I knew him, Horatio
makes more sense than covid
Having served in the Secret Service for 28 years, Cheatle was involved in the evacuation of Vice President Dick Cheney on Sept. 11, 2001, and served on then-Vice President Biden's protective detail. She was appointed director last year, amid a swirl of controversy the agency faced over deleting most of its text messages from Jan. 6, when a mob of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol in 2021. The agency attributed it to a data migration.
anyone speak runes?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valknut
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mj%C3%B6lnir
https://www.bungie.net/7/en/News/article/newpath
The New Path for Bungie
Jul 31, 2024 - Pete Parsons
This morning, I’m sharing with all of you some of the most difficult changes we’ve ever had to make as a studio. Due to rising costs of development and industry shifts as well as enduring economic conditions, it has become clear that we need to make substantial changes to our cost structure and focus development efforts entirely on Destiny and Marathon.
That means beginning today, 220 of our roles will be eliminated, representing roughly 17% of our studio’s workforce.
These actions will affect every level of the company, including most of our executive and senior leader roles.
Today is a difficult and painful day, especially for our departing colleagues, all of which have made important and valuable contributions to Bungie. Our goal is to support them with the utmost care and respect. For everyone affected by this job reduction, we will be offering a generous exit package, including severance, bonus and health coverage.
I realize all of this is hard news, especially following the success we have seen with The Final Shape. But as we’ve navigated the broader economic realities over the last year, and after exhausting all other mitigation options, this has become a necessary decision to refocus our studio and our business with more realistic goals and viable financials.
We are committing to two other major changes today that we believe will support our focus, leverage Sony’s strengths, and create new opportunities for Bungie talent.
First, we are deepening our integration with Sony Interactive Entertainment, working to integrate 155 of our roles, roughly 12%, into SIE over the next few quarters. SIE has worked tirelessly with us to identify roles for as many of our people as possible, enabling us together to save a great deal of talent that would otherwise have been affected by the reduction in force.
Second, we are working with PlayStation Studios leadership to spin out one of our incubation projects – an action game set in a brand-new science-fantasy universe – to form a new studio within PlayStation Studios to continue its promising development.
This will be a time of tremendous change for our studio.
Let’s unpack how we ended up in this position; it’s important to understand how we got here.
For over five years, it has been our goal to ship games in three enduring, global franchises. To realize that ambition, we set up several incubation projects, each seeded with senior development leaders from our existing teams. We eventually realized that this model stretched our talent too thin, too quickly. It also forced our studio support structures to scale to a larger level than we could realistically support, given our two primary products in development – Destiny and Marathon.
Additionally, in 2023, our rapid expansion ran headlong into a broad economic slowdown, a sharp downturn in the games industry, our quality miss with Destiny 2: Lightfall, and the need to give both The Final Shape and Marathon the time needed to ensure both projects deliver at the quality our players expect and deserve. We were overly ambitious, our financial safety margins were subsequently exceeded, and we began running in the red.
After this new trajectory became clear, we knew we had to change our course and speed, and we did everything we could to avoid today’s outcome. Even with exhaustive efforts undertaken across our leadership and product teams to resolve our financial challenges, these steps were simply not enough.
As a result, today we must say goodbye to incredible talent, colleagues, and friends.
This will be a challenging time at Bungie, and we’ll need to help our team navigate these changes in the weeks and months ahead. This will be a hard week, and we know that our team will need time to process, to ask questions, and to absorb this news. Today, and over the next several weeks, we will host team meetings and town halls, team breakout sessions, and private, individual sessions to ensure we are keeping our communication open and transparent.
Bungie will continue to make great games. We still have over 850 team members building Destiny and Marathon, and we will continue to build amazing experiences that exceed our players’ expectations.
There will be a time to talk about our goals and projects, but today is not that day. Today, our focus is on supporting our people.
-pete
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/17/opinion/social-media-health-warning.html
https://archive.is/7Cxs3
Surgeon General: Why I’m Calling for a Warning Label on Social Media Platforms
By Vivek H. Murthy
Dr. Murthy is the surgeon general.
One of the most important lessons I learned in medical school was that in an emergency, you don’t have the luxury to wait for perfect information. You assess the available facts, you use your best judgment, and you act quickly.
The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency — and social media has emerged as an important contributor. Adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms, and the average daily use in this age group, as of the summer of 2023, was 4.8 hours. Additionally, nearly half of adolescents say social media makes them feel worse about their bodies.
