Residents of the Big Apple vented frustration after an official notice urged them to limit their energy usage amid a major heat wave, asking why they should swelter without AC as Times Square remains lit up like a Christmas tree.
A notice from the city’s energy manager Con Edison asked locals to reduce their power consumption on Wednesday, saying they should limit the “unnecessary use of air conditioning” and other appliances, including washing machines, dryers and microwaves. The alert was relayed by outgoing Mayor Bill De Blasio, and even sent directly to New Yorkers’ cell phones.
We need New Yorkers to take IMMEDIATE action: reduce your use of electricity in your home or your business for the rest of the day. We need to avoid energy disruptions during this heat emergency. https://t.co/w5BQDHzUFt
On the fourth consecutive day of an intense heat wave, New Yorkers did not respond well to the ask, with many netizens pointing out that Con Edison’s request appeared to go wholly ignored in Times Square, where a who's-who of corporations operate dozens of towering, energy-guzzling LED displays, many used as ad space.
“Turn [off] all these big ass billboards off in Times Square before you ask me not to make a Hot Pocket,” one user quipped.
Emergency alert: CONSERVE ENERGY! GO EASY ON THE AC! OR ELSE WE MAY HAVE A POWER INTERRUPTION!
Times Square all year: pic.twitter.com/ckPRSmBQzT
NYC's mayor just told us to turn off our air conditioners. The brands of Times Square are still blazing and consuming. These are screenshots of live webcams taken just now. pic.twitter.com/tPGilQ5v3H
According to a Con Edison employee cited by a New York travel blog, the city’s Theater District, which encompasses Times Square, can consume up to 161 megawatts of electricity at peak usage, while a 2017 Business Insider report estimated that the Square’s energy costs run more than $26,000 per day. The most recent data from the US Energy Information Administration suggests that the average US household consumes around 29.23 kilowatts per day, which converts to just over 0.02 megawatts.
Amid days of scorching temperatures, the utility firm also said that it reduced voltage by 8% to certain neighborhoods in Queens on Wednesday, noting the move would affect around 64,000 customers. Some netizens asked about the “demographics” of those communities, suggesting reductions would not hit upscale neighborhoods, while others predicted that the “working class” would bear the brunt of the power crisis.
I wonder what the demographics are for these neighborhoods that Con Ed is throttling power for. I’m sure it’s not illuminating https://t.co/UsaV19xrog
— Strega Nona-Binary (@kendrawcandraw) June 30, 2021
do y’all even realize how many billboards light up times square and take up SOOO much energy why does the working class have to cut their power lol
Other areas of New York also saw power outages, including in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, where 1,700 residents were left to sweat it out in the dark, the New York Times reported.
The heat wave roasting NYC has not been confined to the Empire State, however, with cities across the West Coast also reporting record-breaking temperatures over the last week. Canada’s western provinces have also seen blistering weather, with scores of people dying from heat-related conditions in recent days.
Breaking with its usual fashion advice and celebrity gossip, Teen Vogue was cheered after posting a fiery obituary for Donald Rumsfeld, dubbing the ex-Pentagon head an “accused war criminal” and a cheerleader for torture.
The article appeared on social media with an even bolder caption, this time also making mention of Rumsfeld’s strong support for torture during his time in the George W. Bush administration – which euphemistically labeled the practice “enhanced interrogation.”
Teen Vogue’s focus on the darker aspects of Rumsfeld’s legacy earned plaudits on social media, with readers hailing the site’s straight-talking approach while contrasting it with more tepid coverage from other corporate media outlets.
“Teen Vogue once again proving they're more serious about journalism than the NYT, WaPo, WSJ, etc.,” one user said while sharing the obituary.
I never thought I'd see "Teen Vogue" give every sycophantic journos a lesson in headline writing https://t.co/KejkYox6Gk
One observer even deemed the youth-oriented website the “new paper of record,” snatching the prestigious title from the Times and the Post, both of which went with more conventional headlines for their obituaries.
Others shared examples of more lukewarm coverage of Rumsfeld’s death, including from the Associated Press, which was slammed as a “stenographer of power” after hailing Rumsfeld as a “visionary” and “skilled bureaucrat” whose good reputation was “soiled” by the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003.
— Antoine🍩🍩#IStandWithDan (@Antoine27680014) June 30, 2021
With his lengthy career including stints in the Navy, Congress as well as the Nixon and Ford administrations, Rumsfeld was also a key architect of the Iraq invasion, playing a major role in kicking off the broader War on Terror after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
Rumsfeld’s vocal advocacy for torture gave rise to war crimes accusations both during and after his tenure with Bush, seeing two separate lawsuits filed against him in Germany beginning in 2004. Brought by former detainees at the notorious US-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, as well as the American detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the plaintiffs alleged that Rumsfeld authorized brutal interrogation methods and was responsible for abuses at the two sites.
In 2012, a separate tribunal held by the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission also found Rumsfeld and other top Bush officials guilty of war crimes in relation to torture carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.
Soundcloud has reversed a suspension of reporter Andy Ngo’s podcast on their platform only days after being accused of censoring it for political reasons.
Ngo, best known for his coverage of Black Lives Matter riots and his ‘Unmasked’ book on Antifa, first accused Soundcloud of permanently suspending his podcast without explanation this week.
