https://news.yahoo.com/anti-lgbtq-protest-turkey-backs-171156220.html

> Turkish demonstrators chant slogans while holding a banner that reads: "We will not give way to those who wage war on the family", in the Fatih district of Istanbul, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

> “People are here despite the rain for their children, for future generations,” she said, urging the Turkish government to take action. “They should save the family, they should save the children from this filth."

>The group held banners that read: “Protecting the family is a national security issue.”

https://news.yahoo.com/california-workers-wont-worry-being-205406368.html

California workers won't have to worry about being fired, or not hired, for off-the-clock marijuana use

(Edited)

It will soon be illegal for California employers to let workers' offsite and outside-of-work marijuana use be a factor in hiring or firing decisions, according to a new state law.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday signed into law a bill that makes California the seventh state in the United States that does not allow employers to discriminate against workers who smoke weed "off the job and away from the workplace." The new law goes into effect Jan. 1, 2024.

The law prohibits employers from making hiring, firing or other employment decisions based on a drug test that finds "nonpsychoactive cannabis metabolites" in someone's hair or urine, which do not indicate current impairment, but that someone consumed cannabis recently, up to weeks prior, according to Assembly Bill 2188 that Assemblymember Bill Quirk (D-Hayward) sponsored.

“Urine tests are a highly offensive invasion of workers’ personal bodily privacy,” said Dale Gieringer, director of California's NORML chapter, which advocates for progressive marijuana policies, about the bill after it passed. “Workers should have the same right to use cannabis as to use other legal substances off the job.”

"No employee deserves to feel stigmatized and unsafe at work because of an outdated testing method," Araby said. "There are much more accurate, modern-day cannabis testing methods, like oral swabs, that are able to detect recent use and increase workplace safety.”

The new law provides for exceptions for people working in building and construction, as well as people applying for or working in roles that require a federal background clearance.

The law still allows employers to require drug screening as a condition of employment, as long as the tests "do not screen for nonpsychoactive cannabis metabolites." After using cannabis, the chemical compound that can cause psychoactive effects, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, becomes a non-psychoactive cannabis metabolite, which can remain in the system for weeks. That metabolite does not indicate current impairment.

Newsom signed the employment discrimination bill Sunday along with nine other cannabis policy changes, including one that would seal old cannabis-related criminal convictions and creates a process for interstate cannabis business transactions.

Sealed cave of artifacts from era of King Rameses II found by accident in Israel park

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article266010076.html

Construction crews working at Israel’s Palmachim Beach National Park found a cave from the time of King Rameses II, revealing “what looks like an ‘Indiana Jones’ film set,” according to the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The discovery was made Sept. 14, when digging equipment created a hole that offered a view inside a mysterious room, officials said. Palmachim Beach National Park is south of Tel Aviv, on the Mediterranean coast.

“Archaeologists … descended a ladder into the astonishing space that appeared to have frozen in time,” the authority reported in a Facebook post.

“The hewn cave was square in form with a central supporting pillar. Several dozens of intact pottery and bronze artifacts were lain out in the cave, exactly as they were arranged in the burial ceremony, about 3,300 years ago. These vessels were burial offerings that accompanied the deceased in the belief that they would serve the dead in the afterlife.”

Officials did not report if any bones or other human remains were among the artifacts, which included pottery and bronze items.

The cave has been dated to the era of King Rameses II, “the Pharaoh associated with the Biblical Exodus from Egypt,” officials said.

(Continued)

DARPA launches new program to let small innovators behind the classified curtain

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-news/2022/09/darpa-launches-new-program-to-let-small-innovators-behind-the-classified-curtain

For a lot of would-be defense contractors, the world of classified contracts is a bit of a Catch-22. You can’t get classified work without a security clearance, and you can’t get a security clearance without a contract that demands classified work.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is looking to solve that problem with a new initiative it calls “BRIDGES.” The basic idea is to give small firms a chance to show they’ve got the technical acumen or creativity to solve the sorts of problems DARPA’s working on in the classified arena. If it looks like the answer is yes, the agency itself will sponsor them for a security clearance.

Greg Kuperman, the DARPA program manager heading the BRIDGES effort, said it sprang from a recognition that an extremely sizable percentage of U.S. innovation base could, in theory, be figuring out the answers to the agency’s toughest R&D problems, but cut out of the process solely because of clearance issues.

“They’re new startups, really passionate folks, but they’re not DoD companies. And the challenge is I can’t even express to them what our real problem is so that they can go think about it, because it’s classified,” Kuperman said in an interview. “We’ve been kind of dancing around this for over a year, and finally I said there’s got to be a better way.”

The precise mechanics of exactly how BRIDGES — short for “Bringing Classified Innovation to Defense and Government Systems” — will work are still being ironed out. The agency plans to issue a draft solicitation in the coming weeks to gather companies’ feedback on its initial plans.

But as of now, DARPA envisions running the project through a government-operated consortium, most likely with administrative help from a non-profit organization or federally-funded research and development corporation (FFRDC). Inside that consortium, officials will be able to reveal classified information, and the agency wants to keep the administrative cost of admission very low. Firms will just need to make a convincing case, via a short whitepaper, that they can solve problems in a particular topic area DARPA’s identified.

If, in the agency’s judgement, they’ve made their case, DARPA will start the process of bringing them into the consortium where they can see the nitty-gritty classified details and start to work on the problem.

Vendors will still need to get through the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency’s facility security clearance (FCL) process, which takes between three and six months. But DARPA will sponsor that clearance. And that FCL is key to the entire process, Kuperman said.

“A lot of these small companies already have hired people that have Top Secret clearances in anticipation of trying to do government work. The problem is without a facility clearance — and without a need to know — I can’t read them into my special access programs or give them sensitive compartmented information,” he said. “But as soon as [their company has] a facility clearance, I can then, overnight, turn them on to those different things. So we can onboard those folks immediately. And if you have people who are not cleared, they will typically have their clearances submitted simultaneously, and hopefully in three to six months, they can pop out with at least a secret clearance.”

(Continued)

>>17546674

It’s still #MelaniaMonday