Steven Palmer, who had worked at the bureau since 1998, was fired as head of the FBI’s critical incident response group which is responsible for handling major security threats as well as overseeing the agency’s fleet of jets. He was the third head of the unit to be dismissed since Patel became the second Trump administration’s FBI director in February.

Bloomberg Law, which broke the story, said that three unnamed sources had expressed astonishment at the sacking given that Patel’s flight schedules were fully public and trackable on websites. A day after her performance, Patel himself had reposted photos showing him together with his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, on his X account.

According to Bloomberg, Patel had become furious over stories published after the event about his use of the FBI jet to go on the date with Wilkins. Soon after, Palmer had been told he could resign instantly or be fired.

The dismissal was made official on Friday.

FBI fires top official amid Kash Patel’s outrage over reports of agency jet use

Patel reportedly became furious after revelation he flew to visit girlfriend and agency fired official who oversees fleet

^{Ed Pilkington (The Guardian)}

Human-rights attorneys in Chicago say they cannot account for more than 3,000 people arrested during a federal immigration crackdown known as "Operation Midway Blitz," raising concerns about due process, transparency, and possible coerced departures.

Immigration and Border Patrol officers have arrested more than 3,000 people who authorities say were in the U.S. illegally and in some cases wanted for serious crimes, all in the seven weeks since feds intensified their efforts in the state.

Attorneys consulted by NBC Chicago, however, say federal authorities have refused — or are unable — to disclose where many of those detainees are being held or whether they have already been deported.

"It is quite dire," said Mark Fleming of the National Immigrant Justice Center, which is suing federal authorities. "These are folks that have been here for decades, have long standing ties to the community, family members, employment, businesses that are all being torn apart."

Thousands Of Jailed Immigrants in Chicago Have Vanished From Federal Records, Human Rights Attorneys Claim

"These are folks that have been here for decades, have long standing ties to the community, family members, employment, businesses that are all being torn apart," said one attorney

^{Pedro Camacho (Latin Times)}

Genitori, dal 2012 a oggi è cambiato molto: i baby food hanno limiti più severi su pesticidi, metalli e micotossine, controlli costanti e standard vicini allo “zero analitico”. Ma una cosa non è cambiata: il marketing confonde. Il nostro vademecum serve a scegliere senza paura né sprechi.

Cosa guardare? Non il packaging, ma l’etichetta: cercate la dicitura “Alimento per la prima infanzia” o “specificamente formulato per… mesi/anni”. Solo così scattano le norme più rigide. Verificate la fascia d’età, ingredienti semplici, zuccheri aggiunti assenti o minimi, sale basso, niente aromi superflui. Diffidate dei “per tutta la famiglia” quando servono a bimbi di 6–12 mesi.

E il fatto in casa? Resta un alleato: materie prime di qualità, sapori veri, meno sale e zucchero. L’industriale oggi è più sicuro, ma non sostituisce educazione al gusto e buon senso.

Alimenti per l'infanzia: cosa è cambiato dal 2012 e come scegliere oggi

  Che gli alimenti per bambini siano oggetto di tanta attenzione da parte dei genitori è cosa del tutto ovvia. Se poi il rischio in chi li ...

^{Giuliano (Blogger)}

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/adeia-sues-amd-over-hybrid-bonding-tech-behind-3d-v-cache

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/03/poll-americans-political-violence-00632864

The plan, outlined in a public notice posted Thursday, is the latest step in an unprecedented Trump administration initiative to pool confidential data from varied sources that it claims will help identify noncitizens on voter rolls, tighten immigration enforcement and expose public benefit fraud.

According to emails obtained by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, DHS approached Texas officials in June about a pilot program to add the state’s driver license data, but it’s not clear if the state participated.

Incorporating driver’s license information would allow election officials whose rolls don’t include voters’ Social Security numbers to conduct bulk searches by driver’s license number. Ultimately, the system would link these two crucial identifiers for the purpose of citizenship checks, said Michael Morse, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

“It is the key that unlocks everything,” Morse said.