Ngo took to Twitter to reveal he was informed by Soundcloud through email that his podcast, ‘Things You Should Ngo,’ was being suspended for “violating” the site’s community guidelines.
According to the platform’s terms of use and community standards, users must not post content that is “abusive” or “libellous” that incites violence or discrimination. Soundcloud did not specify how specifically Ngo’s podcast had violated their standards, but Ngo pointed to the fact that many of his guests are popular targets of liberal pundits, including authors Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin, when revealing the suspension.
Big Tech is not nonpartisan nor neutral. Being permanently suspended from @SoundCloud without knowing why or even having an opportunity to appeal is how it is now.
Ngo and others blasted the alleged bias of Soundcloud and other Big Tech companies following the suspension.
“Big Tech is not nonpartisan nor neutral. Being permanently suspended from @SoundCloud without knowing why or even having an opportunity to appeal is how it is now,” the reporter tweeted.
After days of complaints from Ngo and other conservatives, Soundcloud reversed their decision, saying that a subsequent review found no offending content on his account, according to a Wednesday tweet from Ngo.
Despite the reversal, Ngo said he is canceling his membership with Soundcloud and removing all of his content from the service.
Update: @SoundCloud has reversed my permanent suspension following "additional reviews of the account" after the press coverage of the past 48 hours.
I have informed SoundCloud I will be canceling my paid subscription and taking all my content off their platform. pic.twitter.com/qUdNa8UBUF
In a screenshot of an email responding to Soundcloud’s reversal, Ngo demanded the “decision-making process” behind his suspension and said the ban was only lifted due to media outlets giving it coverage.
“What happens to your wrongly banned users and clients who don’t have the benefit of press coverage?” Ngo asked.
Before Ngo’s trouble with Soundcloud, he had been attached to controversy and making headlines for his connection to former Mumford & Sons banjoist Winston Marshall, who announced earlier this month that he was exiting the band he’d co-founded in 2007 because he wanted to speak his mind “freely” without his bandmates facing the consequences.
In a new twist to claims the NSA has spied on Fox News host Tucker Carlson, House Republicans now want their top intelligence overseer to investigate the agency the way he probed the FBI spying on President Donald Trump.
Citing “a disturbing trend at the National Security Agency,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced on Wednesday that he has asked fellow California Republican and ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Devin Nunes to “investigate and find answers on behalf of the American people.”
For the past several months, I've seen a disturbing trend at the National Security Agency. The NSA cannot be used as a political instrument.
I’ve asked Rep. Devin Nunes to investigate and find answers on behalf of the American people.
“Although NSA publicly denied targeting Carlson, I have serious questions regarding this matter that must be answered,” McCarthy said, saying that the agency “cannot be used as a political instrument.”
The Fox News host, whose show routinely dominates the 8 pm ratings slot, has long been a thorn in the side of the US political establishment. Not just Democrats, either; back in May, Carlson embarrassed McCarthy himself with an expose of his connections to pollster Frank Luntz.
This week, however, things took a more sinister turn – as Carlson said the NSA was reading his texts and emails, and sought to leak that information in an effort to have his show pulled off the air.
NSA responded on Tuesday, with a statement saying Carlson is “not an intelligence target,” which the Fox News host rejected as “infuriatingly dishonest” and “an entire paragraph of lies.”
By Wednesday, Congressman Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) on the House Judiciary Committee called for an “inspector general investigation into any monitoring that the NSA or any other element of the intelligence community is engaged in” related to Carlson. It was after this that McCarthy announced he wanted Nunes involved.
Nunes famously oversaw the HPSCI Republican effort to investigate the claims that President Donald Trump’s campaign was spied on. In a memo published in early 2018, Nunes confirmed reports that the FBI was indeed spying on Trump, via aide Carter Page. Democrats denounced Nunes as a “Russian agent” and demanded his removal from the committee, but he ended up being fully vindicated.
As evidence that was made public later confirmed, the FBI used the so-called Steele Dossier to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Page back during the 2016 election, and later extended it three times in 2017 – to spy on Trump long after Page left the campaign. The Steele Dossier itself was exposed as a work of fiction, written by a British spy who was paid – via several intermediaries – by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democrats.
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Transgender Americans have been given the option to change the gender that appears on their passports, joining other nations who’ve adopted similar practices. Nonbinary options are also on the way, the State Department said.
Those seeking a gender switch need only submit a new passport application with their desired gender marker, M or F, making the change a simple process, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced on Wednesday.
Applicants will “no longer require medical certification if an applicant’s self-selected gender does not match the gender on their other citizenship or identity documents,” Blinken added.
However, the department has yet to determine a way to represent nonbinary or other ‘gender-queer’ options with a single letter, leaving many within the trans community – all 1.4 million of them, according to the most recent US census – frustrated.
Describing the task as “technologically complex,” Blinken said officials were still “evaluating the best approach” for a nonbinary option.
In addition to passports, gender can now also be altered on social security papers, meaning these documents will be seen as legally valid in other countries – indeed, 10 nations already have similar laws in place. Obtaining them will not require the presence of a notary or other official to prove the individual’s identity, however.
The format is already in use by the International Civil Aviation Organization, which allows these passports to be read by machines.
While several publications, such as the New York Times, have reported that the State Department will adopt the “X” used by other countries as a nonbinary designation – including Nepal, Bangladesh, Germany, New Zealand and Thailand – Blinken himself gave no timetable for a third option, nor did he specify what mark the documents would use.
