Newsworthy but not its own thread worthy

[pelham456]

the way i see it, you're covered until around 2056.

LEAFS:

Losers Even After Forty Seasons
Losers Even After Fifty Seasons
Losers Even After Fuckin' Sixty
Losers Even After Fuckin' Seventy
Losers Eighty And Fuckin' Still

"Ninety" is gonna be a problem tho.

[JustKelli]

Lava from the eruption of Mount Nyiragongo cut through towns north of Goma on Monday, nearly reaching the city’s airport.Credit Justin Kabumba/Associated Press

In Congo, Masses Flee One of the World’s Most Dangerous Volcanoes

Days after a deadly eruption of Mount Nyiragongo in Democratic Republic of Congo, the threat of another eruption forced the evacuation of much of the city of Goma.

Tens of thousands of people tried to escape the major city in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday, after authorities issued an evacuation order warning that Mount Nyiragongo could erupt again.

By Finbarr O’Reilly and Marc Santora

Published May 27, 2021 Updated May 28, 2021, 4:21 a.m. ET

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Tens of thousands of people jammed highways, crowded boats and set off on foot to flee this major African city on Thursday, seeking an escape from the rumbling threat of Mount Nyiragongo, one of the world’s most active and dangerous volcanoes.

After a fiery fissure ripped open on Saturday, sending a stream of lava rushing down the mountain’s rocky slopes toward Goma and killing more than two dozen people, scientists and local authorities warned that the danger had not passed.

Overnight, they ordered as many as one million people to evacuate, even as a steady series of tremors and minor earthquakes rocked the city.

Just 2.5 miles beneath the unsteady ground, scientists detected a flow of magma, a lake of fire just beneath the city, and the fear was that the tectonic activity could trigger a new eruption.

A new fissure could rip open at any moment, said Benoît Smets, a geological hazards expert at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium, who is part of an international team working to assist the Goma Volcano Observatory, the only monitoring station in the region.

“We have a very active volcano with a very dense and populated city at the foot of the volcano, so there is a huge risk of a disaster,” he said in a telephone interview.

What made Saturday’s eruption different from two past eruptions, the most recent in 2002, was that it came without warning, he said.

By the time the people living in Goma and the surrounding towns and villages knew they were in danger, the sky was already ablaze. For more than five hours, the night sky burned crimson red as lava poured out of the flanks of Mount Nyiragongo.

By morning, the lava flow had destroyed 17 communities in its path, according to relief agencies.

The U.N. refugee agency, citing local authorities, said 32 people had died in incidents related to the eruption, including seven people killed by lava flow and five asphyxiated by gases.

The lava stopped just short of the city center and nearly reached the airport.

Since the eruption, the lava basin in the volcano has rapidly filled back up and scientists have been racing to understand what is happening under the earth’s surface.

The 2002 eruption destroyed about 20 percent of Goma, burying it under molten rock, leaving 120,000 people homeless and killing around 250 people through carbon dioxide asphyxiation, burns and the lava-triggered explosion of a gas station.

[

[JustKelli]

Originally Posted by pelham456

the way i see it, you're covered until around 2056.

LEAFS:

Losers Even After Forty Seasons
Losers Even After Fifty Seasons
Losers Even After Fuckin' Sixty
Losers Even After Fuckin' Seventy
Losers Eighty And Fuckin' Still

"Ninety" is gonna be a problem tho.

The problem lies with the fact that "the original six" traded Cups between themselves for so many years racking up stats that aren't indicative of the new reality of 30+ teams.

Winning a Cup these days is a major accomplishment in a world of parity and out of control salaries, especially when some receiving those bloated paychecks don't live up to the hype. Look at how Connor McDavid of Edmonton fizzled out in the playoffs contributing to them being swept by Winnipeg earlier this week. He is one of the highest paid players in the league and won the scoring title this season.

The chances of an original six winning another Cup are slim at best, not just Toronto but Boston, Detroit, Montreal. Chicago came close a few years back and the Rangers bought a Cup a while back, but if you are a fan of those 6, keep that crying towel handy lol.