DHS Wants States to Hand Over Driver’s License Data for Citizenship Checks

It’s the latest step in an unprecedented initiative to pool confidential data that the Trump administration claims will help identify noncitizens on voter rolls and tighten immigration enforcement.

^{Peter.DiCampo@propublica.org (ProPublica)}

I am testing crowd-funding goals:

GOAL: Add image support to PixelSocial comments

DESCRIPTION: Allow to attach images in post comments in PixelSocial in-chat mini-app

💜 if you would like this to happen, give a tip 👉 ko-fi.com/adbenitez/goal?g=0

GitHub - ArcaneCircle/pixelsocial: The pixelated social network

The pixelated social network. Contribute to ArcaneCircle/pixelsocial development by creating an account on GitHub.

^GitHub

cross-posted from: news.abolish.capital/post/5407

Debunking magical thinking about the US regaining its manufacturing mojo at scale.

Steve Keen highlighted a YouTube video on why the US manufacturing goose is cooked and will stay cooked. The points it makes are broader than the observation we have repeatedly made, that for the US to have any hope of resoring its industrial capacity, it will require way more than just tariffs but sustained industrial policy. But as we will explains, it also is romantically anchored in a past of manufacturing as a generator of many and good middle class jobs, when production is now highly automated and requires few if any workers.

There are two obvious problems in the US with trying to implement industrial policy. The first is that the US is allergic to it and engages in it mainly on an a default basis, via subsidies and tax breaks to politically powerful sectors. See healthcare, the arms industry, banking, real estate, and higher education as some of many examples. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act proved that rule, by trying to achieve a hodge-podge of objectives, none of them very well.1

The second reason is that the US (ex when on a World War II level war footing) is incapable of sustaining any economic policy over time. Effective rebuilding on a large-scale basis would take at least ten years, even assuming it could be done.

This video provides some useful high level history but is simplistic and at points, inaccurate:

While it makes some important points, such as the virtuous circle that results from manufacturing prowess and how it produces spillover benefits, for instance, to suppliers, it incorrectly implies that manufacturing still generates a significand number of high wage jobs. In fact, industrial kingpin China was reporting 21.3% reported youth unemployment when it suspend publishing the data in 2023 to review the methodology. Its revised, presumably more flattering methodology, showed a still eye-watering 18.9% in August and 17.7% in September.

The rise of highly automated factories, including dark factories that have no humans present during routine operations, has broken the connection between manufacturing and job growth. A summary from Engineerine

From naked capitalism via This RSS Feed.

Mission Impossible: Why the US Cannot Reverse Its Manufacturing Decline | naked capitalism

^{Yves Smith (naked capitalism)}

I'm in the market for a new phone, and I'd like it to be Linux. As I've been building a table of options, I thought I'd share it. It's a wide table; sorry about that.

Updates

• The F(x)tec Pro1 X is available
• ShiftPhone 8.1 added (pre-order)

It's very "me" oriented: it's biased toward US markets ('cause that's where I am); it summarizes several features such as the CPU, display, and camera (all of which get spec'd out ad nauseum in marketing) which I'm too lazy to standardize; and it's biased toward device availability. Since there isn't a huge selection of options, the minute details hold less relevance.

I welcome updates, clarifications, and corrections; I expect to keep this table up to date until at least such time as I acquire a Linux phone -- even if I am forced into using a de-Googled Android in the meantime. Given Google's shenanigans of late, I am going to factor "Linux-ability" of the de-Googled phones, in the hopes that after Google screws over the forks, we'll still have the option of installing some future more compatible mobile Linux distribution.

I've also considered making a public Cryptopad spreadsheet, but I kind of hate working with SPAs.