The Biden administration has reportedly held talks with the American Civil Liberties Union to add “X” gender markers to federal documents for those who do not identify as male or female – though it’s not clear what they are supposed to do if the bearer doesn’t identify with “X” either.
On the campaign trail, Biden pledged to provide nonbinary options for IDs and other documents, part of a massive list of LGBT-focused promises. Other vows included protecting “LGBTQ+ individuals from violence,” as well as more ominous-sounding goals, such as calling to “collect data necessary to fully support the LGBTQ+ community.”
German biotech firm CureVac said its coronavirus vaccine showed just 48% efficacy against Covid-19 following its final analysis, marking only a slight improvement on the company’s last trial while sending its stock value tumbling.
CureVac announced the second- and third-phase trial results for its CVnCoV vaccine on Wednesday, in its final analysis for a 40,000-subject study that drew participants from 10 countries across Europe and Latin America.
“In the unprecedented context of 15 strains circulating within the study population at the time of final analysis, CVnCoV demonstrated an overall vaccine efficacy of 48%... against Covid-19 disease of any severity, including single non-respiratory mild symptoms,” the company said, adding that the 18-60 age group fared slightly better, at 53%.
The results were only a meager improvement over CureVac’s preliminary trial earlier this month, which showed the vaccine had 47% overall efficacy.
While CureVac noted that the inoculation was even more effective against “moderate to severe disease” in the 18-60 age group, reporting the figure at 77%, the data was inconclusive for older patients, who face significantly greater risk from Covid-19. Those aged 60 and older represented just 9% of the analyzed cases, but the firm said the available data “did not enable a statistically significant determination of efficacy.”
For severe disease that results in hospitalization or death, the company said its vaccine was fully effective for those aged 18 to 60.
The news dealt a blow to CureVac’s stock value, which initially plunged by some 10 points in after-hours trading, beating back a 9% gain seen earlier on Wednesday after the company announced a reshuffling of its board. CureVac’s previous disappointing trial results had a similar effect on the market, with Wednesday’s data further dashing confidence in a vaccine once forecasted to “bring hope to the unvaccinated world.”
Despite the poor showing, CureVac CEO Franz-Werner Haas spoke optimistically about the vaccine, saying the latest analysis “demonstrates a strong public health value” for the 18-60 age group and provides “clinically relevant data” for emerging coronavirus variants.
The CVnCoV vaccine uses messenger RNA technology similar to the more effective Moderna and Pfizer shots, however unlike those immunizations, CureVac’s remains stable at refrigerator temperatures and does not require sub-zero storage. Russia’s Sputnik V also needs no special storage, making such vaccines attractive for developing nations that lack deep freeze facilities.
Though the World Health Organization recommends an efficacy threshold of at least 50% for coronavirus vaccine trials, the European Union’s drugs regulator suggested last week that it would not impose a similar requirement. Asked about a 50% threshold following CureVac’s preliminary trial results, the agency’s vaccine chief Marco Cavaleri said the regulator “always felt it was difficult to define upfront a threshold.”
CNN’s former White House correspondent and anti-Trump resistance hero Jim Acosta took a break from his anchor duties to follow the ex-president to the US-Mexico border in a bid to trigger a testy exchange, but the stunt backfired.
Donald Trump visited the Rio Grande valley on Wednesday, at the invitation of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, touring the border wall he began building while in office – but which was halted by President Joe Biden immediately upon inauguration.
After Trump gave a speech at one point, Acosta shouted a question from the press area, asking Trump if he intended to “apologize” for the January 6 riot at the US Capitol. “Crowd of mostly GOP members and staff booed,” the CNN anchor later tweeted.
CNN's Jim Acosta asks Trump if he will apologize for the Jan 6 Capitol riot. The question is met with boos from the audience. pic.twitter.com/34afF5jhGB
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 30, 2021
The moment was a throwback to the Trump presidency, when Acosta made a habit of grandstanding at White House briefings and press conferences, then claimed he was being victimized by Trump and getting death threats from his supporters. He spun it all into a book about heroically defending journalism and democracy – that hasn’t sold very well – and getting a promotion to a news desk job.
So why was he even in Texas, the Twittersphere wondered as Acosta’s name trended on both sides of the political aisle. Was Trump still president? Or did he miss Trump that much?
This is hilarious. That weaselly dipshit Acosta is telling people on his TL that he "asked" the question when it's clear that he did his trademark stunt of shouting an accusatory, heckling troll from the peanut gallery.
Others pointed out that Acosta’s ratings were so bad, CNN must have sent him back on the road to “harass” Trump. It was just like old times – except CNN had far fewer viewers now.
.@Acosta ‘s show is rating so poorly CNN sent him back on the road to harass President Trump…and as usual The Boss ignores him 😂 https://t.co/X8k17syAec
— CiceroConsultancy (@CiceroConsulta1) June 30, 2021
Jim Acosta got to yell a question at Trump today like old times... except CNN has 75% less viewers now and his career is hanging by threads.
While it may not be quite the 75% ratings drop as some claimed, CNN has in fact bled audiences at an alarming rate. According to one report, since April, when Acosta took over the weekend CNN Newsroom show, its viewership has dropped by 30 percent compared to the first three months of 2021 – and by 41% on Sunday.
Hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants have crossed the US-Mexico border since January, as Biden reversed almost all of Trump’s immigration policies. Some of them even wore “Biden let us in” shirts, using the Democrat’s campaign logo. Texas and Arizona, run by Republican governors, have sought to toughen border enforcement themselves, accusing the federal government of dereliction of duty.
The White House has rejected describing the border situation as a “crisis” and downplayed the surge as “seasonal.” It also blamed it on the previous administration, poverty, and climate change.
News of ex-congressman and defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s death soon attracted critics of his role in the Iraq War, but when the media described the Bush-era official as all but a victim of circumstance, tempers really blew.
Rumsfeld’s death was announced on Wednesday. He passed away on June 29 in Taos, New Mexico at the age of 88. A statement from the late public official’s family described him as being “dedicated to country” and having an “unwavering love” for family and friends.
Social media reactions to Rumsfeld’s death were not so kind, with most pointing to his advocacy for the Iraq War and integral role in the US’ controversial ‘War on Terror’ as his most egregious acts in public office.
Donald Rumsfeld was a merciless war criminal who presided over systemic torture, massacres of civilians, illegal wars. That’s his legacy and how he should forever be remembered.
Rumsfeld served as defense secretary twice, the first time in the Gerard Ford administration and the last time in the George W. Bush administration. He would eventually resign him position under Bush in 2006 after increased scrutiny surrounding his role as an advocate for the War on Terror and specifically the conflict in Iraq, which was sold to the American people by officials such as Rumsfeld suggesting there were WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction) in Baghdad, a claim that was proven to be wrong.
It was not a surprise that the media that attempted to spin Rumsfeld’s career in a most positive light have received an instant pushback. Eyebrows were raised when the Associated Press described Rumsfeld as “the two-time defense secretary whose reputation as a skilled bureaucrat and visionary of a modern US military was soiled by the long and costly Iraq war.” This earned the AP a quick backlash from critics, who accused the outlet of turning Rumself into a “victim” of the war he was considered a key architect for.
BREAKING: Donald Rumsfeld, the two-time defense secretary whose reputation as a skilled bureaucrat and visionary of a modern U.S. military was soiled by the long and costly Iraq war, has died at age 88, his family says. https://t.co/1eCjLJ6A8l
“Donald Rumsfeld being described as ‘a visionary’ makes me sick. The man was a war monger, a murderer, an imperialist. He is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands and the displacement of millions more,” musician Laura Jansen tweeted.
“Turns out Donald Rumsfeld was an incredible ‘visionary’ before the Iraq War came along and ‘soiled’ him. He was the real victim of the Iraq War all along. Thanks, AP,” journalist Michael Tracey added.
Even in his farewell statement as defense secretary, Rumself defended the Iraq War despite thousands of soldier and civilian deaths – some estimate ‘war-related’ deaths to be in the hundreds of thousands over the course of the years-long war – and cities decimated from bombs and the surge of combat troops. Rumself warned that “weakness” and the “perception of weakness” could be considered “provocative” in the region.
Rumsfeld again defended the Iraq War in his 2011 memoir, saying capturing and executing Saddam Hussein had made the region “more stable and secure,” a position few agreed with as the war raged on and groups like Islamic State (IS, ISIS/ISIL) took advantage of the unstable state of the region.
The New York City Democratic primaries were characterized by a dumpster fire of abnormalities and apparent fraud, as observers wondered why a city couldn’t get done what a whole country could have years ago.
New York City’s primary election, the Democrats’ first ranked-choice vote for mayor, council-members and borough presidents, was supposed to have learned from the mistakes of 2020’s primaries and put that information into practice. Instead, well, the city got this.
The night mayoral election results were supposed to be released, the current frontrunner, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, actually stepped up to remark that his apparent lead was based on there being more voters listing him as their first choice than there actually were in the city.
Adams pointed out on Wednesday night that his lead of 51.1% over apparent runner-up Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner who had 48.9% of ballots to her name, was mathematically impossible, with 125,000 absentee ballots still uncounted. Garcia fans cried foul – even though those 125,000 ballots could have sent their candidate to City Hall. Instead, a horde of naysayers compared Adams’ questioning to former US President Donald Trump, whose own complaints about irregularities at the ballot box in November have continued to this day.
The results of the city’s election were supposed to be released on June 30, but someone got their panties in a bunch – as seems to have become typical in a country where everyone works from home in their underwear.
Alleged “test” ballots included in the total led to more than 135,000 more votes being cast in New York City than the number of people who’d actually voted. It took three hours for the Board of Elections to discover the “glitch” and the city subsequently acknowledged the “discrepancy” only after reporters had pointed it out to them.
That wasn’t the worst of it, though – the “test” ballots weren’t actually taken out of the total tabulation system after they were discovered, meaning they were included in the total vote counts anyway. Oops.
While the faux ballots were finally removed on Tuesday night, replaced by a statement of apology and a promise to release the correct numbers on Wednesday, no new numbers have yet been forthcoming. Just in case anyone wasn’t left completely hopeless about the possibility of democracy in New York functioning ever again, while the full tally of in-person votes is expected Thursday night, the complete set of results, including absentee voters, is not expected until the week of July 12 “at the earliest,” according to NewsMax.