It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents. A surgeon general’s warning label, which requires congressional action, would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe. Evidence from tobacco studies show that warning labels can increase awareness and change behavior. When asked if a warning from the surgeon general would prompt them to limit or monitor their children’s social media use, 76 percent of people in one recent survey of Latino parents said yes.
To be clear, a warning label would not, on its own, make social media safe for young people. The advisory I issued a year ago about social media and young people’s mental health included specific recommendations for policymakers, platforms and the public to make social media safer for kids. Such measures, which already have strong bipartisan support, remain the priority.
Legislation from Congress should shield young people from online harassment, abuse and exploitation and from exposure to extreme violence and sexual content that too often appears in algorithm-driven feeds. The measures should prevent platforms from collecting sensitive data from children and should restrict the use of features like push notifications, autoplay and infinite scroll, which prey on developing brains and contribute to excessive use.
Additionally, companies must be required to share all of their data on health effects with independent scientists and the public — currently they do not — and allow independent safety audits. While the platforms claim they are making their products safer, Americans need more than words. We need proof.
The rest of society can play a role also. Schools should ensure that classroom learning and social time are phone-free experiences. Parents, too, should create phone-free zones around bedtime, meals and social gatherings to safeguard their kids’ sleep and real-life connections — both of which have direct effects on mental health. And they should wait until after middle school to allow their kids access to social media. This is much easier said than done, which is why parents should work together with other families to establish shared rules, so no parents have to struggle alone or feel guilty when their teens say they are the only one who has to endure limits. And young people can build on teen-focused efforts like the Log Off movement and Wired Human to support one another in reforming their relationship with social media and navigating online environments safely.
Others must help, too. Public health leaders should demand healthy digital environments for young people. Doctors, nurses and other clinicians should raise the issue of social media with kids and parents and guide them toward safer practices. And the federal Kids Online Health & Safety Task Force must continue its leadership in bringing together the best minds from inside and outside government to recommend changes that will make social media safer for our children.
>Surgeon General: Why I’m Calling for a Warning Label on Social Media Platforms
One of the worst things for a parent is to know your children are in danger yet be unable to do anything about it. That is how parents tell me they feel when it comes to social media — helpless and alone in the face of toxic content and hidden harms. I think about Lori, a woman from Colorado who fought back tears as she told me about her teenage daughter, who took her life after being bullied on social media. Lori had been diligent, monitoring her daughter’s accounts and phone daily, but harm still found her child.
There is no seatbelt for parents to click, no helmet to snap in place, no assurance that trusted experts have investigated and ensured that these platforms are safe for our kids. There are just parents and their children, trying to figure it out on their own, pitted against some of the best product engineers and most well-resourced companies in the world.
Parents aren’t the only ones yearning for solutions. Last fall, I gathered with students to talk about mental health and loneliness. As often happens in such gatherings, they raised the issue of social media.
After they talked about what they liked about social media — a way to stay in touch with old friends, find communities of shared identity and express themselves creatively — a young woman named Tina raised her hand. “I just don’t feel good when I use social media,” she said softly, a hint of embarrassment in her voice. Her confession opened the door for her classmates. One by one, they spoke about their experiences with social media: the endless comparison with other people that shredded their self-esteem, the feeling of being addicted and unable to set limits and the difficulty having real conversations on platforms that too often fostered outrage and bullying. There was a sadness in their voices, as if they knew what was happening to them but felt powerless to change it.
As a father of a 6- and a 7-year-old who have already asked about social media, I worry about how my wife and I will know when to let them have accounts. How will we monitor their activity, given the increasingly sophisticated techniques for concealing it? How will we know if our children are being exposed to harmful content or dangerous people? It’s no wonder that when it comes to managing social media for their kids, so many parents are feeling stress and anxiety — and even shame.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Faced with high levels of car-accident-related deaths in the mid- to late 20th century, lawmakers successfully demanded seatbelts, airbags, crash testing and a host of other measures that ultimately made cars safer. This January the F.A.A. grounded about 170 planes when a door plug came off one Boeing 737 Max 9 while the plane was in the air. And the following month, a massive recall of dairy products was conducted because of a listeria contamination that claimed two lives.
Why is it that we have failed to respond to the harms of social media when they are no less urgent or widespread than those posed by unsafe cars, planes or food? These harms are not a failure of willpower and parenting; they are the consequence of unleashing powerful technology without adequate safety measures, transparency or accountability.
