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Book Review: Novelist and blogger Cory Doctorow pens a manual for destroying Big Tech

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:01:42 GMT

As a leading blogger in the pre-Substack era, novelist and public-interest technologist Cory Doctorow often warned that Big Tech was rendering of cyberspace a polluted, dystopian, crassly commercial and often hostile world of limited options.Now it’s happened. Facebook, Instagram and other walled fiefdoms of surveillance capitalism distract discourse with scrolls of targeted ads and trending video reels. More genteel competitors were long ago muscled out. Hateful trolls, violent speech and addictive algorithms thrive. And when a user account is mistakenly or unjustly shuttered, platform automation means the aggrieved will encounter callous indifference. It’s gotten to where anti-Big Tech initiatives enjoy bipartisan backing in an otherwise teetering U.S. democracy.“There is no fixing Big Tech,” Doctorow, who blogged for years on the website “Boing Boing,” writes in his new book “The Internet Con: How To Seize The Means of Computation.” The breezily written 173-page manifesto i...

A rhino at an Austrian zoo kills a zookeeper and seriously injures her husband

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:01:42 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — A rhino at a zoo in Austria attacked a married couple working as zookeepers Tuesday, killing the woman and seriously injuring the man, authorities said. The fatal attack happened at the Hellbrunn zoo in the western Austrian city of Salzburg.Zoo director, Sabine Grebner, told reporters later on Tuesday that the 33-year-old woman, a German citizen from Bavaria, was assigned that day to put an insect deterrent on the rhino.It was then that 30-year-old female rhino, Jeti, attacked the keeper though it was not clear why, Austria’s APA news agency cited Grebner as saying.Salzburg police said that “the woman succumbed to her injuries at the scene of the accident.”The other zoo keeper, a 34-year-old Austrian citizen, was also attacked and injured when he tried to chase the rhino away from his wife. The woman suffered severe chest trauma because of the attack and died in the enclosure while her her husband had a fractured leg and was taken to the hospital, APA reported.The name...

Police round up migrants in Serbia and report finding weapons in raid of a border area with Hungary

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:01:42 GMT

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Police in Serbia said they rounded up hundreds of migrants and found automatic weapons during a raid Tuesday along the border with Hungary, the location of frequently reported clashes between groups of smugglers exploiting the hardship of people trying to reach Western Europe.Thousands of people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia travel along the land route that leads west from Turkey and through the Balkans. Serbia lies at the heart of the migration route.Serbian police said officers found 371 migrants during a sweep near the border towns of Subotica, Kikinda and Sombor, along with three automatic riles, one semi-automatic rifle and a hand gun. The migrants were taken to state-run reception centers, a police statement said.Earlier Tuesday, Serbian state TV network RTS reported that one person died and three were wounded during an armed clash near the border with Hungary. Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic said police are focus...

Stock market today: Wall Street edges lower at the open ahead of inflation reports

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:01:42 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are drifting lower as Wall Street waits to see what reports coming up this week on the economy and Big Tech companies say. The S&P 500 slipped 0.2% early Tuesday. The Dow fell 28 points and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.3%. Oracle weighed on tech stocks after the software giant reported revenue that fell just short of what analysts expected. Oracle’s forecast for how much revenue it will make in the current quarter wasn’t as strong as some analysts expected. Stocks have see-sawed in recent weeks amid uncertainty about whether the Federal Reserve is done with hiking interest rates. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.Wall Street drifted modestly lower early Tuesday ahead of a highly anticipated update on U.S. consumer prices later this week. Futures for the Dow Jones industrials fell 0.2% before the bell, while the S&P 500 slipped 0.3%.The Federal Reserve is weighing whether to keep raising interest rates steady in its effort ...

Bosnian police arrest 5 ex-Serb troops suspected of participating in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:01:42 GMT

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Bosnian police on Tuesday arrested five people suspected of participating in a July 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, a town where Bosnian Serb troops killed over 8,000 men and boys during the Balkan country’s interethnic war.Officers also conducted searches and confiscations during their operation in several towns in Republika Srpska, a Serb-run entity comprising roughly one-half of Bosnia’s territory, said a statement by Bosnia’s State Investigation and Protection Agency. The statement gave no other details. Bosnian news portal Klix said the people arrested were former Bosnian Serb army officers and soldiers who allegedly helped capture and kill around 70 men and boys and one women during the Srebrenica massacre. Most of the slaughter’s thousands of victims were Bosniaks, a majority Muslim ethnic group. Two U.N. courts have declared the brutal executions in the late days of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war as an act of genocide. Bos...