Democrats have described ranked-choice voting as a fairer and more democratic system, as it allows voters to list their runner-up choices in case their primary contender doesn’t win. However, in typical New York fashion, the city’s version of this new system requires candidates to file any legal grievances before Friday, even though they may not be aware of fraud or other issues for weeks, attorney Jerry Goldfeder told Politico. Essentially, if anyone wants to sue, they’d have to start the process now – and given the preliminary results even with 124,000 absentee votes outstanding as of late Tuesday night, a lot of people are going to want to sue.
Staggering, 2020 Dem Iowa Caucus-level incompetence from the NYC Board of Elections amidst a new and promising ranked-choice rollout. https://t.co/ie3OAt5GnF
New Yorkers were dumbfounded at how their elections had become national news for the second year in a row, and the younger Donald couldn't help but notice the bizarre clairvoyance exhibited by the Washington Post in its prediction that the city’s “ranked choice voting” would crash and burn.
Others worried (or, perhaps, rejoiced) that the failure would merely feed the fire for Trump and his offspring as they continue to contest the vote from November.
Let me get this straight? You can be off by 135,000 votes in a New York City mayoral primary alone but if someone loses the White House by less than 45,000 across multiple states in a presidential election you can’t have any questions.
Thanks, NYC Board of Elections, for proving Trump was right about the unreliability of American elections. (Longer-term question: What happens to a democracy when it can no longer hold elections w outcomes anyone can trust?)
Not that they haven't got a history of doing the same thing…
@chrislhayes, who suggested that the previous president might be a Manchurian candidate put there by Putin, would like you all to stop believing conspiracies about elections now. pic.twitter.com/8659Oxbgel
USAF plans to roll out a new physical fitness test, allowing airmen to “choose their own adventure.” Does it amount to much-needed flexibility, or is the ‘chair force’ getting too soft – along with the rest of the US military?
Contrary to the USAF slogan of “aim high,” the new test would allow airmen to walk or do shuttle-run sprints instead of the running portion of the PT test, planks or sit-ups for core strength, or raised-hand push-ups for the final part.
This is what Lieutenant-General Brian Kelly, deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services at USAF headquarters told Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne Bass during a Facebook live chat on Monday. The service intends to start experimenting with the new test in January 2022.
Sometimes, the jokes write themselves
“The new Air Force fitness test will feature walking instead of running and modified push-ups”https://t.co/OrmKr0u3Kn
In all fairness, the “choose your own adventure” description wasn’t actually used by Kelly, but by Task and Purpose, a private news site that specializes in military reporting. It’s a reference to a series of 1980s US children’s books. But if the shoe fits…
One might say, what’s the big deal? It’s not as if someone needs to be in peak physical shape to fly drones, or the disaster that is the problem-riddled F-35 stealth fighter. In fact, weighing more than 165 pounds (75 kg) might help with the latter, as the F-35’s ejection seat design has been found to result in neck damage for scrawnier pilots.
Furthermore, the current Pentagon leadership is obsessed with making the military “look like America.” Obviously, they mean in the sense of “diversity” and hitting the LGBTQI+ quotas and such – but if we’re to be perfectly honest, America is also fat. That was true even before the Covid-19 lockdowns, which didn’t help, to say the least.
I’ve felt like the Air Force has been weak since I found out they get liberty(breaks/freedom) in boot camp. I felt the same about the Navy when they adopted the elliptical as a cardio PT option though.
Unfortunately for the “chair force” – as other branches like to mockingly call USAF – there is a legal requirement for some kind of body composition measurement, which means the service is systemically fatphobic by definition.
“It’s also just about appearance in our uniform,” as General Kelly phrased it, adding that Americans “have to see us as credible warfighting people.”
Judging by comments left on Task and Purpose, good luck with that. “Wasn’t the chair force soft enough already?” asked one user. “What’s next, napping pods on the flight line?” said another. “I mean, we already have massaging recliners for the pilots, so why not?”
Being anonymous, they will likely escape the wrath of the Pentagon dished out back in March against Tucker Carlson. The Fox News host had committed unpardonable heresy by calling out the Air Force for maternity flight suits, you see – and the military responded by having dozens of public relations officers “smite” Carlson for “dissing diversity.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin himself insisted last month that the US military is not “soft” but instead doing a “great job of recruiting the right kinds of people.”
Again, this was most likely meant as a reference to the rainbow coalition targeted by the new and “woke” recruiting ads. Austin’s comments were also meant as a response to Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who dared tweet a mash-up featuring Chinese and Russian recruiting ads as contrast – thereby committing treasonous sedition and insurrection against Our Democracy, or something.
Yet even Austin said that only those who are “fit” and “can qualify” will have a place on his team. Which makes one wonder if Kelly and the Air Force got that memo, or if Austin may not have been entirely serious.
Either way, the US military appears to be lowering standards all around and prioritizing “woke” politics and ideology over actual combat readiness. For people around the world “blessed” by its prowess in exporting “democracy and human rights” over the past few decades, that may not be such a bad thing.
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People traveling through two of Paris’ main airports have been warned to expect “possible delays” after three French trade unions announced workers would strike over a controversial new contract plan.
From Thursday, five days of industrial action at the French capital’s Charles-de-Gaulle and Orly airports could cause disruption for travelers, the operator Groupe ADP said in a statement on Wednesday.