As Seattle enters the league this fall after raping every other team in the expansion draft upcoming, they are better poised to win a Cup than most other teams. Las Vegas did it inside of their first 5 years in the league because of their mandatory compliance draft choices that left players from other teams exposed.

Btw I already have box seats for the new Seattle Kraken.

[JustKelli]

The former Kamloops Indian Residential School on Thursday, May 27, in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. The remains of 215 children have been found buried on school's grounds, which closed in 1978.

'Unthinkable' discovery in Canada as remains of 215 children found buried near residential school

By Paula Newton, CNN

Updated 8:34 PM ET, Fri May 28, 2021

(CNN)The gruesome discovery took decades and for some survivors of the Kamloops Indian Residential School in Canada, the confirmation that children as young as 3 were buried on school grounds crystallizes the sorrow they have carried all their lives.

"I lost my heart, it was so much hurt and pain to finally hear, for the outside world, to finally hear what we assumed was happening there," said Harvey McLeod, who attended the school for two years in the late 1960s, in a telephone interview with CNN Friday.

"The story is so unreal, that yesterday it became real for a lot of us in this community," he said.

The Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc community in the southern interior of British Columbia, where the school was located, released a statement late Thursday saying an "unthinkable loss that was spoken about but never documented" was confirmed.

"This past weekend, with the help of a ground penetrating radar specialist, the stark truth of the preliminary findings came to light -- the confirmation of the remains of 215 children who were students of the Kamloops Indian Residential School," said Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc community.

"To our knowledge, these missing children are undocumented deaths," she said in the statement.
For decades, McLeod says he and former students like him would wonder what had happened to friends and classmates.

"Sometimes people didn't come back, we were happy for them, we thought they ran away, not knowing if they did or whatever happened to them," said McLeod, who now serves as chief of British Columbia's Upper Nicola band.

"There were discussions that this may have happened, that they may have passed," he says adding, "What I realized yesterday was how strong I was, as a little boy, how strong I was to be here today, because I know that a lot of people didn't go home."


The story continues, google it if you want to learn more

[LongTimeLu]

Drones may have attacked humans fully autonomously for the first time

Military drones may have autonomously attacked humans for the first time ever last year, according to a United Nations report. While the full details of the incident, which took place in Libya, haven’t been released and it is unclear if there were any casualties, the event suggests that international efforts to ban lethal autonomous weapons before they are used may already be too late.

In the March 2020 incident, a Kargu-2 quadcopter autonomously attacked a person during a conflict between Libyan government forces and a breakaway military faction, led by the Libyan National Army's Khalifa Haftar.

The Turkish-built Kargu-2, a deadly attack drone designed for asymmetric warfare and anti-terrorist operations, targeted one of Haftar's soldiers while he tried to retreat, according to the paper.

"The lethal autonomous weapons systems were programmed to attack targets without requiring data connectivity between the operator and the munition: in effect, a true 'fire, forget and find' capability," the report from the UN Security Council's panel of experts on Libya said.

http://newscientist.com/article/2278852-drones-may-have-attacked-humans-fully-autonomously-for-the-first-time/
http://businessinsider.com/killer-drone-hunted-down-human-target-without-being-told-un-2021-5

[JustKelli]

^^^^^ We took our drones from "weapons ready" to "weapons capable" to prevent the AI from overriding a stand down command in a hostile situation. It also can't go dark by switching off the transponder. We didn't want to be on the wrong side of history going all "SKYNET". Ours can be retrofitted if clearance classification is met. And btw the NSA uses an actual Skynet AI in real world situations...

There is some nasty evil code out there but interestingly it's easier to get a drone to do something than to not do something. Our regression analysis AI algorithms have nearly half of the "overfitting rate" than the ones the NSA uses for its models to base a conclusion when the AI commits a target to an outcome. We call it lazy, they call it "acceptable losses" or "collateral damage".

------------------

"Please don't make me do this. Don't make me do it"

Those were the words one officer uttered under his breath as his bodycam showed his sidearm aimed at a 14 year old female as she opened fire on police with a shotgun as did the 12 year old with an AK 47... she was shot twice.

This all occurs just after 22 people were shot at a Florida concert...