Hurricane Lee could arrive in Canada as weak hurricane or strong tropical storm

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:01:42 GMT

HALIFAX — The Canadian Hurricane Centre says hurricane Lee could make landfall this weekend anywhere from Maine to southeastern Nova Scotia.The centre in Halifax says Lee will likely approach the Atlantic region as a weak hurricane or strong tropical storm that could dump heavy rain over the area during the latter part of the week.Environment Canada meteorologists say that as the hurricane moves north, it will grow in size but is not expected to gain strength by merging with other weather systems.As of this morning, the Category 3 hurricane was about 900 kilometres south of Bermuda, churning out winds at 185 kilometres per hour.Lee was forecast to make a turn to the north on Wednesday, which will likely slow its progress and weaken the storm as it lingers over cooler waters.Meanwhile, meteorologists with U.S.-based AccuWeather say they expect a “high risk to lives and property” from damaging winds and flooding across much of Nova Scotia.This report by The Canadian Press ...

Body recovered near Promontory Point identified as missing boater Bryan Jackson

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:01:42 GMT

CHICAGO — A body recovered from Lake Michigan over the weekend has been identified as missing boater Bryan Jackson.Jackson's body was found around 10:15 a.m. Saturday near Promontory Point on the 5400 block of South Lake Shore Drive.Witnesses said Jackson boarded a boat with a group of people around 3 a.m. last Tuesday. The 38-year-old went missing after jumping off the boat into Lake Michigan about a mile from 31st Street Harbor, and never resurfaced. Man remains missing after jumping off boat into Lake Michigan Jackson is a former college football player and one-time athletic trainer for the Chicago Bulls.He is survived by two daughters.

Homeschoolers 'vigilant' over latest school choice wins in states

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:01:42 GMT

(The Hill) -- School choice advocates have had a successful year implementing new policies in Republican-led states, but concerns over the changes have come from an unlikely source: homeschoolers.While school choice fans and homeschoolers would seem to be on the same side of the coin — namely, those skeptical of the public school system — the government getting involved in what has been dubbed "education freedom" has sent chills down the spines of some homeschool backers.Homeschoolers worry some of the more popular school choice programs that are getting implemented, such as education savings accounts (ESAs), will become a Trojan horse to the government getting more say in how they educate their children at home. "We've long had a policy position against public funding of private homeschooling for a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons is that the strength of private homeschooling has been the fact that we have stayed private in very important respects and not been depen...

WATCH LIVE: Paxton's affair, bribery accusations begin second week of impeachment trial

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:01:42 GMT

AUSTIN (Nexstar) -- Texas' Court of Impeachment reconvened Monday morning for the second week of suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton's trial, leading off with key testimony from one of Paxton's top deputies. PREVIOUS: Texas Republicans weigh in on Paxton impeachment after week one of trial Former chief of staff says Paxton's alleged fair hurt office moraleHouse prosecutors' sixth witness, Katherine "Missy" Cary — the former chief of staff in the attorney general's office — was the first to testify at length about Paxton's alleged affair. She shared with the jury how she became aware of the affair and testified that the attorney general first identified the woman, Laura Olson, as his realtor.Paxton's alleged affair is mentioned in one of the articles of impeachment, accusing Paxton of accepting bribes because he “benefited from Nate Paul’s employment of a woman with whom Paxton was having an extramarital affair.”Cary said "my heart broke for her," referring to Paxton's wife — sta...

City Council considers expediting expansion at Austin Airport

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:01:42 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Austin-Bergstrom International Airport is flying forward as one of the fastest-growing airports in America.This July, AUS experienced its busiest month of all time. AUS Data Hub: How many passengers have flown out of AUS so far this year? On Thursday, Austin City Council will consider expediting expansion at the airport.Local leaders will vote on two separate items during the council meeting, which could fast-track the airport’s ability to expand.One item council will discuss would update the master development ordinance at AUS, allowing it to be considered as a single site.Sam Haynes is the communications and marketing manager at the airport.She says this could speed up construction for the new midfield concourse, which will add 10 gates over the next decade.“Allowing the airport to be permitted as a single site, instead of a bunch of different unique individual project sites,” Haynes explained. “We think that will really expedite our work to expand and improv...