The UNSA union has planned strikes from Thursday to Monday, while the CGT and CFE-CGC have said their action will last from Friday to Monday.
Workers are calling on ADP to scrap its new contract arrangements, which would see some staff bonuses axed. The state-funded operator has defended the proposals as part of what it says is a necessary cost-cutting drive amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
“From 1 to 5 July: industrial action by some Paris Airport staff. Road access disruptions and possible flight delays are expected,” ADP said in a statement.
⚠️From 1 to 5 July: industrial action by some Paris Airport staff. Road access disruptions and possible flight delays are expected.
➡️Anticipate your arrival at #CDG or #Orly airport
➡️Contact your airline to check your flight statushttps://t.co/7PD9q1APlR
From Thursday, CGT has also planned a strike at France’s national rail operator SNCF over working conditions.
Despite the planned walkout, SNCF said all Transilien, TGV Inoui, Ouigo, Intercités, Eurostar and Thalys trains will run as planned, apart from the TER service, which will be “almost normal.”
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Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) has called for an investigation into Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s claims that the National Security Agency (NSA) is spying on him in order to take his show off the air.
During a Wednesday House Judiciary Committee hearing on possible abuses of power at the Department of Justice, Gaetz blasted the NSA’s denial of Carlson’s claims. The Florida congressman said the intelligence agency’s statement “is so couched, it is functionally an admission.”
“The most-watched cable news host has been stating for the last several nights that the NSA has been monitoring his communications,” Gaetz said of Carlson, after saying he does not believe intelligence community has any right to monitor or spy on members of the press or Congress for political purposes.
“Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the agency and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air,” the agency said in a statement this week posted to Twitter. They added that they cannot spy on American citizens without authorization.
The statement led many to speculate whether authorization was given to monitor Carlson’s communications, or those of any other member of the media – and Gaetz was not the only critic of the NSA’s denial.
Carlson himself called the statement “an entire paragraph of lies” and said the agency did not directly deny his accusation that they were reading private communication.
“Just minutes before air tonight, the NSA sent us an infuriatingly dishonest formal statement, an entire paragraph of lies written purely for the benefit of the intel community’s lackeys at CNN and MSNBC – all those people they hire with their titles on the screen,” he said.
Tucker Carlson responds to the NSA:
"We made a very straightforward claim: NSA has read my private emails without my permission... Tonight's statement from the NSA does not deny that instead it comes with this non-sequitur: Tucker Carlson has never been an intel target." pic.twitter.com/gGiP4HNtxw
During Wednesday’s hearing, Gaetz pointed to the NSA’s bulk collection of civilian data – exposed by former NSA contractor and current US fugitive Edward Snowden. He cited the NSA’s numerous denials that any such data-collection program existed as proof of the need for transparency regarding current accusations from Carlson.
“It’s not like the NSA has never lied to us...we were told that there was no bulk collection of Americans’ data. Turns out, there was bulk collection of Americans’ data,” he said, adding it was not possible to count on the NSA to “police themselves.”
BREAKING: Rep. @mattgaetz calls for Inspector General investigation into “any monitoring that the NSA or any other element of the intelligence community has engaged in relative to Tucker Carlson”
The Florida Republican called on his Democrat colleagues to join him in demanding an “inspector general investigation into any monitoring that the NSA or any other element of the intelligence community is engaged in, relevant to Tucker Carlson.”
“If Democrats don’t do this, if you’re only outraged when your members and your staff and the press that’s close to you and that amplifies your messages is targeted, then we are never going to solve anything,” he said.
Donald Rumsfeld, former congressman and US defense secretary best known for his role in advocating the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has passed away just short of his 89th birthday, according to his spokesman.
A Canadian indigenous group has said 182 unmarked graves have been discovered in the South Interior of the province of British Columbia, the third such discovery in the past two months near former Catholic schools.
The burial site is located at the former Catholic-run St. Eugene’s Mission School, the Lower Kootenay Band announced on Wednesday.
The community of ʔaq'am – or St. Mary’s Indian Band – based near the city of Cranbrook made the gruesome find after using radar detection equipment, which apparently pointed to there being graves around a meter below the surface.
Last week, 751 unmarked graves were uncovered at a Catholic school in Saskatchewan province, another indigenous community announced.
That discovery came after the remains of 215 children, some as young as three years old, were found at another Catholic school in British Columbia in May.
St. Eugene’s, now a casino and resort, was run by the Catholic Church from 1890 until the 1970s, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a body set up to document the history of indigenous students in Canadian schools.
The Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre said the school was hit by frequent outbreaks of influenza, mumps, measles, chickenpox, and tuberculosis.
As many as 100 people from the Lower Kootenay Band had been forced to attend the institution, the group said.
“It is believed that the remains of these 182 souls are from the member Bands of the Ktunaxa Nation, neighbouring First Nations communities and the community of ʔaq'am,” the community said in a statement.
More than 150,000 indigenous children were required to attend Catholic-run state schools in Canada from the 1870s until 1997.
In 2015, a report by the commission said the government’s forced assimilation of indigenous students and the system itself could “best be described as ‘cultural genocide.’”
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Jake Paul has become an unlikely advocate for the issue of fighter pay in the UFC – and has fired another shot across Dana White's bow by donating to Sarah Alpar's crowdfunding page after she revealed she couldn't afford to train.