Minutia

• There are many more potential specs for Display, but not all vendors include all specs: nits, refresh rate, touch sample rates, colors, contrast, and protective glass. This can all be useful information, but not all vendors provide all specs, and it would blow up the table. Therefore, I include the most common information: diagonal size, technology (if provided), and dimensions.
• CPU specifics are restricted to the basics. Most specs list # of performance vs efficiency cores, multiple speed specs, and just a ton of information that wouldn't fit easily into a table; and not all vendors provide the same amount of data in anything like a standard format. So, I include the family and the fastest clock speed, because I'm not sure that even with all the other variables you could calculate an expected standby run time by knowing the slower clock speeds.
• Cameras are in megapixels, and are back/front resolutions. I do not care about video capture frame rates, modes or anything else about the camera. I have a real camera for photography.
• Mem is RAM/storage, and whether the phone takes SD cards
• Battery is in mAh, and an r suffix means replacable
• USBC is the supported version of USB-C on the device; (v) means I confirmed it supports 3.0's video-over-USB; 2.0 never does, but sometimes 3.0 doesn't, either.
• Lnx in this context doesn't mean "you can boot it," but "you can make calls" -- IE, what most people would consider daily driving. A smart phone is considered functional if
  
  • Calls can be placed and received
  • The screen works
  • The WiFi works
  • The speakers work
  • The USB connection works (you can charge the phone)

  In particular, VoLTE is becoming mandatory on many networks in the US, and several EU phones apparently don't support it on US networks (if at all?). Wireless charging appears to require chip support which nobody has implemented Linux drivers for. None of these phones have wireless charging, and if they did, the impression I got was that it wouldn't work under Linux anyway. Regardless, while some people might have that as a minimum requirement, I do not consider it in the "daily driver" category.

  Murena phones come with /e/OS; some are available with Ubuntu Touch.

• US is whether or not it works on US networks, AFAICT
• Avail is whether you can get your hands on one right now. Several of these are pre-order.
• I did not convert Price to dollars, despite this being a US-centric table, because exchange rates are highly variable. A couple of phones I may not flesh out; the Pine64 has embarassing hardware, and I'm fairly certain by now the the Jolla doesn't work in the US; since my goal is to get a phone for me, I'm not spending time filling in data for a phone which can't work.
  Therefore, while I'm not including all de- Googled phones, I'm including some -- especially if Linux support seems to be coming along. I'm also considering only contemporary technology, because even if the battery is replaceable, I'd really not buy myself into having to upgrade soon. Murena, in particular, sells several Pixels (5, 7, 8) with /e/OS.

Phone notes

• FairPhone 5
  The one phone Murena skipped importing into the US was the FairPhone 5, despite a promising post in 2023 claiming it was coming. It's the one most interesting, and would probably be at the top of my list. The 6 doesn't bring a lot to the table and is both larger and more expensive.
• The Jolla Phone
  Jolla no longer makes this phone, and the specs are quite old.
  Jolla phones ran Sailfish, which is neither Android nor Linux, but which apparently was pretty nice. I have no knowledge of whether it was what privacy wonks would consider "secure", but it isn't open source and you can not trust anything that isn't open source.
• Volla phones
  None of the Volla phones have ever been imported into the US, and I've seen commentary that they both work on US networks, and don't. Volla phones are quite nice, specs-wise, and it's a shame we can't get them in the states.
  The Ubuntu Touch website lists the Quintus and 22 as fully functional.
• F(x)tec PRO¹ X
  Another phone with a physical keyboard. Wireless is (annecdotally, in the comments) unreliable.
• Murena Teracube 2s
  The bootloader on the Teracube is locked, which precludes installing Linux.
• Xiaomi Poco X3
  Something of a dark horse, and a phone dating back to 2020, the Xiaomi shows as having every feature functioning under Ubuntu Touch. Unfortunately, the phone does not support VoLTE under Ubuntu Touch, which hinders its use in the US. The phone hardware itself does.
  Nobody has this phone in stock, though, so "Availability" is negative, although I suppose it could be found on eBay or something. The non-replacable battery makes buying it used a sketchy proposition.

