When the DeSantis administration swiftly built Alligator Alcatraz last summer, it said the federal government would foot the bill for the state’s Everglades immigration detention camp. But the Trump administration may now be reconsidering that commitment, signaling in court that Florida taxpayers could be on the hook for the cost of the facility’s construction

In a court filing on Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, lawyers with the Department of Justice said the Federal Emergency Management Agency had not yet decided whether to reimburse the state.

In Hunan Province, central China, a warm start to the day is becoming part of everyday wellbeing. Public services are being extended into daily life through practical, people-centered initiatives. Across several cities and counties, community breakfast support programs provide free or low-cost morning meals for sanitation workers, delivery riders, and elderly people living alone.

In Changsha county of Changsha city, delivery workers can pick up a hot breakfast before starting long shifts. In Xinhuang county of Huaihua city, free breakfast services for sanitation workers have become a regular part of community support. These small-scale but steady services help ease daily pressures and reflect a more caring approach to urban governance.

By turning simple needs into accessible public services, Hunan is making everyday wellbeing more visible and more reachable. (Photos via VCG)

Canada-based Windscribe, a VPN provider, just said that one of its European servers has been allegedly seized by Dutch authorities without a warrant.

According to the company’s post on X, law enforcement said that they will return it to the service provider after they “fully analyze it.”

It’s unclear why law enforcement impounded just a single rack from Windscribe’s cabinet, but the VPN provider said that it only uses RAM disk servers, meaning anyone who would look through the installed SSDs would only find a stock Ubuntu install on it, so the servers shouldn't hold any trackable data.

502 Bad Gateway

I assume this source is largely, if not fully credible. Can I get more info on the Taliban activity and progress or lack of, in cleaning up corruption and disgusting practices in Afghanistan or other areas, please?

Liberal institutions are designed to recognize the violence that structures Palestinian life without destabilizing the systems that produce it. Within liberal systems, the genocide in Gaza can be acknowledged—catalogued, footnoted, condemned. What remains far harder to absorb are Palestinian claims that require undoing Israeli settler colonialism itself.

Two recent episodes make this clear. In January, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) initially agreed to share the names of Palestinian staff with Israeli authorities as a condition for continuing its work in Gaza. The response was immediate and furious. Palestinians know too well what lists become: instruments of surveillance, detention, erasure. Only after sustained public pressure did MSF reverse course and refuse to comply.

Around the same time, researchers at Human Rights Watch resigned after leadership blocked a report on the Palestinian right of return. The problem was not the research. It was what the research implied. The right of return does not simply describe injustice; it insists on undoing it. As Omar Shakir noted in a recent interview following his resignation, senior leadership expressed “concern about being seen as challenging the Jewishness of the Israeli state.”

In both cases, the institutions involved have done indispensable work on Palestine. Their archives matter. Their staff are not indifferent. And yet both encountered a limit that suddenly tightened. Not a rule written down. Not a prohibition announced. A boundary sensed—felt—internalized.

That boundary is built into liberalism’s legal foundations.

1948 marks the birth of a two-tier liberal world order. In one tier, European suffering generated binding norms, and enforceable obligations. In the other, colonial violence and apartheid were rendered administratively necessary.

International law did not fail to see colonial violence; it learned to manage it. The postwar legal architecture was designed to regulate atrocity without dismantling domination, to civilize violence without undoing conquest. It promised universality while quietly accommodating racial hierarchy, territorial seizure, and permanent displacement—so long as these could be narrated as security, necessity, or history.

It’s my understanding that mass produced items are all basically the same. If you buy something like a toothbrush, for example, then any other toothbrush from that same assembly line is going to be basically the same and have all the same specs (with the exception with minor defects here and there), because the machinery and process to make any those toothbrushes are all basically the same.

But that can’t be the case with locks and keys. Because if every lock and key were the same then there’d be no point in having them. Anyone could just bought the same key/lock combo could use it to unlock your front door. So all or most keys and locks must be unique. So how are they mass produced in a way that preserves their uniqueness?

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/7134104

Archive link

MI5 has warned universities about the growing threat from China and told them to report instances of foreign interference to the government and security services.

The intelligence agency hauled more than 70 vice-chancellors into a rare briefing last week to urge them to step up their defences against intimidation and censorship by “hostile states”.

Sir Ken McCallum, the director-general of MI5, warned them that China and other states were attempting to influence universities’ research and teaching.

...

UK-China Transparency (UKCT), a think tank, published a report in August stating that Chinese students in the UK were being pressured to spy on their classmates.

After surveying China studies academics, the think tank received reports of Chinese government officials warning lecturers to avoid discussing certain topics in their classes.

Some academics also said they were intimidated by visiting scholars and staff at Confucius Institutes. These partnership organisations claim to promote Chinese culture on UK campuses, but have been criticised over their alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

...

In one of the most high-profile examples of interference, Sheffield Hallam University ordered a senior professor to halt her work on allegations of forced labour in the Xinjiang region last year.

