(Snip)

How long has the U.S. restricted satellite imagery of Israel?

It's a unique situation: For years, federal law has limited the quality of commercial satellite imagery U.S. companies can sell — if the images depict Israel and Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories such as Gaza.

It's not unusual for countries to attempt to restrict satellite imagery of sensitive locations on their own soil. But in this case, the law seeks to protect an entire — and separate — country.

"This restriction doesn't even apply to the U.S." homeland and territories, satellite imagery analyst Matt Korda of the Federation of American Scientists told NPR.

(More at link)

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/16/1212889717/satellite-images-us-israel-gaza

The state’s attorney general is investigating the efforts of Republicans who falsely claimed to be Trump electors.

By BETSY WOODRUFF SWAN

11/15/2023 01:09 PM EST

The attorney general of Nevada is quietly investigating Republican activists and operatives who falsely pledged the state’s six electoral votes to Donald Trump in 2020, despite Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

In recent weeks, investigators have questioned witnesses about the attempts of the so-called alternate electors to present themselves as viable representatives of the states’ voters, according to three people familiar with the probe. Investigators have also asked about documents those people prepared as part of the effort.

The probe, which until now has not been publicly reported, is the latest sign of potential legal jeopardy for the Republicans who, amid Trump’s bid to cling to power, posed as electors in states that Biden won. False electors in Georgia and Michigan are already facing criminal charges, and an investigation is underway in Arizona.

In Nevada, six Republicans, including state GOP chair Michael McDonald, signed fake certificates on Dec. 14, 2020, falsely declaring themselves to be the state’s duly appointed Electoral College representatives. Trump and his allies then invoked that slate of false electors, as well as similar slates in six other states, as they tried to block Congress’ certification of the election results on Jan. 6, 2021.

(More at link)

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/15/nevada-false-electors-trump-investigation-00127369

by Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News
Nov. 11, 8:40 a.m. EST

Before they died, Jennifer Kirk and Sue Sue Norton were both victims of domestic violence, but the men involved — the ex-mayor’s sons — faced few consequences despite a long history of similar allegations.

KOTZEBUE, Alaska — On a subzero Monday morning in March 2020, police found another woman dead at the ex-mayor’s property.

Two years earlier, the body of 25-year-old Jennifer Kirk lay curled at the foot of a bed, a rifle on the floor, strangulation marks on her neck and a bullet hole beneath her chin. City police swiftly closed the case, declaring it a suicide.

Now police were back at the property, where the lifeless body of Susanna “Sue Sue” Norton, 30, was discovered in an adjacent house, beaten and strangled. An autopsy determined the cause of death to be homicide.

Kirk and Norton, both Inupiaq, had each dated sons of the former borough mayor, and the sons had previously been convicted of beating each of them. One of the sons had admitted to strangling Kirk twice before. Another pleaded guilty to kicking Norton in the stomach when she was six months pregnant.

No one has ever been charged with a crime in connection to the deaths.

(More at link)

https://www.propublica.org/article/two-women-died-on-alaska-mayors-property-no-one-ever-charged

By Nick Cunningham
on Nov 10, 2023

(Snip)

“The second edition of the compendium had 150 studies and then it went to 400 studies for the third edition in 2014,” Steingraber said. “2014 was a year of just so many publications that I could hardly keep track anymore.”

The latest version, the 9th edition, released in October, has nearly 2,500 studies showing evidence of harm from fracking. In the past decade, the science has been used by researchers, scientists and activists from all over the world. Steingraber has been in touch and worked with people in Ireland, Argentina, Mexico, South Africa, and Scotland, among other places.

Taken together, the report finds that the health, environmental, and climate impacts of fracking are so profound, that there is “no evidence that fracking can be practiced in a manner that does not threaten human health directly or without imperiling climate stability upon which human health depends.”

At a press conference on November 8, discussing the findings, Steingraber said that the problems with fracking are “intractable and are not fixable through any regulatory framework.”

“Fracking resembles lead paint or indoor smoking — no rules or regulations can make these practices safe.”

(Much more at link)

https://www.desmog.com/2023/11/10/steingraber-study-overwhelming-harms-fracking/

By Guy Hedgecoe
BBC News, Almendralejo

A sleepy town in southern Spain is in shock after it emerged that AI-generated naked images of young local girls had been circulating on social media without their knowledge.

The pictures were created using photos of the targeted girls fully clothed, many of them taken from their own social media accounts.

These were then processed by an application that generates an imagined image of the person without clothes on.

So far more than 20 girls, aged between 11 and 17, have come forward as victims of the app's use in or near Almendralejo, in the south-western province of Badajoz.

(More at link)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66877718