U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has asked diplomats to push back against talk of a "kill switch" in American technology products following the White House's short-lived decision to keep foreigners from America's most advanced AI models, according to a recent cable reviewed by Reuters.
A federal magistrate judge ruled Tuesday that President Donald Trump must turn over detailed financial information in connection with his defamation lawsuit against the BBC. U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqu Lett concluded that Trump's sweeping complaint put injury to his businesses at the forefront and made their vitality a fair subject for the BBC to demand information about.
A Denver woman says she was falsely accused of stealing a package after a Flock camera allegedly linked her to a theft at a home in another Colorado town. read more
President Donald Trump's approval rating among voters with a high school education or less has fallen to an all-time low, according to new polling ... read more
Nearly half of Americans say they believe the Supreme Court is ruling on President Trump's policies based on ideology instead of the law, according to a new poll.
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Donald Trump's Approval Rating With Men Crashes to Record Low
www.newsweek.com
... President Donald Trump's approval rating among men hit an all-time low, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll that found his overall approval rating remains deeply underwater.
The survey found Trump's net approval rating among men stands at -22, the lowest level recorded among male voters in either his first or second term.
Male voters have traditionally been one of Trump's strongest demographic groups and were considered central to his 2024 electoral coalition. ...
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Confusion swirls on source of diarrhea outbreak, but it's still Taylor Farms
arstechnica.com
... Federal officials on Monday reaffirmed that iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms still appears to be the source of Cyclospora, the microscopic parasite behind a multi-state surge in explosive diarrhea cases.
The assertion was intended to clear up confusion that began swirling over the weekend around a false positive test from the Food and Drug Administration"which Taylor Farms celebrated, sparking confusion. Still, many details of the outbreak remain murky, largely due to the vague recall information Taylor Farms has publicly provided.
On Friday, the FDA, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announced that the FDA's traceback investigations for the outbreak converged on Taylor Farms. Traceback investigations work by tracking backward from sick people and the foods they ate to where those foods came from through the supply chain, down to individual farms or production facilities. When the FDA said their investigation converged on Taylor Farms, the agency means that, over and over again, tracebacks led them to shredded iceberg lettuce grown in Central Mexico and supplied by Taylor Farms"which also goes by Taylor Fresh Foods.
The convergence of tracebacks was the basis for the FDA and CDC publicly identifying Taylor Farms on Friday. It was also the basis for Taylor Farms issuing a sweeping recall the same day for all its iceberg lettuce sourced from Central Mexico between June 29 and July 16.
At the time, the FDA's traceback investigation specifically focused on tracing back shredded iceberg lettuce that people had eaten from Taco Bell locations. Thus, the messaging at the time suggested that the contaminated lettuce may be limited to Taco Bell. A CDC press release Friday warned consumers not to eat lettuce at Taco Bell locations in five states (Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia). It noted that "Shredded iceberg lettuce sold in grocery stores or served in other restaurants is not affected."
Mixed messages
Then things changed over the weekend.
First, on Saturday, the FDA announced that a sample of Taylor Farms lettuce tested positive for Cyclospora. The result confirmed the traceback investigation findings -- and also potentially extended the list of contaminated products.
But, then on Sunday, the FDA deleted the information from its website, explaining that on further review, the result was a false positive. ...
Related ...
Trump Admin Denies Colluding With Taylor Farms Over Cyclospora: FAKE NEWS'
www.newsweek.com
... The Trump administration has denied colluding with Taylor Farms after federal health officials reported and then retracted that a sample of lettuce from the company had tested positive for cyclospora amid a multistate outbreak of the diarrhea-causing parasite.
The claim comes as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday morning said the nationwide cyclosporiasis outbreak is now "under control" and that the source of the outbreak has been identified and affected products have been removed from the market.
Taylor Fresh Foods Inc., the parent company of Taylor Farms, made a $1 million donation to Make America Great Again Inc. in March 2025, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) reviewed by Newsweek.