The moral test of any society is how well it protects its children. Students like Tina and mothers like Lori do not want to be told that change takes time, that the issue is too complicated or that the status quo is too hard to alter. We have the expertise, resources and tools to make social media safe for our kids. Now is the time to summon the will to act. Our children’s well-being is at stake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity%27s_Child
The book was made into a 1990 television movie, By Dawn's Early Light. There are some significant differences, including that the film has the initial nuclear exchange prompted by renegade Soviet terrorists launching a short-range nuclear missile from near Turkey, targeting Ukraine, rather than being part of a Soviet plot.
what's black about her job? just her?
voice like a truck
>Kyle putting out dog comms
>Judge Merchan's Daughter Has Ties to Kamala Harris
Zelensky also spoke in favor of Moscow’s presence at the next summit on Ukraine: “If everyone wants to see them at the negotiating table, then we cannot be against it.”
https://t.me/intelslava/63887
A detachment of Colombians was sent to storm Russian positions in Chasov Yar. One of them, named Filipe, refused. For this, the Ukrainian military tied him up and threw him into a pit, and his colleagues decided to save their comrade.
https://t.me/intelslava/64015
FSB officers escort prisoners prepared for exchange onto the plane before they are sent to Turkey.
https://t.me/intelslava/63860
Trump criticized the Olympic opening ceremony, where transgender people parodied the Last Supper of Christ and the Apostles.
"I'm a very broad-minded person. But even for me, what they did was a disgrace. It was terrible," the presidential candidate said in an interview with Fox News.
Earlier, the International Olympic Committee apologized for certain moments of the show at the opening of the Games.
divine healing is free
https://www.theunion.com/opinion/columns/terry-mcateer-another-side-to-kamala-harris/article_f79b5fff-5a50-5eed-a63b-d67d8419c3d3.html
Another side to Kamala Harris
Senator Harris vocally throws around “F-bombs” and other profanity constantly in her berating of staff and others. The staff is in complete fear of her and she uses her profanity throughout the day.
As Attorney General, Senator Harris instructed her entire staff to stand every morning as she entered the office and say, “Good Morning General.”
Never once during the month-long internship did Harris introduce herself to our son (as he was only in an office with 20 paid employees) and staff was too intimidated by her to introduce him. The only acknowledgment was a form letter of “thanks” signed by Harris given to him on his last day of service.
Gregory was also given instructions to never address Harris nor look her in the eye as that privilege was only allowed to senior staff members.
I don’t know about you but this is not the workplace of someone who respects her staff. For a woman of color to have employees stand when she enters the room smacks of a bygone era that we, as Americans, deplore and find demeaning. Furthermore, that she didn’t show the quality of leadership skills or even being a decent boss — much less the “class” to approach Gregory at least once during the month to say “Hi, I’m Kamala Harris and I want to thank you for volunteering in my office” — is really troubling. Finally, what is up with the “don’t look her in the eye” instruction? I know I wouldn’t want to work in that hostile environment!
https://nypost.com/2024/07/10/us-news/jewish-cult-leaders-sentenced-for-kidnap-of-2-ny-kids-including-a-child-bride-in-twisted-sex-scheme/
Jewish ‘cult’ leaders sentenced for kidnap of 2 NY kids, including a child bride, in twisted sex scheme
Leaders of a Jewish fundamentalist cult were sentenced to more than a decade behind bars for kidnapping two kids— including a child bride – then smuggling them into Mexico, prosecutors said.
Three brothers, who are members of the Lev Tahor sect, allegedly forced the girl back into the arms of her adult “husband” in a sickening and sophisticated sex scheme.
Yakov Weingarten, 34; Smiel Weingarten, 28; and Yoil Weingarten, 36; were sentenced Tuesday for snatching the children from their upstate New York home in 2018 after their mother fled Lev Tahor, a group of zealots who practice stomach-churning habits like child marriages, underage sex and family separations, US Attorney Damian Williams said Wednesday.
The brothers — who live in Guatemala — used a variety of disguises, aliases, drop phones, fake travel documents and encrypted apps to pull off the 3 a.m. kidnapping that December day, then smuggle the brother and sister across the border, the feds said.
Local, federal and international authorities launched a massive three-week search that eventually found Yante Teller, 14, and Chaim Teller, 12, and returned them to their mother.
In March, a federal jury convicted the trio of child sexual exploitation and kidnapping charges.
As punishment, US District Judge Nelson Román has sentenced Yakov and Smiel to 14 years in prison, and Yoil to 12 years, the feds said.
“The sentencing of the Weingarten brothers holds them accountable for kidnapping children from their mother in the middle of the night, including for the purpose of coercing a child into a sexual relationship with an adult,” Williams said in a statement.
“This Office will do everything in its power to protect children and use every available tool to investigate and prosecute those who sexually exploit them.”
