Version rapidly approaches Golden Master ahead of possible September iPhone 13 release event
Today those participating in the iOS 15 public beta program are able to update (again), this time to beta 8. This beta process is a “live” test of all the new features, indeed when participating in the program many features change and evolve and, of course, bugs are not infrequent.
As we get nearer and nearer to the launch of this year’s iPhone model, apparently to be dubbed “iPhone 13” the iOS 15 beta versions become more stable and eventually, usually coinciding with the event where the new iPhone model is announced, the Golden Master is reached – which becomes the first public release version.
The first iteration of the public release is often short lived, as the beta test phase almost never gets rid of all the bugs and various features and security patches and other urgent updates are often needed.
For this reason the 2nd or third public release is often the one many experts recommend for those upgrading.
Naturally, though the new phone models will be shipped with iOS 15 already installed, once the phones actually ship of course, which can vary in delay from the launch / announcement at the upcoming September event.
Nevertheless, most older iPhones will benefit from this upgrade, more than a little, and once the release is public a free upgrade will be available to the more than 1 billion users already in possession of an iPhone from previous releases.
The Caldor Fire had burned 204,390 acres and 20%-contained
The raging Caldor Fire that has already forced thousands of people to evacuate, is now becoming a critical threat to the popular tourist location, South Lake Tahoe. Reports of more than 34,000 structures are at risk.
There are approximately 4,000 firefighters and 1,000 California National Guard members that are helping to fight off the growing fires.
A spokesperson for California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services told CNN that over 53,000 people have been placed under evacuation orders.
The fire has already burned more than 300 square miles and destroyed hundred of residential structures. The city is facing wind gusts blowing at 35 miles per hour and stronger which continues to help the fire spread further down into the Tahoe basin.
Devastating Wildfires – continued reminders of the Climate Crisis
Greta Thunberg, the vocal climate crisis activist retweeted the below the video of the fires in California. There is so much confusion over the question of exactly which of the many, many “extreme weather events” as they are now called, are directly attributable to climate change, global warming and Co2 in the atmosphere.
This is, for Greta Thunberg and anyone reading this with an ounce of sense, a moot point. The larger overarching point is that the threat of total world destruction as a result of buying fossil fuel and other human impacts on the environment has been long settled as a very dangerous and rapidly worsening reality.
Splitting hairs by constantly questioning alternative origins for extreme events, that clearly are increasing in their number and severity, is a kind of “climate denial-lite” that is as ridiculous as it is dangerous. Ultimately it is the perspective of those like Greta, that must be adopted and understood by the millions (billions), before it is too late. Only then, when the threat is faced head on, is there a chance we might prevent a rapid slide into oblivion.
Thunberg tweeted this week “Wildfires, floods, droughts, heatwaves and other (un)natural disasters rage all over the world. Many now ask “What will it take for people in power to act?”. Well, it will many things, but above all it will take: massive pressure from media and massive pressure from the public.”
iOS 15 and WatchOS 8 to expand Features in your Digital Wallet for select states to start soon
Back in June at the WWDC21, Apple announced it was working, along with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), on a new feature that will allow Apple users to replace things in our physical wallet like Driver’s Licenses/State Identification.
The company has now announced that 8 states will take part in the roll out of the feature of users adding their’s licenses to the Apple Wallet (available for iPhone and Apple Watch) to use for airport travel at some participating airports.
There are also various apps and programs in each state for storing vaccination ID status information on the iPhone and this will also eventually, in many cases, migrate to the wallet app. The driver’s license and state ID upgrade, is a very big step, however, as this paves the way for the phone to have wallet status no less valid than a physical wallet full of IDs and credit-cards.
Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma and Utah will be among the first states to utilize the capability. Although at this time there is no specific date for timeline.
Just in time for back for in person learning season
This coming school year, for schools within the U.S. and Canada, Apple will offer mobile Student IDs via Apple Wallet, allowing for students to access campus buildings or make school related purchases without having to hold on to a physical card.
iPhone users capable of entering the world of cinematography
It is no secret, and most Apple users already know, that their devices are capable, being equipped with the latest technology, to take great photos. Beautiful works of art and photography have been created not from a professional DSLR camera, but rather, on an iPhone.
More surprisingly, is the ability to create top level fully professional videos using only on Apple devices, and now, various megastar and upcoming singers are starting to use this method for their music videos. Including Selena Gomez. In her “Lose You to Love Me” video, the monochromatic shots are interwoven with transition effects, produced in shooting and editing by iPhone.
The newest iPhones (including the upcoming iPhone possible to be called the “iPhone 13”) and iPads that use Apple silicon are making huge strides forward in video production and editing capabilities.
There’s AI, machine learning, neural networking and all kinds of software under the hood that is being extended and improved constantly (in some cases via AI), and all that tech mumbo jumbo adds up to more creative potential and less costs to get in the game at a very high level. No limits.
Lady Gaga’s music video for “Stupid Love“was also shot on an iPhone and Olivia Rodrigo’s latest single “brutal” was made on an iPad.
In new release, Sally Rooney harnesses Friendship and Coming of Age
Her new novel follows young Alice, Felix, Eileen and Simon. Alice is a young novelist who meets a warehouse worker Felix and on a whim invites him to travel to Rome alongside her.
Alice’s best friend Eileen is reeling over a recent break-up, while also flirting with Simon, whom she has known since childhood.
The four young adults are going through the motions but life is catching up with them, the book is largely based on email correspondence between the friends as they talk about life and all things relationships: love, sex, breakups, betrayals, ect.
The author that brought readers Normal People and Conversation with Friends, “Beautiful World, Where Are You” are sure to bring the drama that easily comes along with growing up.
Rooney’s book is out starting September 7, 2021 and is available at Bookshop or Amazon.
One of the country’s most important sources of fresh water is in peril, the latest victim of the accelerating climate crisis.
On a 110-degree day several years ago, surrounded by piles of sand and rock in the desert outside of Las Vegas, I stepped into a yellow cage large enough to fit three standing adults and was lowered 600 feet through a black hole into the ground. There, at the bottom, amid pooling water and dripping rock, was an enormous machine driving a cone-shaped drill bit into the earth. The machine was carving a cavernous, 3-mile tunnel beneath the bottom of the nation’s largest freshwater reservoir, Lake Mead.