A 12-year-old boy and 14-year-old girl broke into a home, found weapons and opened fire on deputies, sheriff says

(CNN)Deputies in Volusia County, Florida, shot a 14-year-old girl on Tuesday night after she and a 12-year-old boy fled a group home, broke into a house, found multiple guns inside and then opened fire on deputies, according to Sheriff Mike Chitwood.

The girl was shot in the abdomen and the arm and is in stable condition, while the boy surrendered and was not injured, the sheriff's office said.

"I don't know what to say. Where have we gone wrong that a 12-year-old and 14-year-old think it's OK to take on law enforcement?" Chitwood said.

The sheriff's office on Wednesday released over nine minutes of edited video showing footage from body cameras and a helicopter looking down at the scene.
"She's pointing the gun. She's pointing the gun behind the trash can," one officer says in the footage shortly before the deputies open fire.

Charging affidavits for the juveniles indicate they are charged with attempted murder of a law enforcement officer and armed burglary. The boy is 4 feet, 11 inches tall and weighs 78 pounds, while the girl is 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighs 140 pounds, the documents state.

The affidavits include details from an interview with the boy in which he admits to shooting repeatedly at officers using a handgun, a shotgun and an AK-47 that they had taken from the home. He told investigators that they saw deputies outside the home, at which point the girl said, "I'm gonna roll this down like GTA," referring to the video game "Grand Theft Auto," according to the affidavits.
The boy "told detectives he knew they were cops when he shot them because he wanted to harm them. There are the words of a 12-year-old," Chitwood said at a news briefing.

The startling spree of gunfire came as Chitwood insisted deputies repeatedly tried to deescalate the situation, make personal contact with the juveniles and were forced to hide behind trees amid waves of shooting.

"We try to deescalate, we throw a cell phone into the house to try to talk to them. The 14-year-old comes out of the garage with a pump shotgun, levels it at deputies, and despite warnings to drop it, she walks back into the garage. She comes back a second time, and that's when deputies open fire," Chitwood said.

The boy has been in foster care since at least 2017, according to the sheriff. He does not have a prior criminal history, but made two threats in school this year, once threatening to throw a brick at an administrator, and five days later threatening to kill a student and "spread his guts all over the bleachers," Chitwood said.

The sheriff said on Tuesday that the girl had burned down a home in April, but on Wednesday, he corrected himself, saying the girl had set fires in a wooded lot that came close to burning homes.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the officers' use of force at the request of the Volusia County Sheriff's Office, according to FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger.

The FDLE will examine the facts of what happened, develop a time line and then provide information to the state attorney, who will make a determination about whether the use of force was justified, she said.
Juveniles broke into home and then opened fire
According to authorities, the children ran away from the group home around 5 p.m. Tuesday and evaded police for hours. At about 7:30 p.m., a passerby told deputies he heard glass breaking at a home nearby, and deputies found there had been a forced entry into the home, according to the sheriff's office.

Deputes contacted the homeowner, who said that nobody should be home and that there was a handgun, pump shotgun and an AK-47 inside, as well as a large amount of ammunition, the sheriff's office said.

As deputies surrounded the home and tried to establish a rapport with the boy and girl, they were met with gunfire, the sheriff said. The sheriff's office said the children fired at deputies on four separate occasions over about 35 minutes.

At one point, the 14-year-old girl emerged from the home and threatened to kill Sgt. Donnie Maxwell, Chitwood said.

He said officers took multiple rounds of gunfire before "they were left with no other choice but to return fire." After the girl was shot, the boy, who had been armed with an AK-47, surrendered to deputies, according to the sheriff's office.

At least eight deputies were involved in the incident, the sheriff's office said.

At his press conference Tuesday, Chitwood praised his officers for their restraint in the face of waves of gunfire.
"Deputies did everything they could tonight to de-escalate, and they almost lost their lives to a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old," he said. "If it wasn't for their training and their supervision... somebody would have ended up dead."
The home, a 30-acre farm in Deltona just north of Lake Monroe, belongs to AJ Bedizel, who told CNN he and his two daughters had gone to a Publix grocery store Tuesday evening before the break-in. When he returned, he saw police had surrounded the place and heard them scream into a megaphone for those inside to come out with their hands up.