But today, amid the 32-day-and-counting government shutdown, those funds weren’t there for the vast majority of recipients. (Governors in Virginia and Vermont pledged to use state funds to keep the program going for their respective residents, though both said brief delays were probable as they worked out technological challenges.)

“Even if we get immediate guidance, [funding] will unfortunately be delayed while States get the money out,” President Donald Trump wrote on social media Friday. “If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding.”

In the meantime, food banks—like the one I visited in the greater Washington, DC, area earlier this week—have seen demand skyrocket as the 1 in 8 Americans who normally count on SNAP continue to face uncertainty about how much money will be deposited onto their debit-like benefits cards, and when.

Tens of Millions of People Lost Their Food Stamps—For Now

Judges ordered the federal government use reserve funds to cover SNAP benefits during the shutdown, but the funding is limited and will be delayed.

^{Mother Jones}

By Salim Lamrani
Nov 1, 2025

Unanimously condemned by the international community every year since 1992, this state of siege gravely affects the well-being of the entire Cuban population—particularly the most vulnerable—and remains the principal obstacle to the country’s development. From March 2024 to February 2025, U.S. economic sanctions cost Cuba $7.55 billion—a 50 percent increase compared to the previous year—representing more than $20 million per day and nearly $15,000 per minute.

That amount is equivalent to the electricity consumption of Cuba’s 10 million inhabitants for six years. With the same sum, Cuba could fill every household’s grocery basket for six years, cover the nation’s medical needs for 22 years, or guarantee public transportation for the next six decades.

https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-true-story-of-u-s-economic-sanctions-against-cuba/

cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/38459476

By Salim Lamrani
Nov 1, 2025

Unanimously condemned by the international community every year since 1992, this state of siege gravely affects the well-being of the entire Cuban population—particularly the most vulnerable—and remains the principal obstacle to the country’s development. From March 2024 to February 2025, U.S. economic sanctions cost Cuba $7.55 billion—a 50 percent increase compared to the previous year—representing more than $20 million per day and nearly $15,000 per minute.

That amount is equivalent to the electricity consumption of Cuba’s 10 million inhabitants for six years. With the same sum, Cuba could fill every household’s grocery basket for six years, cover the nation’s medical needs for 22 years, or guarantee public transportation for the next six decades.

Peter Link

2025-11-03 16:43:11

The True Story of U.S. Economic Sanctions Against Cuba

By Salim Lamrani
Nov 1, 2025

Unanimously condemned by the international community every year since 1992, this state of siege gravely affects the well-being of the entire Cuban population—particularly the most vulnerable—and remains the principal obstacle to the country’s development. From March 2024 to February 2025, U.S. economic sanctions cost Cuba $7.55 billion—a 50 percent increase compared to the previous year—representing more than $20 million per day and nearly $15,000 per minute.

That amount is equivalent to the electricity consumption of Cuba’s 10 million inhabitants for six years. With the same sum, Cuba could fill every household’s grocery basket for six years, cover the nation’s medical needs for 22 years, or guarantee public transportation for the next six decades.

https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-true-story-of-u-s-economic-sanctions-against-cuba/

Three men have been killed in a US strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said.

It is the latest in a series of attacks on vessels the Trump administration says are being used to smuggle drugs into the US.

Since they began in September, experts have questioned the legality of the strikes under international law, which have drawn strong criticism from Latin American leaders whose citizens have been targeted.

Three killed in latest US strike on alleged drug boat in Caribbean

US Defence Secretary says "narco-terrorists" attempting to smuggle drugs into the US were targeted.

^{Ben Hatton (BBC News)}

The head of the Food and Drug Administration’s drug center abruptly resigned Sunday after federal officials began reviewing “serious concerns about his personal conduct,” according to a government spokesperson.