Lake Mead, a reservoir formed by the construction of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s, is one of the most important pieces of infrastructure on the Colorado River, supplying fresh water to Nevada, California, Arizona and Mexico. The reservoir hasn’t been full since 1983. In 2000, it began a steady decline caused by epochal drought. On my visit in 2015, the lake was just about 40% full. A chalky ring on the surrounding cliffs marked where the waterline once reached, like the residue on an empty bathtub. The tunnel far below represented Nevada’s latest salvo in a simmering water war: the construction of a $1.4 billion drainage hole to ensure that if the lake ever ran dry, Las Vegas could get the very last drop.
For years, experts in the American West have predicted that, unless the steady overuse of water was brought under control, the Colorado River would no longer be able to support all of the 40 million people who depend on it. Over the past two decades, Western states took incremental steps to save water, signed agreements to share what was left and then, like Las Vegas, did what they could to protect themselves. But they believed the tipping point was still a long way off.
Like the record-breaking heat waves and the ceaseless mega-fires, the decline of the Colorado River has been faster than expected. This year, even though rainfall and snowpack high up in the Rocky Mountains were at near-normal levels, the parched soils and plants stricken by intense heat absorbed much of the water, and inflows to Lake Powell were around one-fourth of their usual amount. The Colorado’s flow has already declined by nearly 20%, on average, from its flow throughout the 1900s, and if the current rate of warming continues, the loss could well be 50% by the end of this century.
Earlier this month, federal officials declared an emergency water shortage on the Colorado River for the first time. The shortage declaration forces reductions in water deliveries to specific states, beginning with the abrupt cutoff of nearly one-fifth of Arizona’s supply from the river, and modest cuts for Nevada and Mexico, with more negotiations and cuts to follow. But it also sounded an alarm: one of the country’s most important sources of fresh water is in peril, another victim of the accelerating climate crisis.
Americans are about to face all sorts of difficult choices about how and where to live as the climate continues to heat up. States will be forced to choose which coastlines to abandon as sea levels rise, which wildfire-prone suburbs to retreat from and which small towns cannot afford new infrastructure to protect against floods or heat. What to do in the parts of the country that are losing their essential supply of water may turn out to be the first among those choices.
The Colorado River’s enormous significance extends well beyond the American West. In addition to providing water for the people of seven states, 29 federally recognized tribes and northern Mexico, its water is used to grow everything from the carrots stacked on supermarket shelves in New Jersey to the beef in a hamburger served at a Massachusetts diner. The power generated by its two biggest dams — the Hoover and Glen Canyon — is marketed across an electricity grid that reaches from Arizona to Wyoming.
The formal declaration of the water crisis arrived days after the Census Bureau released numbers showing that, even as the drought worsened over recent decades, hundreds of thousands more people have moved to the regions that depend on the Colorado.
Phoenix expanded more over the past 10 years than any other large American city, while smaller urban areas across Arizona, Nevada, Utah and California each ranked among the fastest-growing places in the country. The river’s water supports roughly 15 million more people today than it did when Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992. These statistics suggest that the climate crisis and explosive development in the West are on a collision course. And it raises the question: What happens next?
Since about 70% of water delivered from the Colorado River goes to growing crops, not to people in cities, the next step will likely be to demand large-scale reductions for farmers and ranchers across millions of acres of land, forcing wrenching choices about which crops to grow and for whom — an omen that many of America’s food-generating regions might ultimately have to shift someplace else as the climate warms.
California, so far shielded from major cuts, has already agreed to reductions that will take effect if the drought worsens. But it may be asked to do more. Its enormous share of the river, which it uses to irrigate crops across the Imperial Valley and for Los Angeles and other cities, will be in the crosshairs when negotiations over a diminished Colorado begin again. The Imperial Irrigation District there is the largest single water rights holder from the entire basin and has been especially resistant to compromise over the river. It did not sign the drought contingency plan laying out cuts that other big players on the Colorado system agreed to in 2019.
New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming — states in the river’s Upper Basin — will most likely also face pressure to use less water. Should that happen, places like Utah that hoped to one day support faster development and economic growth with their share of the river may have to surrender their ambition.
The negotiations that led to the region being even minimally prepared for this latest shortage were agonizing, but they were merely a warm-up for the pain-inflicting cuts and sacrifices that almost certainly will be required if the water shortages persist over the coming decades. The region’s leaders, for all their efforts to compromise, have long avoided these more difficult conversations. One way or another, farms will have to surrender their water, and cities will have to live with less of it. Time has run out for other options.
Western states arrived at this crucible in large part because of their own doing. The original multistate compact that governs the use of the Colorado, which was signed in 1922, was exuberantly optimistic: The states agreed to divide up an estimated total amount of water that turned out to be much more than what would actually flow. Nevertheless, with the building of the Hoover Dam to collect and store river water, and the development of the Colorado’s plumbing system of canals and pipelines to deliver it, the West was able to open a savings account to fund its extraordinary economic growth. Over the years since, those states have overdrawn the river’s average deposits. It should be no surprise that even without the pressures of climate change, such a plan would lead to bankruptcy.
Making a bad situation worse, leaders in Western states have allowed wasteful practices to continue that add to the material threat facing the region. A majority of the water used by farms — and thus much of the river — goes to growing nonessential crops like alfalfa and other grasses that feed cattle for meat production. Much of those grasses are also exported to feed animals in the Middle East and Asia. Short of regulating which types of crops are allowed, which state authorities may not even have the authority to do, it may fall to consumers to drive change. Water usage data suggests that if Americans avoid meat one day each week they could save an amount of water equivalent to the entire flow of the Colorado each year, more than enough water to alleviate the region’s shortages.
Water is also being wasted because of flaws in the laws. The rights to take water from the river are generally distributed — like deeds to property — based on seniority. It is very difficult to take rights away from existing stakeholders, whether cities or individual ranchers, so long as they use the water allocated to them. That system creates a perverse incentive: Across the basin, ranchers often take their maximum allocation each year, even if just to spill it on the ground, for fear that, if they don’t, they could lose the right to take that water in the future. Changes in the laws that remove the threat of penalties for not exercising water rights, or that expand rewards for ranchers who conserve water, could be an easy remedy.