The twisted saga began in 2017, when Lev Tahor leaders arranged for Yante — then just 12-years-old –to marry an 18-year-old man, the feds said.
Even though the two were never legally married, Lev Tahor leadership — which included the three Weingartens — demanded the two have sex and lie about their ages and relationship to others.
“For example, Lev Tahor leaders instructed child brides to deliver babies inside their homes instead of at a hospital to conceal the mothers’ young ages from outsiders,” the statement said.
The girl’s mom, Sara Helbrans, fled the community compound in Guatemala around October 2018 after deciding it was no longer safe for her kids.
It was the only life Helbrans had ever known — her father, Shlomo Helbrans, founded the group in Jerusalem back in 1987.
Eventually, all six of her kids joined her, Williams said. And a Brooklyn family court banned the kids’ dad — another cult leader — from communicating with them.
“I am very imminently afraid from the cult and what the [children’s] father and other cult members may do now that we are no longer under their power and manipulation,” the frantic mom wrote in a court filing.
That’s when the Weingartens hatched a plan to kidnap Chaim and Yante, and bring them back to Guatemala — and Yante’s 20-year-old “husband,” prosecutors claimed.
Their plan was initially successful. They grabbed the kids in the dark of night, forced them out of their home in Woodbridge, New York, and flew them out of an airport in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Then they reunited the poor teen with her “husband,” which let him continue his illegal sexual relationship with her, according to officials.
Authorities caught up with them three weeks later, and freed the children in the small town of Tenango del Aire, near Mexico City.
They then brought them back to New York — but that wasn’t the end.
The zealots again tried unsuccessfully to steal the kids in 2019 and 2021, Williams said.
The group to which they belong claims it practices “unadulterated Judaism” that demands severe modesty for women and girls, who must wear burka-like coverings from head to toe.
The cultists settled in Brooklyn in 1994, but Helbrans’ father was convicted of kidnapping and conspiracy and later deported.
The whole group of about 40 families fled to Canada, then Guatemala. The group has been constantly dogged by accusations including child neglect.
>Lev Tahor
Yes General ma'amala!
Neither the king nor the rook has previously moved.
There are no pieces between the king and the rook.
The king is not currently in check. The rook can be under attack.
The king does not pass through, or finish on a square that is attacked by an enemy piece.
The rook can pass through an attacked square.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/27/technology/linda-yaccarino-x-ceo-elon-musk.html
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Elon?
Linda Yaccarino, the C.E.O. of X, has worked hard to bring back advertisers and fix the platform’s business. But its owner, Elon Musk, is always one whim away from undoing her work.
Late last year, Linda Yaccarino reached out to Don Lemon’s agent with an offer.
Ms. Yaccarino, the chief executive of X, a powerhouse advertising executive who had been hired away from NBC about seven months earlier, pitched the agent on bringing the former CNN anchor’s new web-based show to the social media platform, citing its massive reach, political influence and connections with advertisers. Soon after, Mr. Lemon became one of the first high-profile names to sign onto Ms. Yaccarino’s plan to help save the company’s sagging advertising business with video and TV-like programming.
Elon Musk, who owns X, agreed to be Mr. Lemon’s first guest.
The interview was held at the Tesla headquarters in Austin, Texas, which, Mr. Musk quickly pointed out to Mr. Lemon, was “about three times larger than the Pentagon.” The two men sat on white Eames-like swivel chairs, a small white table between them. Mr. Musk was in a black T-shirt, Mr. Lemon in a white spread-collar shirt and a dark blue sweater.
The interview started out awkwardly, with Mr. Musk acknowledging that he hadn’t really watched Mr. Lemon when he anchored a 9 p.m. show on CNN. (“I’ve seen a few segments.”) It grew increasingly contentious over the next hour, and Mr. Musk became visibly frustrated with questions about his politics and drug use. “It’s pretty private,” Mr. Musk said when Mr. Lemon asked him about his prescription for ketamine, which Mr. Musk had posted about on X in 2023.
Mr. Lemon brought up complaints of sexual harassment at Tesla and SpaceX, both run by Mr. Musk, then asked if he had advantages in society as a white man. Mr. Musk raised an eyebrow. “You keep putting words in my mouth,” he objected. And when Mr. Lemon asked about the advertiser exodus from X, Mr. Musk shook his head: “Don, I have to say, choose your questions carefully. There’s five minutes left.” As the interview ended, Mr. Musk shot up from his chair, offering an abrupt handshake to the anchor.
The next day, he texted Mr. Lemon’s agent: “Contract canceled.”
Don Lemon is an accomplished and hard-hitting journalist.