TheProle
TheProle's JournalFace Recognition Tech Gets Girl Scout Mom Booted From Rockettes Show -- Due to Where She Works
Kelly Conlon and her daughter came to New York City the weekend after Thanksgiving as part of a Girl Scout field trip to Radio City Music Hall to see the Christmas Spectacular show. But while her daughter, other members of the Girl Scout troop and their mothers got to go enjoy the show, Conlon wasn't allowed to do so.
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"They knew my name before I told them. They knew the firm I was associated with before I told them. And they told me I was not allowed to be there," said Conlon.
Conlon is an associate with the New Jersey based law firm, Davis, Saperstein and Solomon, which for years has been involved in personal injury litigation against a restaurant venue now under the umbrella of MSG Entertainment.
"I don’t practice in New York. I’m not an attorney that works on any cases against MSG," said Conlon.
But MSG said she was banned nonetheless — along with fellow attorneys in that firm and others.
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/investigations/face-recognition-tech-gets-girl-scout-mom-booted-from-rockettes-show-due-to-her-employer/4004677/
Lawmakers Intro Bill to Ban TikTok in U.S.
TikTok poses a national security threat, according to lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle.Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL., on Tuesday introduced bipartisan legislation that would ban the popular app TikTok from operating within the United States over national security concerns.
Rubio’s bill—the Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party, or ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act—already has bipartisan support in the House, with Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., authoring companion legislation.
“The federal government has yet to take a single meaningful action to protect American users from the threat of TikTok,” Rubio said in a statement. “This isn’t about creative videos—this is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day. We know it’s used to manipulate feeds and influence elections. We know it answers to the People’s Republic of China. There is no more time to waste on meaningless negotiations with a CCP-puppet company. It is time to ban Beijing-controlled TikTok for good.”
TikTok is owned by Chinese parent company ByteDance. Numerous federal officials, including FBI Director Chris Wray, have testified that the Chinese Communist Party has authority over all Chinese companies, which “allows them to manipulate content, and if they want to, to use it for influence operations.”
https://www.nextgov.com/cxo-briefing/2022/12/lawmakers-intro-bill-ban-tiktok-us/380817/
Canada prepares to expand assisted death amid debate
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada is preparing to expand its medically assisted death framework to become one of the broadest in the world, a change some want to delay due to concerns vulnerable people have easier access to death than to a life without suffering.
Starting in March, people whose sole underlying condition is mental illness will be able to access assisted death. Mental illness was excluded when the most recent medical assistance in dying (MAiD) law was passed in 2021.
That will make Canada one of six countries in the world where a person suffering from mental illness alone who is not near their natural death can get a doctor to help them die.
People will still need to apply and be deemed eligible by two clinicians who must determine whether they have an irremediable condition causing them intolerable suffering and whether they have capacity - whether they understand and appreciate their condition, the decision and its consequences.
"Tired-of-life cases in Canada are happening," said Madeline Li, a cancer psychiatrist specializing in palliative care who put together an assisted death framework for her Toronto hospital network.
"I've become very comfortable with MAiD for people who are dying. I am less comfortable for expanding indications. ... We've made MAiD so open you can request it for basically any reason."
https://news.yahoo.com/canada-prepares-expand-assisted-death-140333315.html
To the Viktor go the spoils....
“Today, one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers is being held accountable for his sordid past,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “Viktor Bout’s arms trafficking activity and support of armed conflicts have been a source of concern around the globe for decades. Today, he faces the prospect of life in prison for his efforts to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to terrorists for use in killing Americans."
“ As the evidence at trial showed, Viktor Bout was ready to sell a weapons arsenal that would be the envy of some small countries,” said U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara. “He aimed to sell those weapons to terrorists for the purpose of killing Americans. With today’s swift verdict, justice has been done and a very dangerous man will be behind bars. I would like to acknowledge the extraordinary efforts of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents who investigated this case on three different continents and helped to bring Viktor Bout to justice.”
Since the 1990s, Bout has been an international weapons trafficker. As a result of his weapons trafficking activities in Liberia, the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control within the Department of Treasury placed him on the Specially Designated nationals list in 2004. The designation prohibits any transactions between Bout and U.S. nationals, and freezes any of his assets that are within the jurisdiction of the United States.
Between November 2007 and March 2008, Bout agreed to sell to the FARC millions of dollars’ worth of weapons – including 800 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), 30,000 AK-47 firearms, 10 million rounds of ammunition, five tons of C-4 plastic explosives, “ultralight” airplanes outfitted with grenade launchers and unmanned aerial vehicles. Bout agreed to sell the weapons to two confidential sources working with the DEA (the “CSs”), who represented that they were acquiring them for the FARC, with the specific understanding that the weapons were to be used to attack U.S. helicopters in Colombia.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/international-arms-dealer-viktor-bout-convicted-new-york-terrorism-crimes
Peru's President Tried to Dissolve Congress. By Day's End, He Was Arrested.