A breathtaking amount of the water from the Colorado — about 10% of the river’s recent total flow — simply evaporates off the sprawling surfaces of large reservoirs as they bake in the sun. Last year, evaporative losses from Lake Mead and Lake Powell alone added up to almost a million acre feet of water — or nearly twice what Arizona will be forced to give up now as a result of this month’s shortage declaration. These losses are increasing as the climate warms. Yet federal officials have so far discounted technological fixes — like covering the water surface to reduce the losses — and they continue to maintain both reservoirs, even though both of them are only around a third full. If the two were combined, some experts argue, much of those losses could be avoided.
For all the hard-won progress made at the negotiating table, it remains to be seen whether the stakeholders can tackle the looming challenges that come next. Over the years, Western states and tribes have agreed on voluntary cuts, which defused much of the political chaos that would otherwise have resulted from this month’s shortage declaration, but they remain disparate and self-interested parties hoping they can miraculously agree on a way to manage the river without truly changing their ways. For all their wishful thinking, climate science suggests there is no future in the region that does not include serious disruptions to its economy, growth trajectory and perhaps even quality of life.
The uncomfortable truth is that difficult and unpopular decisions are now unavoidable. Prohibiting some water uses as unacceptable — long eschewed as antithetical to personal freedoms and the rules of capitalism — is now what’s needed most.
The laws that determine who gets water in the West, and how much of it, are based on the principle of “beneficial use” — generally the idea that resources should further economic advancement. But whose economic advancement? Do we support the farmers in Arizona who grow alfalfa to feed cows in the United Arab Emirates? Or do we ensure the survival of the Colorado River, which supports some 8% of the nation’s GDP?
Earlier this month, the Bureau of Reclamation released lesser-noticed projections for water levels, and they are sobering. The figures include an estimate for what the bureau calls “minimum probable in flow” — or the low end of expectations. Water levels in Lake Mead could drop by another 40 vertical feet by the middle 2023, ultimately reaching just 1,026 feet above sea level — an elevation that further threatens Lake Mead’s hydroelectric power generation for about 1.3 million people in Arizona, California and Nevada. At 895 feet, the reservoir would become what’s called a “dead pool”; water would no longer be able to flow downstream.
The bureau’s projections mean we are close to uncharted territory. The current shortage agreement, negotiated between the states in 2007, only addresses shortages down to a lake elevation of 1,025 feet. After that, the rules become murky, and there is greater potential for fraught legal conflicts. Northern states in the region, for example, are likely to ask why the vast evaporation losses from Lake Mead, which stores water for the southern states, have never been counted as a part of the water those southern states use. Fantastical and expensive solutions that have previously been dismissed by the federal government — like the desalinization of seawater, towing icebergs from the Arctic or pumping water from the Mississippi River through a pipeline — are likely to be seriously considered. None of this, however, will be enough to solve the problem unless it’s accompanied by serious efforts to lower carbon dioxide emissions, which are ultimately responsible for driving changes to the climate.
Meanwhile, population growth in Arizona and elsewhere in the basin is likely to continue, at least for now, because short-term fixes so far have obscured the seriousness of the risks to the region. Water is still cheap, thanks to the federal subsidies for all those dams and canals that make it seem plentiful. The myth persists that technology can always outrun nature, that the American West holds endless possibility. It may be the region’s undoing. As the author Wallace Stegner once wrote: “One cannot be pessimistic about the West. This is the native home of hope.”
Originally published on ProPublica by Abrahm Lustgarten via Creative Commons. This article is co-published with The New York Times.
That’s the first line of an open letter released Tuesday by 71 young professionals and students in the advertising and public relations industry calling for an end to contracts with fossil fuel companies, given their significant contributions to the climate emergency.
“The biggest threat to our future is climate change,” they write. “The world’s 20 biggest polluters are fossil fuel companies, with the entire energy sector responsible for creating 75% of carbon emissions. They are blocking necessary and urgently needed climate action.”
“And our industry is helping them do it,” the young professionals continue. “We’re angry. We’re afraid. And we refuse to sit back and watch it happen.”
The letter is clear in its demand:
“We, tomorrow’s leaders, call on all agencies, from the holding companies to the independent shops, to stop working with fossil fuel clients. This means oil giants as well as the alphabet soup of trade associations and front groups.”
– 71 Young Professionals
“No more marketing climate denial and disinformation” or “setting up fake front groups,” the letter adds, further calling for an end to “amplifying lies about how action will hurt the economy” and “greenwashing oil, gas, and coal companies, aiding them in their attempts to dodge pollution safeguards and block meaningful change.”
BREAKING: Today 71 professionals under 30, junior executives, and students in the advertising and PR industry released an open letter calling for advertising and PR executives to end contracts with fossil fuel companies. https://t.co/b3l47m45S0
The signatories urge everyone in the industry—especially agency heads, founders, and leadership teams—to take a stand against continuing to work with polluters, emphasizing that the climate emergency is already taking a toll.
“We won’t be able to reduce, reuse, recycle our way out of tomorrow’s catastrophe—because it is already happening today,” says the letter, which is open for new signatories through the end of the week. “Over the last few years, we’ve seen the devastating impacts of climate-related disasters, like record-breaking wildfires, droughts, heatwaves, and hurricanes. Bold action is needed, at all levels and segments of society. The time has come for our industry to do its part.”
Fires are devouring swaths of the Western United States, forcing evacuations and shutting down every national forest in California. On Sunday, Hurricane Ida, a “poster child for a climate change-driven disaster,” slammed into the Gulf Coast as a Category 4 storm, killing at least four people, leaving more than a million without power amid widespread destruction, and sparking calls for President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency.
“At some point in the recent past, climate change was something that was happening in some distant future, and maybe of little concern to most people. Well, that distant future is now today—everyone will experience climate change as a series of horrific front-page photos and videos until they themselves are taking those photos and videos. It’s no longer some abstract threat,” letter leader Joe Cole toldCommon Dreams.
Cole is strategist working with Clean Creatives, a campaign supported by Fossil Free Media that pressures ad and PR agencies to drop fossil fuel accounts.