That information was highlighted in a post on X from MeidasTouch, a progressive media outlet, along with reporting from The New York Times that said a Taylor Farms spokeswoman confirmed that company executives had met with White House and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials on Thursday to discuss what it viewed as "shortfalls in the FDA's and CDC's outbreak response process." The company has also recently hired former White House official Trent Morse, expanding its influence in Washington. ...
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Why two Connecticut towns are taking down their license plate cameras
www.newstimes.com
... A contentious year-long debate over license plate cameras in Windsor's town hall came to a close this month after the town council voted to take down its cameras.
Windsor has been at the center of the state-wide debate over the privacy of the technology, specifically cameras made by a tech company called Flock Safety. ...
Windsor is the first town in Connecticut to decide not to renew its contract with Flock. Killingworth became the second last week, opting to take down the cameras over similar privacy concerns.
"For many councilors, including myself, it comes back to the data," Windsor's Mayor Nuchette Black-Burke told CT Insider Monday. "We opted not to move forward because there is no guarantee that Flock will not share our data." ...
With data center power usage increasing, I doubt if the rates are going to go down any time soon ...
@#13 ... in north AL and listen to WLS 890 AM 50,000 watts out of Chicago ...
Yeah, those so-called "clear channel" AM stations were great in their time.
Clear-channel station
en.wikipedia.org
... A clear-channel station is a North American AM radio station that has the highest level of protection from interference from other stations, particularly from nighttime skywave signals. This classification exists to ensure the viability of cross-country or cross-continent radio service enforced through a series of treaties and statutory laws. Known as Class A stations since the 1983 adoption of the Regional Agreement for the Medium Frequency Broadcasting Service in Region 2 (Rio Agreement), they are occasionally still referred to by their former classifications of Class I-A (the highest classification), Class I-B (the next highest class), or Class I-N (for stations in Alaska too far away to cause interference to the primary clear-channel stations in the lower 48 states). The term "clear-channel" is used most often in the context of North America and the Caribbean, where the concept originated.
Since 1941, these stations have been required to maintain a transmitter power output of at least 10,000 watts to retain their status. Nearly all such stations in the United States, Canada and The Bahamas broadcast with 50,000 watts, with several clear-channel stations in Mexico going as high as 150,000 watts, and XEW in Mexico City having formerly operated with 250,000 watts for over 80 years before moving the transmitter and reducing to 100,000 watts in 2016. Cuba was originally included in the plan and had several stations given clear-channel status, but stopped participating after the Cuban Revolution of 1959. ...
Fun stuff ...
Taylor Farms lettuce is still focus of cyclospora investigation despite false positive test, FDA says
www.cbsnews.com
... A sample of lettuce from Taylor Farms that had tested positive for cyclospora was a false positive, the Food and Drug Administration said Sunday. But the FDA said Monday that its investigation and data "continue to converge on shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms locations in central Mexico."
In the statement announcing the false positive, the FDA said that as of Sunday it had not found any "confirmed positive sample results for product testing for Cyclospora."
In a subsequent statement Monday, it said, "To clarify, this false-positive lab sample DOES NOT change the basis for FDA's ongoing outbreak investigation or the overwhelming epidemiological data supporting the current voluntary recall by Taylor Farms." ...
@#9 ... Boston also had a "stake in the ground" underground station like WNEW-FM in NYC. Unfortunately, it is too long ago and I no longer recall the call letters ... :( ...
Possibly WBCN?
WBMX
en.wikipedia.org
... WBMX (104.1 FM) is a radio station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, serving Greater Boston with a hot adult contemporary format. The format started at 98.5 FM on February 9, 1991, and moved to 104.1 FM, replacing WBCN on August 12, 2009, to allow for the launch of WBZ-FM at 98.5 the next day. Its studios are located in Brighton, and its transmitter is on the upper FM mast of the Prudential Tower in Downtown Boston.
The 104.1 MHz facility went on the air in 1958 as WBCN.
A classical music station for its first ten years, beginning in 1968 WBCN featured a rock format for 41 years.
Known as "The Rock of Boston", WBCN became a legend in the rock music industry for breaking many bands, including U2.[3] ...
More from the cited article ...