LIMA, Peru — It was a day on which much of Peru was focused on Congress, where an impeachment vote was planned against the president on corruption charges.
But shortly before noon, the Peruvian leader addressed the country in a surprise televised address. He announced the dissolution of Congress and the installation of an emergency government, stunning political leaders across the spectrum, including his own allies, by effectively trying to carry out what was widely condemned as an attempted coup to cling to power.
Government officials resigned en masse. The top court declared the move unconstitutional. And the country’s armed forces and the national police issued a joint statement suggesting they would not support him.
By day’s end, Pedro Castillo, 53, was ousted from power and under arrest. His vice president was sworn in as president and became the first woman to lead Peru.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/world/americas/peru-pedro-castillo-coup.html
Providence offers reparations to address racism. White people can apply.
Mayor Jorge Elorza (D), with Black residents by his side, recently signed a $10 million budget for the Providence Municipal Reparations program. “The radical thing that we did was we put Black voices in the center of city policymaking,” Elorza said in an interview.
While Elorza has focused on how the program would help the city’s Black and Native American residents, there’s a hitch: It’s race-neutral.
Black and Native American Providence residents qualify automatically, but the city has also established a separate, income criteria that could include about half its White residents.
That has angered critics who say it is unclear how much of the money will flow to the Black residents, who make up 12 percent of the population, and have been harmed by systemic racism.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/providence-offers-reparations-to-address-racism-white-people-can-apply/ar-AA14GfN2
Bolsonaro contests Brazil election, demands votes be anulled
Source: Associated Press
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is contesting his defeat in the October election and calling on the electoral authority to annul votes cast on most of the nation’s electronic voting machines, citing a software bug that independent experts have said didn’t affect the reliability of results.
Such an action would leave Bolsonaro with 51% of the remaining valid votes — and a reelection victory, Marcelo de Bessa, the lawyer who filed the 33-page request on behalf of the president and his Liberal Party, told reporters on Tuesday.
The electoral authority has already declared victory for Bolsonaro’s nemesis, leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and leading politicians, including many of the president’s allies, have accepted the results. Protesters in cities across the country have steadfastly refused to do the same, particularly with Bolsonaro declining to concede.
Party leader Valdemar Costa and an auditor hired by the party told reporters in Brasilia that their evaluation found all machines dating from before 2020 — nearly 280,000 of them, or about 59% of the total used in the Oct. 30 runoff — lacked individual identification numbers in internal logs.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/jair-bolsonaro-caribbean-brazil-c03ec4f0e1d65fc81c02a2d90181cf48?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_06
Los Angeles Officials "Strongly Recommending" Masks Again As Variants BQ1 & BQ1.1 Near Dominance And
Los Angeles Officials “Strongly Recommending” Masks Again As Variants BQ1 & BQ1.1 Near Dominance And Case Rates SoarThe recommendation falls short of a mandate, but masks are still required indoors at health-care and congregate-care facilities, for anyone exposed to the virus in the past 10 days, and at locations where they are required by the operator, county Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis said.
On Wednesday, the county reported another 2,215 infections. Today, it was 1,949. The seven-day average daily rate of people testing positive for the virus was 6.8%, up from 5.6% a week ago.
https://deadline.com/2022/11/los-angeles-strongly-recommending-masks-variants-bq1-bq1-1-cases-rise-1235175595/
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The Fast-Spreading New COVID-19 Subvariant XBB Is Part of a ‘New Class’ of Omicron
XBB is getting a lot of buzz because it spreads fast—and seems to be able to evade immunity that people have built up from having a previous COVID-19 infection or getting the vaccine, says William Schaffner, M.D., an infectious disease specialist and professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Still, Dr. Schaffner says, “it’s early days and we have a lot to learn.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/the-fast-spreading-new-covid-19-subvariant-xbb-is-part-of-a-new-class-of-omicron/ar-AA133Y9C?cvid=1c5bfa6487f84424acba646fccd1e2ee
Flashback to March: Did Biden Box Himself In on Article 5?
Mr. Sullivan said the U.S. will continue supporting Ukrainian forces with military assistance.
He also reiterated President Biden’s vow that the U.S. and its allies will “defend every inch” of the NATO territory and would respond even in the event of an accidental or unintentional strike by Russia.
“All I will say is that if Russia attacks, fires upon, takes a shot at NATO territory, the NATO alliance would respond to that,” Mr. Sullivan said.
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-03-11/card/u-s-warns-full-force-of-nato-would-respond-if-russia-hits-poland-zEmQR8bzJCRx5QiKilww
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