The letter comes as the New York Times is under fire for allowing fossil fuel industry advertising, thanks to a new campaign and reporting by climate journalist Emily Atkin in her newsletter HEATED.
As Atkin reported Monday:
[A] new activist campaign to pressure the Times to stop creating and running fossil fuel ads is launching today. Called Ads Not Fit to Print, the campaign argues that fossil fuel advertisements endanger Times readers’ health in the same way now-banned cigarette ads did—and likely, even more.
“What the Times is doing right now is shameful,” said Genevieve Guenther, whose group End Climate Silence is spearheading the campaign. “On one hand, they’re trying to seem like part of the reality-based community who acknowledges the climate crisis and wants to solve it. On the other, they’re doing everything they can to keep the fossil fuel economy going because it is one of the sources of their own power and they believe in it.”
Activists aren’t the only ones taking issue with this practice, either. In conversations with HEATED over the last week, several current and former Times newsroom employees expressed concerns about the paper’s practice of creating and running fossil fuel ads. Their concerns ranged from undermining the Times‘ own climate reporting, to harming Times readers’ health, to aiding industry attempts to mislead the public about the deadly effects of fossil fuels.
Cole highlighted energy giants’ contributions to planet-heating pollution and told Common Dreams that “these clients are represented by some of the most storied ad agencies in the world like BBDO, Edelman, Ogilvy, and WundermanThompson.”
“These ads go on to be featured in some of the most prominent real estate around the world, from billboards to the NYT,” he said. “Although the tobacco industry was and is responsible for a personal health crisis, the fossil fuel industry is killing the entire planet.”
Praising Times journalists’ work on the climate emergency, Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn tweeted that “the paper should stop doing them—and all of us—a disservice by continuing to make and run ads for fossil fuel corporations.”
NYT reporters do great reporting on the climate crisis.
The paper should stop doing them — and all of us — a disservice by continuing to make and run ads for fossil fuel corporations. https://t.co/4wspKFp3eY
In a statement about the letter Tuesday, Cole said that “any time our industry starts to change for the better, it is through a combination of outside and internal pressure. I believe in the power of young professionals in our industry—the leaders of tomorrow—to hasten the necessary transition away from fossil fuel clients.”
The strategist pointed to recent findings that July 2021 was the hottest month ever recorded and asserted that “it’s no longer acceptable for agency executives to ignore the damage their work with fossil fuel clients is doing to the planet.”
He argued that “even a single contract with a client like BP, Shell, or Exxon can wipe out the impact of an agency’s sustainability pledge. If agencies are serious about not only protecting the future of their young staff, but recruiting them in the first place they need to begin by transitioning away from fossil fuel work and rejecting new contracts.”
“The people signing this letter truly are the leaders of tomorrow,” Cole added, “and if agencies want to remain relevant, and attractive places to work for top young talent, they need to end their work for the worst polluters on the planet.”
President Donald Trump’s ban on the visa lottery was ruled to be illegal, but the government says it can’t help hundreds of Afghans who won it for at least another year.
Fakhruddin Akbari is allowing his full name to be published because he is certain he is going to die. Akbari, his wife and his 3-year-old daughter fled their home in Kabul, Afghanistan, two weeks ago. They’ve been hiding with friends in the city, living on bread and water.
He should be among the lucky ones.
Instead, Akbari fears the very thing he was hoping would be his salvation will now make him a target.
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Two years ago, Akbari won a rare spot in the United States’ “visa lottery.” He was chosen at random from a pool of 23 million to get the chance to apply for one of 55,000 visas to immigrate to the U.S. The U.S. was supposed to have finished his case by last fall. The instructions when he registered promised as much. Either he would be safely en route to the U.S., or he would lose his chance and move on.
But with the final U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan just days away — and as Thursday’s bombings have added even more chaos at Kabul’s airport — Akbari has almost certainly lost his chance to get out.
He has already burned the letters of commendation his relatives received for their work with American contractors or allied militaries. The Taliban already know, he says, that he’s part of a pro-American family. His neighbors have told him they’ve been visited by strangers asking about him.
A March 2020 ban signed by President Donald Trump, citing a need to protect the American economy, prevented Akbari and visa lottery winners from entering the U.S. In response to a lawsuit by immigration lawyers, a federal judge ruled earlier this month that the government has to move ahead on processing thousands of last year’s lottery winners. But the U.S. has told the judge it can’t even start until fall 2022 at the earliest.
Several hundred Afghans are in the group. They may be the unluckiest winners in the visa lottery’s 30-year history.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment before publication.
The lottery isn’t open to everyone. Winners must come from a country that hasn’t had much recent immigration to the U.S. Applicants for the visas must also submit biometric information, pass an interview and medical screening, and complete several security checks.
Nouman, an Afghan lottery winner who asked that his full name not be used over fear of the Taliban, spent months tracking down police documents from the Chinese town where he’d worked for a few years, to prove he had a clean record.
Those requirements are still far less restrictive than other ways to legally immigrate to the U.S., which generally require being closely related to a citizen or green-card holder or having a job offer from an American company. In Afghanistan, interest in the lottery is so great that Nouman said it took him two days to successfully log onto the swamped website where lottery results were posted.
But unlike other visas, diversity visas — the type lottery winners become eligible to receive — are on a tight and unvarying schedule.
Lottery winners are notified in the early summer. After submitting their full application, they can only be interviewed at the nearest U.S. consulate once the federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1. Then the whole process has to be completed within a year. Eligibility for the visa doesn’t roll over.
Usually, most of the annual 55,000 visas have been handed out by that time. But last year, two things happened. First, in mid-March, consulates around the world shut down because of the pandemic. Two weeks later, Trump declared that letting in immigrants would hamper the recovery of the economy, and he signed the order barring most types of immigrants — including diversity visa holders.
When U.S. embassies and consulates began to reopen last summer, a State Department cable disclosed as part of the lawsuit shows they were instructed to handle diversity visas last, even if they met the narrow exemptions to the ban.
Giving someone a visa is legally distinct from letting them enter the U.S., and critics of Trump’s actions — including a group of lawyers who filed lawsuits over the bans — argued that even if the ban were legal, consulates could still prepare visas so that recipients could come after the ban was rescinded, which President Joe Biden did this February.