Tidmarsh’s ouster is the latest in a string of haphazard leadership changes at the agency, which has been rocked for months by firings, departures and controversial decisions on vaccines, fluoride and other products.

In September, Tidmarsh drew public attention for a highly unusual post on LinkedIn stating that one of Aurinia Pharmaceutical’s products, a kidney drug, had “not been shown to provide a direct clinical benefit for patients.” It’s very unusual for an FDA regulator to single out individual companies and products in public comments online.

According to the company’s lawsuit, Aurinia’s stock dropped 20% shortly after the post, wiping out more than $350 million in shareholder value.

https://apnews.com/article/george-tidmarsh-fda-drug-kennedy-resignation-lawsuit-19ed112b8e0e42347ba033f3b6f2c28c

Among all of Apple’s achievements, one of the most underrated has been making driving less miserable. Before Apple CarPlay debuted, about a decade ago, drivers were stuck with whatever clunky tech features were preloaded into their car. By projecting a simplified iPhone layout onto the car’s central screen, CarPlay lets you use apps such as Apple Maps and Spotify without fumbling for your phone, make hands-free calls, and dictate text messages. It is seamless, free, and loved by millions of iPhone owners.

Now one of the world’s biggest car companies is taking it away. Last month, General Motors CEO Mary Barra announced that new cars made by the auto giant won’t support CarPlay and its counterpart, Android Auto. Ditching smartphone mirroring may seem to make as much sense as removing cup holders: Recent preliminary data from AutoPacific, a research firm, suggest that CarPlay and Android Auto are considered must-have features among many new-car shoppers. But according to GM, the company can create an even better experience for drivers by dropping Apple and making its own software. And like it or not, the move says a lot about where the auto industry is headed.

GM has gone as far as invoking Apple in defending its decision: Remove a feature, such as the disk drive on a laptop, and people eventually adapt and move on. A GM spokesperson told me that the change “will happen over time, not overnight” and “if your car supports Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, that will continue.” Before its announcement, GM had already nixed CarPlay and Android Auto in many of its electric vehicles (although it kept the software in its gas-powered vehicles, which GM sells many more of). In my experience test-driving GM’s new EVs, the company’s replacement software is indeed impressive. It’s fast and easy to use, and it offers apps such as Spotify, HBO Max, and, soon, a voice assistant powered by Google’s Gemini. But it’s not CarPlay. Some popular apps are missing, such as Apple Podcasts and Apple Music.

There is one other crucial difference. Because GM’s software isn’t tied to a phone like CarPlay is, access to the full suite of software requires its own data plan—through GM, of course. (The cheapest plan costs $10 a month.) Get used to these kinds of subscriptions, regardless of what kind of car you drive. In recent years, automakers have realized how much money they can make from in-car technology: Maybe they charge a subscription fee for hands-free highway cruise control (GM has already had considerable success with that). Maybe they charge for apps that let you control aspects of the car from your phone. Or maybe they sell data that your navigation system collects about where you go and what you do.

Whatever the case, car companies are moving beyond making money only when they sell you a car. For GM, eliminating Apple as a middleman provides more opportunities to charge for things. “It’s a turf war, and the car is real estate,” Craig Daitch, an auto-industry analyst and a former GM marketing manager, told me. Tech-first car start-ups such as Tesla and Rivian have never offered CarPlay; the latter argues its own systems are better without the software. (Even so, plenty of owners have work-arounds to add it over the years.)

Although GM is the largest automaker that is ditching CarPlay, other car brands are also locking features behind a paywall. Toyota has some navigation tools that require a subscription, but CarPlay does about the same thing at no cost. I own an older Mazda with a remote-start feature that works every time I hit a button on my key fob; on my newer electric Kia, I have to pay up to $200 a year if I want to unlock that service. (I haven’t yet; in fact, study after study shows that consumers are broadly skeptical of more subscription features.)