He said he did not know the two children who wreaked havoc on his home. They broke windows, shot up into the ceiling and destroyed his side of the house, he said. Bedizel said he was thankful that nobody was home at the time, but he hasn't been allowed to return home and has nowhere else to go.

"We've been violated, and I don't know what the next step is, the healthy step for me, for my girls to get past this," he told CNN. "I don't know if my girls will feel safe. I don't know what to do. I really don't. I'm at a loss."
Children's home to put moratorium on emergency shelter program

Chitwood denounced the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice in particularly harsh terms, calling the department a "failure" and a "fraud."

The sheriff also criticized the Florida United Methodist Children's Home, where the boy and girl had been staying. The sheriff's office said it handled close to 300 calls at the FUMCH in 2020.

About 120,000 US foster kids are waiting for parents. One of them is now my daughter
About 120,000 US foster kids are waiting for parents. One of them is now my daughter
After the girl was charged with setting the fires, "DJJ, who's the gatekeeper, decides that arson isn't a violent crime," Chitwood said at Wednesday's news conference. "So they're going to return her back to her mother. Well, her mother obviously can't control her, so they placed her into foster care," the sheriff said, adding that the teen ran away from foster care several times before being sent to FUMCH on May 30. "And then we all know what happened on June 1," Chitwood said.

"This situation is tragic and is the result of the system failing our children," Kitwana McTyer, the President and CEO of FUMCH, said in a press release. "These children are in desperate need of care in the appropriate setting, which is a higher level of care than we provide."
McTyer said the two juveniles had been in the Emergency Shelter Care program, which currently serves three children.

"As a result of this event, we will be placing a moratorium on our campus Emergency Shelter Care program for the next 30 days and then will cease to provide that service until such time if/when that we feel that we can do so in a safe manner for the children coming into care and simultaneously protect our staff who do a valiant job at caring for our children every day," McTyer said.
"At this juncture, the level of children who are being sent to us through Emergency Shelter care at times is beyond the scope of our capabilities to provide the care required and limits who we can serve as part of our mission."
The foster care system is failing Black children and the death of Ma'Khia Bryant is one example, experts and attorney say

The foster care system is failing Black children and the death of Ma'Khia Bryant is one example, experts and attorney say McTyer said the group home has seen a higher level of children who repeatedly come through the system with "escalated behaviors" in recent years. Still, she noted that the home is required by law to contact law enforcement if a child leaves the property, so many of the 300 calls to the sheriff's office in 2020 were not emergencies.

The FUMCH was founded in 1908 as an orphanage and continues to provide care for children, and McTyer emphasized in the statement that the Emergency Shelter Care program is only one part of its services. "We are a child welfare facility, not a secure care facility," McTyer said.

The Department of Juvenile Justice told CNN in a statement that the FUMCH "is not a DJJ program."
"The events that unfolded last night in Volusia County are tragic, and the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) is thankful that there were no casualties as a result of this incident," the DJJ said.

"As an agency, we serve alongside the various partners that make up Florida's juvenile justice system, including law enforcement, the courts, state attorneys, and community providers to hold youth accountable for their actions," the statement said. "DJJ does not tolerate violence that jeopardizes the public safety of our communities."

[alexora]

Originally Posted by pelham456

cmon, if ur gonna plagiarize 4 stories in a row, could u at least set them apart or use headers or something?! u did it for the first 2 stories, but then suddenly we're in a children's home plop dab in the middle of a "kids shoot up home" one. right after the homeowner was pondering where his daughters should go to feel safe!

took me several passes to realize he was not putting his girls there, much less it being where the 2 shooters were from! any or all of whom may be black, since suddenly now there's commentary about the plight of black foster kids....

geesh. no more excuses -- if ur gonna plagiarize news stories, at least plagiarize correctly....

I wouldn't call it plagiarizing (though it is good practice to always credit one's quotes).

My issue is with the fact that some of the stories mentioned are indeed worthy of their own thread, or at least worthy of inclusion in other established threads dealing with similar events.