In early September last year, Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia agreed with the argument and ordered the government to make up for lost time, prioritizing diversity visa applicants ahead of everyone else for the last 26 days of the fiscal year.
The State Department’s bureaucracy took a few days to get into gear. Then it began a process that turned out to be far from efficient.
Officials compiled a spreadsheet of applicants who had joined the now-consolidated suit and were supposed to be prioritized, but it was riddled with misspelled names and incorrect case numbers. In a court declaration, a State Department official from a different office said the spreadsheet took “many queries” from his team to fix.
Once consulates and embassies got the correct names, they rushed appointments, often giving applicants little notice. The Kabul embassy wasn’t participating at all, so any Afghan appointments were set up in different countries — or continents.
At least three Afghan immigrants, including Nouman, were scheduled for interviews in Cameroon. All three were given one day’s notice to get there. (Nouman, at least, was able to get a later appointment in Islamabad, Pakistan.)
Many more weren’t given interviews at all. According to court filings, some State Department employees told applicants who called the office handling the cases that if they hadn’t officially joined the lawsuit, “you lost your chance” — which wasn’t true. When a COVID-19 outbreak hit the office and workers went remote, the help line shut down entirely.
When the fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, 2020, more than 40,000 of the 55,000 diversity visas were still unused — and several hundred Afghans were still waiting. Less than 20% of the Afghan lottery winners had gotten visas by the deadline.
That day, Mehta had ordered the State Department to reserve 9,505 slots, based on his estimate of how many diversity visas could have been processed if COVID-19 had existed but the ban didn’t. When the case finally concluded this month, he declared that the government would indeed have to process those visas.
That opinion came down on Aug. 17, two days after Kabul fell.
In a response filed to Mehta on Thursday, the government offered to start processing last year’s visas in October 2022. One reason given for the proposed delay was that processing older visas is “an unprecedented computing demand that will require the Department to implement wide-ranging hardware and software modifications.” Another was that processing diversity visas would take resources away from dealing with the crisis in Afghanistan.
It went unmentioned that some people are affected by both.
Lawyers for the affected immigrants made an emergency filing this week, with testimony from several Afghans worried that they would be targeted by the Taliban precisely because they had sought to immigrate to the U.S. They’re hoping the court will order expedited consideration for Afghan lottery winners.
The lawyers are moving to appeal for the court to order that Afghans get priority in the visa process. The plaintiffs’ lawyers had asked the government to consent to their filing the request. The government’s response — after several days of silence, delaying the filing — was to call it an “unnecessary distraction.”
In a meeting by phone on Monday, according to two people on the call, another government attorney complained that he’d been getting emails from applicants “all over the world” and blamed their lawyers for posting his address online. One of those emails was a desperate cry for help from Akbari. “We are totally hopeless and every knock of the door seems like a call to death for us,” Akbari wrote. “Please help us.”
In the time since sending that email, Akbari and his family have made two attempts to get to Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport. The first time, he says, they were beaten back by the Taliban. The second time he was stopped by the United States. The Marines guarding the airport said they couldn’t enter. The reason? They did not have visas.
Originally published on ProPublica by Dara Lind via Creative Commons
We do have socialism in this country—but it’s not Democrats’ policies. The real socialism is corporate welfare.
You may have heard Republicans in Congress rail about how the Democrats’ agenda is chock-full of scary “socialist” policies.
We do have socialism in this country—but it’s not Democrats’ policies. The real socialism is corporate welfare.
Thousands of big American corporations rake in billions each year in government subsidies, bailouts, and tax loopholes—all funded on the taxpayer dime, and all contributing to higher stock prices for the richest 1 percent who own half of the stock market, as well as CEOs and other top executives who are paid largely in shares of stock.
Big Tech, Big Oil, Big Pharma, defense contractors, and big banks are the biggest beneficiaries of corporate welfare.
How? Follow the money. These corporations and their trade groups spend hundreds of millions each year on lobbying and campaign contributions. Their influence-peddling pays off. The return on these political investments is huge. It’s institutionalized bribery.
An even more insidious example is corporations that don’t pay their workers a living wage. As a result, their workers have to rely on programs like Medicaid, public housing, food stamps and other safety nets. Which means you and I and other taxpayers indirectly subsidize these corporations, allowing them to enjoy even higher profits and share prices for their wealthy investors and executives.
Not only does corporate welfare take money away from us as taxpayers. It also harms smaller businesses that have a harder time competing with big businesses that get these subsidies. Everyone loses except those at the top.
It’s more socialism for the rich, harsh capitalism for the rest.
It should be ended.
I’m as sensitive as anyone to the sufferings of Afghans now, but I’ve had it with the sanctimony of journalists and pundits who haven’t thought about Afghanistan for 20 years—many of whom urged we get out—but who are now filling the August news hole with overwrought stories about Biden’s botched exit and Taliban atrocities.
Yes, the exit could have been better planned and executed. Yes, it’s all horribly sad. But can we get a grip? The sudden all-consuming focus on Afghanistan is distracting us from hugely important stuff that’s coming to a head at home:
(1) Republican politicians and right-wing media worsening the surging Delta variant of COVID by fighting masks and vaccinations, as cities and school systems struggle to decide what to do;
(2) wildfires and floods consuming much of America, as House Democrats absurdly threaten to oppose Biden’s $3.5 trillion budget blueprint containing important measures to slow climate change;
(3) Texas on the verge of passing the nation’s most anti-democracy voting restrictions, adding to voter suppression measures in 24 other states, at the same time the “For the People Act” and the “John Lewis Voting Rights Act”—which would remedy these horrendous laws—languish in the Senate because Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema refuse to do anything about the filibuster.
Enough sanctimony over Afghanistan. Enough about Biden’s falling approval ratings. We’ve had enough wall-to-wall coverage of the Olympics and then Andrew Cuomo and now the airport in Kabul. Can we please focus on the biggest things that need and deserve our attention right now? The window of opportunity to do anything about them will close sooner than we expect.
