"Astronomers expect that this year you'll be able to see the explosion of a star system in our Milky Way galaxy by simply looking up at the sky."
"The tour was not organized by Reay’s publisher, Harper Muse, an imprint of HarperCollins, which organized its own promotion of the book. Reay footed the bill for the tour herself… This arrangement is far from unique. According to independent events planners, publicists and marketers, more and more authors are seeking out their services to augment the efforts of their publishers’ in-house staff… Depending on who you ask, the trend is a result of surging promotional workloads over decades – or publishers’ disinvestment in staff."
"The websites are tantalizing: 'You can catch conditions before they become crises,' reads one. Another promises to make cancer 'easier to beat' and claims it can detect 'over 500 other conditions in up to 13 organs.' Full-body scans are attracting celebrity promoters, tech mogul investors and long waiting lists of people hoping to identify life-threatening conditions, usually more treatable in early stages." These are scams. I work in radiology, and I have personally suffered the consequences of submitting images for report that show potential pathologies but that don't meet the criteria for quality imaging practices (and yes, two of those were cancer, and I received a "fail" for one comp and a "QC report"/professional reprimand on another). And yes, incidental findings are definitely a thing and many diseases do not show up symptomatically (pain, etc) until it can be too late. However, these full body scans are a scam run by unscrupulous fucks usually using outdated equipment and they don't do anything to help you. Human bodies are full of anomalies (look up sesamoid bones or "lumbar vertebrae L6") that have zero impact on your health BUT could be potentially an indicator of disease. You have cysts, muscle anomalies, calcifications (especially if you're older) and size variants that can be read as a pathology that have no real impact on your health now or in the future. These companies are banking on the latent hypochondria present in American culture. If you have a concern, most certainly talk with a doctor who will take your concerns seriously (this is a whole other very long conversation), but don't get a full body scan unless your real symptoms/family history warrant such a scan.
Why do we need a strong regulatory function in government? "The air throughout south-east Louisiana’s 'Cancer Alley' is probably being poisoned with a highly carcinogenic gas at levels much higher than previously thought, new research reveals… Using cutting-edge equipment that more accurately checks for the gas, ethylene oxide, which is primarily used in plastic production, researchers found levels more than 1,000 times above previous measurements, and about 10 times higher on average than regulators’ modeling."
"A federal judge on Monday ordered BNSF Railway to pay the Swinomish Tribe $395 million for illegally running mile-long oil trains through the tribe’s reservation for nearly a decade… BNSF has permission from the tribe to run two oil trains a day, totaling no more than 50 tanker cars, through its reservation… Instead, BNSF has been running oil trains with 100 or more cars each across the reservation’s northern end up to six times a day." Wow, actual consequences.
And talking about a strong regulatory function of government, from the FTC blog… "Your therapy bots aren’t licensed psychologists, your AI girlfriends are neither girls nor friends, your griefbots have no soul, and your AI copilots are not gods. We’ve warned companies about making false or unsubstantiated claims about AI or algorithms. And we’ve followed up with action, including recent cases against WealthPress, DK Automation, Automators AI, and CRI Genetics. We’ve also repeatedly advised companies – with reference to past cases – not to use automated tools to mislead people about what they’re seeing, hearing, or reading." Someone is about to open a big can of whoop ass.
"As far back as 2006, when Google launched Google Translate, the translation industry has been 'speculating about the potential for AI to replace human translators,' says Bridget Hylak, a representative from the American Translators Association… So, yeah, translators have been grappling with AI for a while. Yet, despite the fact that anyone with a smartphone has long been able to use this machine translation technology for free or at a relatively low cost — there are still a ton of jobs for human translators and interpreters out there."
"President Biden is set to announce Tuesday new executive actions that will offer protection against deportation to an estimated half a million undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens."
"Today, an eight-member jury in West Palm Beach, Florida, found Chiquita Brands International liable for funding a violent Colombian paramilitary organization, the United Self-defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), that was responsible for major human rights atrocities during the 1990s and 2000s. The weeks-long trial featured testimony from the families of the nine victims in the case, the recollections of Colombian military officials and Chiquita executives, expert reports, and a summary of key documentary evidence produced by Michael Evans, director of the National Security Archive’s Colombia documentation project." Unfortunately, though, no one will go to jail over it and their total fines ($35m from this judgement and $25m from having been found to supporting a terrorist organization) of about $60m are a drop in the bucket of their profits.
"A federal judge in Kentucky blocked a new Biden administration Title IX rule Monday in six states that would have banned discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation — not solely sex. The opinion applies to Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia and West Virginia… Chief Judge Danny Reeves of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky began his 93-page opinion by writing, 'There are two sexes: male and female.' He concluded by blocking the enforcement of the new rule that would have been implemented in August." As a medical worker and husband of a biologist I can tell you the judge is absolutely fucking wrong here.
"Other states considering wealth tax proposals, like Pennsylvania and Vermont, are taking note of Massachusetts' revenue numbers. The voter-approved surtax here brought in nearly a billion dollars more than the state budgeted for. But officials are still watching for whether the wealthy are leaving in droves; economists say there's not yet enough data to know."
"A federal jury in Delaware has convicted President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, on felony gun charges stemming from his purchase of a Colt revolver in 2018 when he was addicted to crack cocaine."
"Like her husband, Mrs. Alito is unbowed by the criticism and controversy — as she makes clear in comments recorded by liberal documentary filmmaker Lauren Windsor. Windsor, posing as a Christian conservative, spoke at length with Mrs. Alito at a dinner reception hosted by the Supreme Court Historical Society last week. Windsor attended the dinner as a dues-paying member and bought a ticket; a colleague joined her."
"An influential group called the True Texas Project is hosting a conference in July that will actively promote Christian nationalism and the racist 'great replacement theory,' the Texas Tribune reports. The group, which subscribes to the idea of a 'war on white America,' has ties to many Texas GOP officials, the report says, including Senator Ted Cruz and Attorney General Ken Paxton, a major supporter of Donald Trump."
"The Republican-led House of Representatives voted 216 to 207 to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress, escalating a tug-of-war over audiotapes of President Biden’s interview with a special prosecutor."
"George E. Norcross III, a powerful executive and political figure in New Jersey for decades, was indicted Monday on racketeering and related charges, the state attorney general announced… The sweeping indictment alleges he led a criminal enterprise that used extortion to promote his vast business and political and philanthropic empire — in the process, illegally securing hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits and rights to build developments on the valuable Camden waterfront, across from Philadelphia." Jaw drop. While the impact and focus of this is very local, the bringing of this indictment, IMHO, is even bigger than charging the former president with insurrection.
They're at it again. "Tens of thousands of Columbus-area voters are at risk of seeing their registrations canceled ahead of the upcoming presidential race, but they have about a month to prevent it from happening… By the numbers: A total of 158,857 Ohio voters face cancellation this year, Secretary of State Frank LaRose recently announced. That's around 2% of total registered voters."
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