviv means that hundreds of thousands of people died and a stable nation was destroyed, while every ethnic/religious group turned on each other, all so that Israel could usurp more territory and deal a blow to the Palestinian resistance. There’s no way to sugar coat it.

If Syria Normalizes Ties with Israel, It Is Complicit in Genocide - Analysis - Palestine Chronicle

As has always been the case, Palestine is the litmus test, and Damascus has so far failed it dramatically. 

^{admin (Palestine Chronicle)}

Almost 84,000 people died in Gaza between October 2023 and early January 2025 as a result of the Hamas–Israel war, estimates the first independent survey of deaths. More than half of the people killed were women aged 18–64, children or people over 65, reports the study, which was posted on the preprint server medRxiv last week1. It has not been peer reviewed.

First independent survey of deaths in Gaza reports more than 80,000 fatalities

Results align with other efforts to count the number of people killed amid the ongoing conflict.

^{Fieldhouse, Rachel}

https://healthimaging.com/topics/medical-imaging/magnetic-resonance-imaging-mri/new-ai-enabled-helium-free-mri-system-earns-fda-clearance

Government condemns Glastonbury chants aired live on BBC (2025-06-28)

bbc.com/news/articles/c33514nr…
———

>> The [UK] government has "strongly condemned" chants at #Glastonbury Festival from rap punk duo Bob Vylan calling for "death" to the Israeli military and broadcast live on the BBC.

>> Rapper Bobby Vylan led chants of "free, free Palestine" and "death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]" during their set, which came just before Belfast rap trio Kneecap.

>> A BBC spokesperson said some of the comments were "deeply offensive", adding it had issued a warning on screen about "very strong and discriminatory language". The set will not be available to rewatch on BBC iPlayer.

>> Police said they were reviewing videos of comments made by Bob Vylan and #Kneecap to decide whether any offences had been committed.

#BobVylan #FreePalestine
@palestine@a.gup.pe @israel

Government condemns Glastonbury chants aired live on BBC

Chants from rap duo Bob Vylan were streamed live and called for "death" to the Israeli military.

^{Zahra Fatima (BBC News)}

It was the hardest day of my life. I’ve never felt humiliation like I did that day.

I hope food can get through soon and be distributed in a respectful way, without humiliation and killing. The current system is chaotic and deadly.

There’s no justice in it. Most end up with nothing, because there’s no organised system and there’s too little aid for too many people.

‘My journey to get aid in Gaza was like Squid Game’

Editor’s note: The following personal account of Yousef al-Ajouri, 40, was told to Palestinian journalist and MEE contributor Ahmed Dremly in Gaza City. It has been edited for brevity and clarity.

^{Ahmed Dremly (Middle East Eye)}

It was the hardest day of my life. I’ve never felt humiliation like I did that day.

I hope food can get through soon and be distributed in a respectful way, without humiliation and killing. The current system is chaotic and deadly.

There’s no justice in it. Most end up with nothing, because there’s no organised system and there’s too little aid for too many people.

‘My journey to get aid in Gaza was like Squid Game’

Editor’s note: The following personal account of Yousef al-Ajouri, 40, was told to Palestinian journalist and MEE contributor Ahmed Dremly in Gaza City. It has been edited for brevity and clarity.

^{Ahmed Dremly (Middle East Eye)}

Looking back, my subscription-ending journey—or perhaps more accurately, subscription-consciousness journey—was a product, at least in part, of post-COVID lockdown reflections on what I really need and how I’d really like to spend my time. The excess of my subscriptions had started to feel akin to hoarding, and I needed to clear space, even if most of that space was intangible. There was also the lightbulb realization that has become more and more common amongst Millennials, that, despite our monthly investments in accessing various forms of media, we don’t actually own most of the culture that we consume. What’s more, should the companies that do own that media go defunct or be sold to entities that we may prefer not to do business with, we really wouldn’t have much recourse—except to unsubscribe.

This could mean years and years of playlists and TV shows and films that we would no longer have access to because they were never really ours to begin with, ultimately leaving us with nothing. And while I’m not interested in owning many things from culture, save for books and some fashions, I do think ownership of culture in its various forms serves more than capitalistic desire. Our things can be physical memories of what we love or once did, what has been passed on and gifted to us, and sometimes, reminders of what we saved and scraped for—emblems of hard-fought earnings. We are robbed of this when we choose to rent something out of convenience or compulsion instead of mindfully acquiring things that are truly meaningful to us.

https://conversationalist.org/2025/06/25/soapbox-unsubscribe-subscriptions-community-streaming-platforms-netflix-spotify-amazon-capitalism/

https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-06-26-2025-a5c3052d1d983329b5d9a2f3986811fe

“We want our publishers to stand with us. To make a pledge that they will never release books that were created by machines.”

Against AI: An Open Letter From Writers to Publishers

To Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, and all other publishers of America: We are standing on a precipice. At its simplest level, our job as …

^{Literary Hub}

Brother has indicated that this vulnerability cannot be fully remediated in firmware, and has required a change to the manufacturing process of all affected models.

On May 19, China’s top law enforcement agency released measures for the roll-out of “cyber IDs” (网络身份认证), a new form of user identification to monitor internet users. Although the measures were released as a draft over the summer last year, they have only just been finalized, and will come into effect in mid-July.

According to the measures, introduced by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), each internet user in China will be issued with a unique “web number,” or wanghao (网号), that is linked to their personal information. While these IDs are, according to the MPS notice, to be issued on a strictly voluntary basis through public service platforms, the government appears to have been working on this system for quite some time — and state media are strongly promoting it as a means of guaranteeing personal “information security” (信息安全). With big plans afoot for how these IDs will be deployed, one obvious question is whether these measures will remain voluntary.

Lingua Sinica Newsletter, 8 August

News, analysis, and commentary on Chinese-language media from the PRC and beyond.

^{Lingua Sinica}

Easy, short but steep
1 mile out and back
312 ft elevation Gain
Hiked 5/27/25

This short trail begins with a very steep grade down to Connaught creek (formerly bear creek) with a stair section at the lowest. Photos of the falls come from this area downstream. Climbing another staircase puts you at the falls, surrounded by a massive mist cloud. Entertaining, but no pics. This was still during melt season and it was absolutely raging at the time.

Connaught creek rushes by as Bear creek falls rages in the distance.

The steep stairwell leading to the river below.

The steepest part of the trail is these steps, but it maintains a lot of slope in its short run.

On May 19, China’s top law enforcement agency released measures for the roll-out of “cyber IDs” (网络身份认证), a new form of user identification to monitor internet users. Although the measures were released as a draft over the summer last year, they have only just been finalized, and will come into effect in mid-July.

According to the measures, introduced by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), each internet user in China will be issued with a unique “web number,” or wanghao (网号), that is linked to their personal information. While these IDs are, according to the MPS notice, to be issued on a strictly voluntary basis through public service platforms, the government appears to have been working on this system for quite some time — and state media are strongly promoting it as a means of guaranteeing personal “information security” (信息安全). With big plans afoot for how these IDs will be deployed, one obvious question is whether these measures will remain voluntary.

Lingua Sinica Newsletter, 8 August

News, analysis, and commentary on Chinese-language media from the PRC and beyond.

^{Lingua Sinica}

cross-posted from: slrpnk.net/post/23993774

Practical Retrofitting for Obsolete Devices | Much like classic cars can be fitted with an EV motor, it is possible to retrofit older devices in order to make them usable again in a connected world