If we don’t take action now on COVID and the critical importance of vaccinations and masks, on climate change and Biden’s $3.5 trillion package, and on voter suppression and the necessity of the For the People and the John Lewis Voting Rights Acts, we may never.
33 Anticipated TV Shows coming out, but there’s not enough time to watch them all!
There will be no shortage of new series and movies one can stream this fall. Netflix just announced its influx of movies (42) to watch. Next comes an avalanche of new TV series, 33 already scheduled for release during the rest of 2021, including new seasons of established shows.
With what feels like the countless number of streaming platforms (Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Paramount+, Peacock, Showtime, you get the point), there are almost too many options to know where the heck to start!
Don’t worry, though, the launching new streaming options won’t end in Fall, your TV watching bonanza will be far from over as the holiday season approaches. The gift of streaming will be seemingly boundless, in particular, due to the release of two upcoming Marvel series: “Hawkeye” and “Ms. Marvel” in addition to Netflix’s “The Witcher”.
The future overall looks bright in the digital entertainment realm, at least with regard to “choice” and seemingly endless options, viewers have so much to watch, even as many of us are also already waiting for the long-planned currently-in-production status of Game of Thrones spinoffs and Lord of the Rings TV series to wrap up and finally come to our screens.
In the meantime, below we picked the top 5, out of a total of 33, not including the 42 upcoming movies, that should definitely be on your list to consider for your screens this Fall.
Succession: Season 3 – HBO – October dates and times TBA:
According to CNN based on information from the U.S. Central Command -13 U.S. service members have been killed as a result of the explosion and another 18 were injured.
Based on reports from officials at the Afghanistan’s Ministry of Public Health that 79 Afghans were killed from blast, and over 200 Afghan citizens have been wounded and more than 170 people killed from attacks.
The attacks are believed to be carried out by ISIS-K (who claimed responsibility), an Islamic State Affiliate and a terrorist group who are enemies of the Taliban. The two militant groups have a long history of engaging in attacks on each other.
NPR reported that Press Secretary Jen Psaki said, in a statement on a briefing President Biden received, “The next few days of this mission will be the most dangerous period to date”.
Additional security and protections are being put into place in the event of another attack, which the U.S. feels is likely.
Despite threats, the U.S. will continue its evacuation mission as the race continues to get people out ahead of the August 31st deadline. Around 105,000 have been airlifted abroad in the last 12 days.
At sound of a whistling in teaser video evokes an eeriness and tension between characters….
It’s always great when an actual actor becomes a movie star. Benedict Cumberbatch has been in a myriad of productions recently such as “Doctor Strange“, “The Mauritanian”, “The Courier”, “Avengers” and on and on, with nearly 100 actor credits and that doesn’t even touch on his work as an executive producer.
Running the gamut from the Multiverse to spy thrillers and serious suspense his ability to portray depth and intelligence has stood him in good steed.
Going all the way back to “Tinker Tailor Solider Spy” and “The Imitation Game” (not to mention his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes) a solid body of work is has been established which hopefully will not turn into a house of cards as a result of inevitable over-exposure.
Cumberbatch’s newest role is as a rancher from Montana named Phil Burbank. “The Power of the Dog” is based on a novel by the same name. Set in 1925, Phil “inspires fear and awe in those around him”. When his brother (Jesse Plemons) brings home a new wife (Kirsten Dunst), Phil torments them until he finds himself exposed to… the possibility of love.
Netflix gave viewers a little taste with the official teaser trailer for the film. The movie will be released initially in theaters on November 17 and will debut on the streaming platform the 1st of December.
Version rapidly approaches Golden Master ahead of possible September iPhone 13 release event
Today those participating in the iOS 15 public beta program are able to update (again), this time to beta 7. This beta process is a “live” test of all the new features, indeed when participating in the program many features change and evolve and, of course, bugs are not infrequent.
As we get nearer and nearer to the launch of this year’s iPhone model, apparently to be dubbed “iPhone 13” the iOS 15 beta versions become more stable and eventually, usually coinciding with the event where the new iPhone model is announced, the Golden Master is reached – which becomes the first public release version.
The first iteration of the public release is often short lived, as the beta test phase almost never gets rid of all the bugs and various features and security patches and other urgent updates are often needed.
For this reason the 2nd or third public release is often the one many experts recommend for those upgrading.
Naturally, though the new phone models will be shipped with iOS 15 already installed, once the phones actually ship of course, which can vary in delay from the launch / announcement at the upcoming September event.
Nevertheless, most older iPhones will benefit from this upgrade, more than a little, and once the release is public a free upgrade will be available to the more than 1 billion users already in possession of an iPhone from previous releases.
There are many ways, in hindsight, to explain the seemingly sudden collapse of the local, US backed, forces in Afghanistan. Clearly also plenty of blame to go around and, obviously, huge changes are needed to prevent a repeat of this great, long tragedy.
There are some amazing people who are actively trying to help, such as STELP.eu, based in Germany, and supporting them and others can be a big first step.
Looking further ahead, perhaps now is the time, also, to do something to prevent this from repeating or continuing in the same tragic way.
A war is bad, a “forever war” is something to be prevented in any way possible. The books below, give history, thoughts and ideas, in many cases simple alternatives that could have helped to avoid this terrible outcome.
Learning the mistakes of the past, especially in Afghanistan, can only help to inform and prepare for the great challenges that still lay ahead.
One of the longest armed conflicts in our nation’s history is now winding down with American troops set to fully evacuate at the end of the month. Author Carter Malkasian writes a comprehensive and vivid portrait of the nearly two decade long war.
Malkasian is the leading academic authority on the subject, he spent years working in the Afghan countryside and later went to serve as senior advisor to General Joseph Dunford, the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan.
The upcoming investigative story of how three presidents as well as their military commanders deceived the public about the longest war in American History.
Washington Post and three time Pulitzer Prize finalist, Craig Whitlock unearthed documents by President Bush and other administrations and provides readers with a shocking account of everything that went wrong.
This book comes out August 31, if you want to pre-order, check out more information on “The Afghanistan Papers“
The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014
Starting shortly after 9/11, reporter Carlotta Gall has been on the scene, getting an inside scoop from both Afghanistan and Pakistan. With American troops now leaving, the time to reflect and learn about the full history is now.