Paul, the YouTuber who has somehow metamorphosed into one of pay-per-view boxing's top draws, has been a frequent and vocal critic over what he sees as improper payment structures within the UFC.
He has frequently called out White on social media, telling him to "pay your fighters" and railing against the UFC boss for his reluctance to cut the type of check which Jon Jones says he requires to challenge Francis Ngannou in the Octagon in what is likely the biggest box office fight currently available in the UFC.
Paul has also made light of the fact that his one-round boxing match with former UFC fighter Ben Askren earlier this year represented a career-high payday for him, and promised the same treatment for Tyron Woodley ahead of their August bout in which the former multiple UFC welterweight champion's purse is expected to far outstrip anything he received in his eight-year UFC career.
SMH… Imagine a rookie in the NBA had to start a GoFundMe to play..
I let Sarah @TOOSWEET_Alpar know she has my support and contribution
It’s my honor and privilege to help fellow fighters in anyway I can🙏🏼https://t.co/XvDHOwoN6Q
And don't let it be said that Jake Paul isn't putting his money where his mouth is, either.
On Wednesday, Paul fired another salvo towards Dana White by publicly contributing to UFC fighter Sarah Alpar's crowdfunding page after the bantamweight fighter revealed that she could no longer afford to pay for her training expenses.
"(Shaking my head)… Imagine a rookie in the NBA had to start a GoFundMe to play," Paul wrote on Twitter.
I just saw you donated to @TOOSWEET_Alpar that is pretty awesome of you. You have my respect for speaking out about fighter pay. Great job young man. I am no longer a hater, but a fan. Thank you.
— Chocolate Starfish Sports (@jonnypickers) June 30, 2021
"I let Sarah Alpar know she has my support and contribution. It’s my honor and privilege to help fellow fighters in anyway I can."
Paul's donation of $5,000 was confirmed on Alpar's GoFundMe page, where he also wrote: "Keep training hard, Sarah – sending you positive energy for your camp."
As per a written note on her page, Alpar had sought fans' help in funding her move to full-time training and will be spending the money on gym fees, nutrition, recovery, doctor fees and the numerous other expenses which professional mixed martial arts fighting entails.
At the time of writing, Alpar's GoFundMe page had drawn just under $9,000 in donations out of a goal of $30,000.
Jake you have a heart of gold. And so many people have taken advantage of that and I have seen it through all your U-Tube videos. Keep pressing forward!! Your a great guy!!!❤🙏
"That is pretty awesome of you," said one fan to Paul. "You have my respect for speaking out about fighter pay. Great job, young man. I am no longer a hater, but a fan. Thank you."
Another said: "Jake, you have a heart of gold. And so many people have taken advantage of that."
An ancient skull found by a river in modern-day Latvia may well hold clues as to how the bubonic plague wiped out tens of millions of people across Europe in what would eventually become the deadliest pandemic in human history.
Researchers from Kiel University in Germany revealed on Wednesday that a strain of the bacterium, known as Yersina pestis, dating back millenia, had been discovered in samples taken from the remains of a hunter gatherer in the Baltic nation. As part of a paper published in the Cell scientific journal, they say the man, estimated to have been in his 20s, lived around 5,000 years ago.
In a revelation that could have implications for the understanding of current and future pandemics, the academics say that this early variant was likely less infectious and deadly than the one that ravaged Eurasia thousands of years later. The Black Death, spread by rats and fleas, is estimated to have killed between 75 and 200 million people from 1347 to 1351.
In a catastrophe of almost unimaginable proportions, the Great Pestilence, as it is sometimes known, is thought to have wiped out 30-50% of Europe’s entire population.
Ben Krause-Kyora, one of the team behind the findings, told New Scientist magazine that the bacterium might have started off as a more benign infection, before evolving to become more deadly. “It was maybe a more chronic, more omnipresent infection. It caused, for sure, some deaths, but it’s maybe not as severe as it became in the Middle Ages,” he said.
However, high concentrations of bacteria isolated from the fragment of skull suggest, the researchers say, that the Latvian prehistoric man was one of the unlucky ones. “To have a close look at the early evolution of this deadly pathogen is really interesting,” Krause-Kyora added. “We see it was more chronic and harmless in the beginning before it became a more deadly disease.”
This hypothesis is contested though, with groups at other universities saying there isn’t yet sufficient evidence to understand whether the the first infections were more survivable.
Earlier this month, Russian scientists announced they had resurrected an ancient microscopic organism, known as a rotifer, from its state of suspended animation in the frozen permafrost under a river in Far East Siberia. The invertebrates, thought to be around 24,000 years old, were even shown to be capable of reproducing asexually after being thawed out.
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A total of 1,991 recent cases of Covid-19 in Scotland have been linked to fans watching Euro 2020 games, with 397 infections confirmed in supporters who attended the game against England at Wembley, say public health experts.
According to Public Health Scotland, two-thirds of the cases involved fans who travelled from Scotland to the English capital for the crunch England against Scotland game which reportedly saw tens of thousands make the trip despite pleas from Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to not travel unless they had a matchday ticket.
The Scottish FA was allocated 2,600 tickets for the game at Wembley, with 397 cases confirmed to have been found in people who attended the match with England.
This represents a little under one in every six Scottish fans inside Wembley contracting Covid-19, though infections may well have occurred in scenarios other than at the stadium.