[alexora]

Looks like there is going to be successor to Concorde within this decade:

United plans supersonic passenger flights by 2029

US airline United has announced plans to buy 15 new supersonic airliners and "return supersonic speeds to aviation" in the year 2029.

Supersonic passenger flights ended in 2003 when Air France and British Airways retired Concorde.

The new Overture aircraft will be produced by a Denver-based company called Boom, which has yet to flight-test a supersonic jet.

United's deal is conditional on the new aircraft meeting safety standards.

What is supersonic flight?

Supersonic flight is when an aircraft travels faster than the speed of sound.

At an altitude of 60,000ft (18,300m), that means flying faster than 660mph (1,060km/h).

A typical passenger jet may cruise at about 560mph (900km/h) but Overture is expected to reach speeds of 1,122mph (1,805km/h) - also known as Mach 1.7.

At that speed, journey times on transatlantic routes such as London to New York can be cut in half.

Boom says Overture would be able to make the trip in 3.5 hours, shaving three hours off the flight.

Concorde, which entered passenger service in 1976, was even faster with a maximum speed of Mach 2.04 - about 1,350mph (2180km/h).

What are some of the challenges?

There are two major concerns with supersonic passenger travel: noise and pollution.

Travelling faster than the speed of sound causes a sonic boom, which can be heard on the ground as a loud thunderclap or explosion. It's where the company Boom got its name.

The boom limits where the planes can fly. Typically they must lower their speed until they are out over the ocean, away from citizens who may be disturbed by the loud bang.

Boom says it is confident that its plane will not be any louder than other modern passenger jets while taking off, flying over land and landing. It also hopes improvements in aircraft design since Concorde will help it reduce and mitigate the sonic boom.

The other big issue is fuel consumption.

"In order to fly supersonic, you will need more power, you will need more fuel," Kathy Savitt, Boom's chief commercial officer, told the BBC.

But she expects Overture to be operated as a "net-zero carbon aircraft".

Can supersonic travel really be 'sustainable'?

Central to Boom's plan is for Overture to run entirely on sustainable aviation fuel (Saf).

That can take the form of "posh biodiesel" made out of everything from waste animal fat from the farming industry to specially grown high-energy crops, explains Dr Guy Gratton, associate professor of aviation and the environment at Cranfield University.

But one big problem is that "the world is very far from having anything like the production capacity needed" to produce enough biofuel to power the entire aviation industry, he says.

Boom predicts "power-to-liquid" processes - where renewable energy such as wind power is used to produce liquid fuel - will make up the shortfall.

"We expect that to be commercialised well before it's needed for our purposes," explains Boom's Raymond Russell.

"There are billions of dollars of both airline commitments and investments across the sector."

But it remains an industry that needs to be scaled up.

"Can you suddenly find an enormous additional supply of sustainable electricity at affordable prices?" asks Dr Gratton.

"I'm not saying it can't be done. It may well be done but it has not been done yet."

Is there demand for supersonic travel?

Despite the enormous cost of Concorde's development more than 50 years ago, it is thought to have been profitable for British Airways in its final years of operation.

Concorde was seen as a luxurious way to travel with tickets costing more than a first class seat on a regular jet.

Today, the wealthiest travellers may favour private business jets, says Dr Gratton.

Rather than travel first class on a commercial jet with the public, the rich can charter compact private planes that fly on demand, directly to-and-from their airports of choice. Avoiding the check-in desk and luggage carousel can shave time off travelling too.

Ms Savitt said Boom's research suggested passengers wanted speed and that faster planes could "deepen human connections and make better business relationships".

Unlike Concorde, the company expects Overture to be profitable for airlines even if tickets are sold for the same price as a "regular business-class fare".

Ultimately, it is up to United to set its prices - but it will want to see a return on its $200m-per-plane (£140m) investment.

Source:

http://bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57361193

[pelham456]

"boom"?

is that really the best name for a company seeking to replace the concorde?!

i mighta taken this to be an onion story, had i not already heard it earlier.

BOOM!

[alexora]

Originally Posted by pelham456

"boom"?

is that really the best name for a company seeking to replace the concorde?!

i mighta taken this to be an onion story, had i not already heard it earlier.

BOOM!

You Tube

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