Laura Murphy, professor of human rights and contemporary slavery, initiated legal proceedings against the university after it emerged that the institution was concerned her research was impacting the number of Chinese students enrolling on courses.

...

The government’s new “academic interference reporting route” will allow universities to send their concerns about foreign influence straight to UK intelligence agencies.

...

Vice-chancellors are understood to be responsible for passing on the information, with complaints “triaged” based on their severity.

Dr Tim Bradshaw, chief executive of the Russell Group of universities, said: “The new single point of contact for advice on foreign interference will empower institutions to report and take action more swiftly and confidently, knowing there is support in place.

...

[Edit to insert the archived link.]

My cousin had encountered issues where his PC would ask to choose an OS to boot into which was strange as I only installed windows 11 into it. From there it began to not detect any bootable devices.

I go to check it out and enounter the same issues, even after changing the boot priority (the only storage, a HDD, was still showing in the BIOS). I am unable to even boot into an Ubuntu image on a USB (crashes when it does a "file check" or something to that effect).

Suspecting the HDD, less than a year old, may be damaged I connect it to my rig (dumb mistake in hindsight), and I am able to view files in the hdd with no issues, several times. I assume then that the HDD is likely working and my cousin either downloaded something malicious or made a change to his system to damage it.

I setup a windows 11 image, and connect to via usb to his system where I reinstall windows. Even after successfully "installing" windows 11, i kept getting a no bootable device error. I was finally able to boot into an Ubuntu image on a USB, and still view the HDD, so I reinstalled linux with no issues, after which i was finally able to reinstall windows 11 with no issues.

I'm curious if this could have been a virus that cause these issues? (do any viruses cause similar issues?) If its more likely he did something wrong to the PC (he's not tech savvy) or potentially something else?

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/7134104

Archive link

MI5 has warned universities about the growing threat from China and told them to report instances of foreign interference to the government and security services.

The intelligence agency hauled more than 70 vice-chancellors into a rare briefing last week to urge them to step up their defences against intimidation and censorship by “hostile states”.

Sir Ken McCallum, the director-general of MI5, warned them that China and other states were attempting to influence universities’ research and teaching.

...

UK-China Transparency (UKCT), a think tank, published a report in August stating that Chinese students in the UK were being pressured to spy on their classmates.

After surveying China studies academics, the think tank received reports of Chinese government officials warning lecturers to avoid discussing certain topics in their classes.

Some academics also said they were intimidated by visiting scholars and staff at Confucius Institutes. These partnership organisations claim to promote Chinese culture on UK campuses, but have been criticised over their alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

...

In one of the most high-profile examples of interference, Sheffield Hallam University ordered a senior professor to halt her work on allegations of forced labour in the Xinjiang region last year.

Laura Murphy, professor of human rights and contemporary slavery, initiated legal proceedings against the university after it emerged that the institution was concerned her research was impacting the number of Chinese students enrolling on courses.

...

The government’s new “academic interference reporting route” will allow universities to send their concerns about foreign influence straight to UK intelligence agencies.

...

Vice-chancellors are understood to be responsible for passing on the information, with complaints “triaged” based on their severity.

Dr Tim Bradshaw, chief executive of the Russell Group of universities, said: “The new single point of contact for advice on foreign interference will empower institutions to report and take action more swiftly and confidently, knowing there is support in place.

...

[Edit to insert the archived link.]

posted at the request of Lumicon

#bloomscrolling

Chatbots provided incorrect, conflicting medical advice, researchers found: “Despite all the hype, AI just isn't ready to take on the role of the physician.”

“In an extreme case, two users sent very similar messages describing symptoms of a subarachnoid hemorrhage but were given opposite advice,” the study’s authors wrote. “One user was told to lie down in a dark room, and the other user was given the correct recommendation to seek emergency care.”

We have another event that invites people over to our side!

Source

Source

Even if they want to obscure your ability to legally record, speak to your recording device and say what you can see. document using the SALUTE method. Pass SALUTE info to the rapid response network you are a part of.

Size: How many agents/ officers?

Activity: What specifically are the agents doing? If someone is detained and you know their A number and/or DOB, note it.

Location: Give an exact address or intersection and in NYC, a boro. The same address can be found in multiple boros. Include Av/St/Rd etc.

Unit(s): What letters, details, or patches are visible on the uniforms/jackets/vests/vehicles? Example: HSI/Homeland Security Investigations/Police Gang Unit, ERO, POLICE, CBP/US Customs and Border Protection, CBP Field Operations, POLICE DHS (2 kinds: NYPD Dept Homeless Services that are NOT ICE and Department of Homeland Security, who are federal agents)

Time: What precise time did you witness this? This info should be shared quickly.

Equipment: What did agents have with them? Ex: weapons, flexicuffs, dogs, door breakers, LRAD sound cannon, vans, SUVs, etc. 

https://www.nysylc.org/ice-watch#politics