Gall uses both personal accounts as well as portraits from ordinary Afghanis who have had to endure the terrors of war for more than a decade, she knows first hand the costs to the Afghan people.
According to MacRumors who spoke with DigiTimes, Apple has plans to have a series of events in the month of September. This would clearly deviate from how the company approached the launches of its newest products last year.
In an unusual twist at the time, the launches were spread out into three separate product events that landed during the fall months of September, October and November.
Due to the ongoing pandemic, last year’s event was live-streamed versus in-person, which may have allowed Apple to better adapt its product rollouts in digital form.
There are many new products rumored to be released that include the iPhone 13, Apple Watch Series 7, next generation AirPods, a new baseline iPad, an updated iPad mini, as well as the much anticipated 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pro laptops.
As reported from Reuters, in the 80 page new complaint, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accuses Facebook of illegally monopolizing power. The refiled case includes additional evidence which is intended to support FTC’s case that Facebook dominates the U.S. personal social networking market.
In the headline of its press release, FTC alleges the company resorted to “illegal buy-or-bury- scheme to crush competition after string of failed attempts to innovate”.
“Despite causing significant customer dissatisfaction, Facebook has enjoyed enormous profits for an extended period of time suggesting both that it has monopoly power and that its personal social networking rivals are not able to overcome entry barriers and challenge its dominance,”
AMENDED complaint – federal trade COMMISSION
The FTC voted 3-2 to file the amended lawsuit. They also denied Facebook’s request that Lina Khan be recused, Khan participated in the filing of the new complaint.
Data stolen include names, dob, SSN, and much more!
The investigation of the ongoing T-Mobile data breach has revealed some staggering information regarding the number of customers affected. As per a new article from Engadget, T-Mobile has confirmed roughly 47.8 million current and former customers have been affected by the cyberattack.
The company issued a press statement regarding the data breach and below are some of the immediate steps they are taking:
As a result of this finding, we are taking immediate steps to help protect all of the individuals who may be at risk from this cyberattack. Communications will be issued shortly to customers outlining that T-Mobile is:
Immediately offering 2 years of free identity protection services with McAfee’s ID Theft Protection Service.
Recommending all T-Mobile postpaid customers proactively change their PIN by going online into their T-Mobile account or calling our Customer Care team by dialing 611 on your phone. This precaution is despite the fact that we have no knowledge that any postpaid account PINs were compromised.
Offering an extra step to protect your mobile account with our Account Takeover Protection capabilities for postpaid customers, which makes it harder for customer accounts to be fraudulently ported out and stolen.
Publishing a unique web page later on Wednesday for one stop information and solutions to help customers take steps to further protect themselves.
As a T-Mobile customer myself, this is quite worrisome. The data stolen includes personal information like names (first and last), date of birth, social security numbers and driver license numbers. It is unclear at the moment if the stolen files have information that would contain financial account numbers or passwords.
“The stench of corruption wafting up from Louis DeJoy’s office is so thick seagulls are flying in from the Jersey Shore and circling overhead.”
A leading government ethics watchdog on Wednesday cheered a federal judge’s ruling ordering the United States Postal Service to hand over documents concerning potential conflicts of interest involving embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates on Tuesday granted Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) a full summary judgment (pdf) and orderedthe United States Postal Service (USPS) to give the advocacy group seven documents it requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
USPS claimed the documents were FOIA-exempt. According toLaw & Crime, “Four of the documents concerned a request for a certificate of divestiture from DeJoy and the remaining three concern his recusal from matters where he may have a conflict of interest.”
Over the past seven years, the USPS has reportedly paid approximately $286 million to XPO Logistics, DeJoy’s ex-employer, and has “ramped up its business” with the company since DeJoy’s appointment as postmaster general. After his appointment, DeJoy continued to hold financial interests in XPO totaling between $30 and $75 million. DeJoy also held a significant amount of stock in Amazon, a major USPS competitor.
Earlier this month, Common Dreamsreported on growing calls to fire DeJoy following the revelation by The Washington Post that USPS will pay XPO Logistics $120 million over the next five years. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) responded to the Post report by calling DeJoy a “walking conflict of interest.”
Last Friday, a Postreport that DeJoy had purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of publicly traded bonds from Brookfield Asset Management—where USPS Board of Governors Chair Ron Bloom is a managing partner—fueled further calls for DeJoy’s termination, with Connolly calling Bloom and the postmaster general “bandits” whose “conflicts of interest do nothing but harm the Postal Service and the American people.”
CREW communications director Jordan Libowitz called Bates’ order “a big win not just for CREW, but for transparency advocates everywhere.”
“DeJoy’s decision-making as postmaster general has raised some serious ethical questions—now we should finally get some answers,” Libowitz added.
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) on Monday sent President Joe Biden a letter urging him to sack everyone former President Donald Trump appointed to the USPS board. Pascrell welcomed the Tuesday court order and reiterated his call for Biden to fire Trump appointees and “show DeJoy the door now before it’s too late.”
DeJoy and six of the nine USPS governors, including Bloom, were appointed by Trump; the rest are Biden appointees.
In addition to the alleged conflicts of interest in connection with XPO Logistics and Brookfield Asset Management, CREW, in advocating DeJoy’s ouster, notes that:
DeJoy and his wife, a former U.S. ambassador to Canada, got their jobs after contributing $2 million to Trump’s campaign coffers;
DeJoy is the first person in decades to lead the USPS without any previous experience in the agency;
DeJoy is under federal investigation for allegedly operating a scheme where he asked employees of his former company to make campaign contributions, then arranged for bonus payments to reimburse the employees; and
DeJoy apparently violated federal criminal laws by commanding the USPS to make policy changes at the agency that would depress or delay voting by mail in the 2020 election.
“Bottom line: Louis DeJoy has overseen an attack on the Postal Service and on American democracy itself,” CREW tweeted Wednesday. “The USPS Board of Governors must fire him before it’s too late.”
“We’ve spent billions on war. Now, let’s spend to bring Afghans to safety.”
As the Biden administration faces criticism for not doing enough to assist those fleeing Afghanistan, an analysis released Monday showed that the roughly $19 billion the Pentagon budgeted for the U.S. occupation of the country in 2020 alone could cover initial resettlement costs for 1.2 million refugees.