Some automakers have made a point of proclaiming their allegiance to CarPlay, knowing that’s what buyers want. Toyota’s EVs tell CarPlay how much electric range they have left, so that Apple Maps can prompt the driver to stop at a nearby charger on a road trip. But the relationship between Detroit and Silicon Valley can be a tense one. Apple sees tremendous value in expanding its presence in your car: The next step is CarPlay Ultra, which enables your phone to control more of your car. Want to fiddle with the temperature? Ask Siri to do it. It’s an Apple lover’s dream and a car company’s worst nightmare. If that feature catches on, companies will just be makers of rolling shells for tech companies. One executive for the French automaker Renault was reportedly blunt with Apple: “Don’t try to invade our own system.” (Apple declined to comment.)

No matter what car you drive, the glory days of CarPlay may be numbered. For the auto industry, there’s just too much money to be made from creating their own versions. Get ready for a day when your car’s technology expenses are another line item on the credit-card statement, right next to the Netflix subscription.

Everything we learned from a week with Apple CarPlay Ultra

CarPlay Ultra takes over the main instrument display as well as the infotainment.

^{Ars Contributors (Ars Technica)}

Up until recently I was relying on something called Trakt but it has become increasingly unreliable or erratic - it just seems to randomly rearrange the order of its older movie releases now

app.trakt.tv/users/giladg/list…

What are the best alternative new releases sites please?

Trakt Web: Track Your Shows & Movies

Trakt Web: A new, lightweight way to track your favorite movies and TV shows.

^{Trakt Web}

From start to finish, the campaign for New York City Mayor, pitting Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani against former Governor Andrew Cuomo, has been scintillating and suspenseful. But tomorrow night, this bittersweet election, spanning more than twelve months, will come to an end. While not as climactic as the Democratic Primary, a come-from-behind upset of epic proportions, the General Election is nonetheless on course for historic voter turnout, the highest in fifty-six years.

With Zohran Mamdani’s victory all but assured, the real drama lies in the details.

Will Mamdani crack 50%? Can the first major Muslim candidate for mayor win back the city’s working-class Hispanic and Asian communities that swung dramatically towards Donald Trump last November? How many Republican voters can Andrew Cuomo peel away from GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa? And will the Black electorate, older and historically loyal to Cuomo, shift to Mamdani, the Democratic nominee?

Thus, in an ode to the infinite nuance of New York City’s mosaic, I have predicted the results, BLOCK by BLOCK.

Predicting Every Block of the 2025 NYC Mayoral Election

Spoiler Alert: Zohran Mamdani is going to win

^{Michael Lange (The Narrative Wars)}

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/world/europe/switzerland-climate-change.html?unlocked_article_code=1.yU8.sGeZ.HemPqaJ1dlHW

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-11-03/permafrost-is-thawing-in-alaska-at-an-alarming-rate?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc2MjE3OTAyOCwiZXhwIjoxNzYyNzgzODI4LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUNTVKOVpHUEwzWjEwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiIzOUQ2RjhFNUFGRkM0RUU3QTZFQTVGMzA0M0QyMzI0NiJ9.7SvSebUTRycZzPSxoFHWwrFn2DjURxYquK6vcJ4F7pg

A winter warmer. Almost a porter but still just about in IPA territory. I'm aiming for lots of body with maltiness balanced out with English hops. My supervisor in the photo is Stinky.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-arctic-global-warming-permafrost/?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc2MjE3ODk0OCwiZXhwIjoxNzYyNzgzNzQ4LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUNTVHMDdHUFdDTzIwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiIzOUQ2RjhFNUFGRkM0RUU3QTZFQTVGMzA0M0QyMzI0NiJ9.4XqX3BpP1BjHXG__OmBsy8_JaRN1gcZOJlBOrtV2kF8

hey all,

i was looking at either joining mastodon or bluesky, if im thinking about this in the right way, bluesky is just a mastondon instance, correct? that means that i could choose another instance if i wanted to more suited to what im looking for, but how does it work like lemmy, where i can see posts from all instances on the fediverse?