By contrast, a fanzone in Glasgow for the England game produced relatively minimal infections, as did Scotland's two games at Hamden Park. Meanwhile, hundreds of ticketless Scottish fans gathered in London's Leicester Square for the game before being moved by police at half-time.
Scotland's national clinical director, Professor Jason Leitch, said that he was concerned that nearly 2,000 of Scotland's 32,000 cases of Covid-19 recorded since July 11 have been linked to Euro 2020 – but stated that it is very difficult to identify where an individual case was contracted.
"Some of them may have taken it to London with them, some of them may have got it when they came home," said Leitch.
"But the increasing number of males, the increasing number of young people and the increasing numbers with tagged Euro events – particularly indoor Euro events – and buses and travel would suggest that there is certainly a connection between some of that travel and the Euros".
However, Leitch stressed that this is not a "Euros virus" and that blame shouldn't be apportioned to travelling fans en masse.
"It is, of course, an important part of the last few weeks, but you can catch the virus even if you weren't at the Euros and were not watching the football," he added.
About 90 percent of the 1,991 cases were male, a report indicated, with the age groups being between 20 and 39 in three-quarters of the cases.
The ire among Scottish epidemiologists mirrors a similar debate that is currently ongoing in Finland, where the country's health authorities blamed a sharp uptick in coronavirus cases on fans returning from St. Petersburg, where they watched their team play two matches in the tournament.
After a candidate leading the unofficial tally in the Democrat primary for the mayor of Big Apple raised concerns about discrepancies – and got compared to ex-President Donald Trump for doing so – the results were taken offline.
According to tallies posted earlier on Tuesday – a week after the June 22 primary – Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams had a slim lead of 51.1% over former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia, who stood at 48.9%. This was based on eleven rounds of tallying ranked-choice ballots – and with 125,000 or so absentee ballots still untouched!
NYC MAYOR RANKED CHOICE RESULTS ARE UP! (only early + in-person votes, no absentees yet)
Final Round:
Eric Adams 51.9%
Kathryn Garcia 48.9%
This is a real race folks. The uncounted absentee ballots have the potential to put Garcia over the top.
“The vote total just released by the Board of Elections is 100,000-plus more than the total announced on election night, raising serious questions,” Adams’s campaign said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon. “We have asked the Board of Elections to explain such a massive increase before we comment on the Ranked Choice Voting projection.”
Adams “goes there,” said New York Times reporter Dana Rubinstein, implying inappropriate questioning of election results.
“I've been told you are not allowed to question irregularities,”quipped Donald Trump Jr, retweeting Rubinstein – referring to the way his father, the 45th US president, was treated when he objected to delayed results of the 2020 election.
He wasn’t the only one to make the comparison, either. MSNBC host Chris Hayes – who spent four years accusing Russia of interfering with the 2016 US presidential election – implied Adams was engaging in “the corrosive Big Lie conspiracy-theorizing and delegitimization of elections that Trump and the GOP have unleashed.”
@chrislhayes, who suggested that the previous president might be a Manchurian candidate put there by Putin, would like you all to stop believing conspiracies about elections now. pic.twitter.com/8659Oxbgel
Adams “gave us every reason to worry he'd go Trump-style on the RCV results, and here we are,”said the liberal website Daily Kos. Mere minutes later, however, they had to add a “welp,” as the New York City Board of Elections issued a statement essentially saying that Adams was right.
“We are aware there is a discrepancy in the unofficial RCV round by round elimination report. We are working with our RCV technical staff to identify where the discrepancy occurred. We ask the public, elected officials and candidates to have patience,” the board tweeted at 6:20 pm on Tuesday.
We are aware there is a discrepancy in the unofficial RCV round by round elimination report. We are working with our RCV technical staff to identify where the discrepancy occurred. We ask the public, elected officials and candidates to have patience.
Even then,“Serious, Responsible Liberal pundits” continued to mock Adams and seem not to have noticed the BOE statement vindicating his questioning, journalist Glenn Greenwald pointed out.
Greenwald added that “the inability to count votes quickly and in a way that inspires confidence is doing more to erode trust in US democracy and the voting process than almost any other single factor.”
At some point after issuing the statement in response to Adams, the Board of Elections removed all the ranked-choice voting (RCV) tallies from their site, replacing it with an announcement that “unofficial” results will be released starting June 30.
‼️ The @BOENYC has removed the results of the ranked choice process from its website.
RCV, which the New York Democrats just introduced, has voters mark every candidate on the ballot in the order of preference. Ballots are then counted in multiple rounds, with secondary preferences being added to other candidates’ totals – a process that has taken a week and apparently still has to take mail-in ballots into consideration.
Republicans, meanwhile, expressed amusement with both the Democrats’ frustration with the primary and the way it reflected on their assertions about the 2020 election.
“That New York mayoral election is shady… but we’re allowed to talk about it because whatever happened – Democrat still wins,” said lawyer and filmmaker Mike Cernovich.
That New York mayoral election is shady af, but we’re allowed to talk about it because whatever happened - Democrat still wins.
“And to think this happened just months after the most secure election in history,”commented Human Events editor Jack Posobiec.
National Review and New York Post columnist Kyle Smith just shared a Tuesday morning headline from the Washington Post, claiming that RCV “went smoothly” in New York.