“We have a duty to save lives—and to do so, we must welcome many, many more refugees as quickly as possible.”
—Rep. Cori Bush
Lindsay Koshgarian of the National Priorities Project estimated that the $18.6 billion the Pentagon allocated for its 2020 operations in Afghanistan—where the Taliban is in the process of retaking powerafter two decades of deadly U.S. occupation—could pay up-front refugee relocation costs of $15,148 for the more than “250,000 Afghans displaced since the end of May (and growing)” and “a significant chunk of the 3.5 million Afghans who were internally displaced as of July.”
“Refugees typically receive some assistance after their arrival, but even if we expanded to cover an additional four years of the approximately $4,600 in annualized social service aid that refugees typically receive, we could still resettle more than half a million people, for just one year’s worth of the cost of fighting,” Koshgarian noted. “We’d face even lower costs to help resettle Afghans in countries closer to home—all the more reason after 20 years of war to step up with some serious resources and get it done.”
“After twenty years,” she added, “we owe the Afghan people at least that much.”
Resettling 1.2 million Afghan refugees in the U.S. would cost less than one year of war in Afghanistan.
We've spent billions on war. Now, let's spend to bring Afghans to safety.
The analysis came as progressive lawmakers in the U.S. and global humanitarian organizations implored the Biden administration to open the U.S. to vulnerable Afghans attempting to escape a growing humanitarian crisis and Taliban rule. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, 80% of those currently trying to flee Afghanistan are women and children.
In a speech on Monday, U.S. President Joe Biden said that “in the coming days, the U.S. military will provide assistance to move more [Special Immigrant Visa]-eligible Afghans and their families out of Afghanistan.” The Pentagon confirmedMonday that it is planning to house up to 22,000 Afghans at two U.S. bases—Fort Bliss in Texas and Fort McCoy in Wisconsin.
“We’re also expanding refugee access to cover other vulnerable Afghans who worked for our embassy: U.S. non-governmental agencies—or the U.S. non-governmental organizations; and Afghans who otherwise are at great risk; and U.S. news agencies,” the president added.
Following his remarks, Biden directed the U.S. State Department to use up to $500 million from the nation’s Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund to meet “unexpected urgent refugee and migration needs of refugees, victims of conflict, and other persons at risk as a result of the situation in Afghanistan, including applicants for Special Immigrant Visas.”
But critics have accused the Biden administration of failing to adequately plan for the rapid collapse of the Afghan government that followed the ongoing withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country—a still-deteriorating situation that has left countless people in limbo as they seek safety for themselves and their families.
In his speech Monday, Biden claimed the administration didn’t begin evacuating at-risk civilians sooner “because the Afghan government and its supporters discouraged us from organizing a mass exodus to avoid triggering, as they said, ‘a crisis of confidence.'”
Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department expanded eligibility for the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, opening it to tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for U.S. government contractors, U.S.-based media outlets, and U.S.-based non-governmental organizations. The families of eligible Afghans also have access to the program, whose application process consists of an arduous 14 steps.
And as the Wall Street Journalobserved on Monday, the program excludes the poorest Afghans by design. “To claim refugee status,” the Journal noted, “the Afghans must enter through a third country and cover the costs of travel and lodging on their own—a hurdle that is nearly impossible to surmount under the current, chaotic circumstances.”
In a letter to Biden on Monday, the advocacy organization Refugees International called on the administration to “express its willingness initially to resettle up to 200,000 Afghan refugees, as part of an international responsibility-sharing effort to rescue and resettle Afghans at risk.”
“While most would be resettled from countries of asylum,” the group wrote, “a program ultimately could involve direct resettlement from Afghanistan, akin to the Orderly Departure program that resulted in the resettlement of many hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese directly from their country of origin.”
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), part of a chorus of progressive lawmakers pushing Biden to do more to welcome refugees—in addition to ending the interventionist foreign policy approach that creates such humanitarian crises—noted in a tweetMonday that the U.S. “welcomed 120,000 refugees in a single year” in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.
“Yet the United States has only taken in ~2,000 Afghan refugees thus far,” Bush wrote. “We have a duty to save lives—and to do so, we must welcome many, many more refugees as quickly as possible.”
There’s a storm brewing and tech mega-monsters like Amazon, Google & Facebook know it
Practically since the day that Lina M. Kahn was appointed chair of the FTC, big tech giants have shown that they are worried. Both Amazon and Facebook filed suits asking that she recuse herself almost immediately.
Khan’s famous 2017 article; “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox“, published in the Yale Law Journal was both the obvious initial catalyst to her becoming chair of the FTC and also Amazon being unhappy that she would be at the helm of the FTC while antitrust actions are being brought against them.
The idea of removing her would have obvious appeal for those that fear her dedication to a new antitrust stance at the FTC, one that no longer allows digital behemoths to skate, monopolize and grow unchecked. But there is likely little chance that they can get her off their metaphorical backs that easily.
As per the Guardian: “Khan does not have any conflicts of interest under federal ethics laws, which typically apply to financial investments or employment history, and the requests [for her recusal] are not likely to go far.”
The speed and seeming ease of the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban this week shocked the world. First cities around the country fell, one after another, and then, just days later, the nation’s capitol Kabul was ready to go.
“The urgency bordering on panic laid bare how the president’s strategy for ending the 20-year U.S. military effort — leaving Afghan forces to hold off the Taliban for months as negotiators redoubled efforts to hammer out a peace deal — has undergone a rapid dismantling.”
Washington Post
The Kabul airport became virtually the last US controlled zone as scenes reminiscent of the fall of Saigon were broadcast over the weekend, showing the desperate scramble to evacuate remaining personnel.
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have both recently held the title of the world’s richest person. Currently the two were also in a competition with each other over a contract to design the Human-Landing vehicle for NASA’s up coming moon missions.
NASA had selected SpaceX as the sole contractor for the program, however, Bezos as a way to try to get the contract, offered in an open letter to forgo $2 billion in future payments.
A Tweet by Musk reacting to the news, including what appears to be a deflated prototype by Blue Origin, was also included in the new article by the Observer.
