U.S. President Joe Biden spoke on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the White House said, as U.S. officials race to reach a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal before Biden leaves office on Jan. 20. Biden and Netanyahu discussed efforts underway to reach a deal to halt the fighting in the Palestinian enclave and free the remaining hostages there, the White House said in a statement after the two leaders spoke by telephone.
If it were its own country, Appalachia would be the third-largest producer of natural gas in the world, behind only Russia and the rest of the United States. And, as new measurements reveal, Appalachia is likely the source of more system-wide fossil fuel methane emissions than any other region in the United States. read more
It has been more than a week since reports first emerged about a "glowing ring of metal" that fell from the sky and crashed near a remote village in Kenya. read more
A judge in New York found Giuliani in contempt of court on Monday for failing to comply with orders to turn over information about his assets to two former election workers. read more
Border Patrol arrested a former Russian mercenary on Saturday, when he illegally crossed the Rio Grande near Roma. read more
@#217 ... It's just all the "fire hydrants are out of water" and "why isn't anyone using ocean water" and "what about the reservoir" are all specific to the Palisades fire. ...
Maybe one reason for not using the ocean water is ...
Two More CL-415 Super Scoopers On The Way To Fight Palisades Fire After One Damaged By Drone
www.twz.com
... Officials hope the aircraft hit by the drone will be repaired and ready to fly again early next week.
Cal Fire will receive two more CL-415 Super Scoopers from a Canadian non-profit to replace the one damaged Thursday by a drone strike as it was fighting the Palisades Fire, The War Zone has learned. This will take the total force of Super Scoopers currently available to Cal Fire from one to three. In addition, it is hoped that the aircraft, which has a hole in its left wing, will be back on line by early next week. The appearance of the drone in the firefighting area, despite restrictions, temporarily grounded all firefighting aircraft working that fire, as The War Zone was the first to report.
"The new planes will be sent in the middle of next week if the weather is good for flying," Stephane Caron, spokesman for the Quebec-based SOPFEU non-profit, told us on Friday. At issue, he said, are the winds and snow often present in Canada during this time of year that can often keep aircraft grounded. The organization has eight CL-415s and six older CL-215s, Caron explained. ...
Related ...
Quantum-entangled atomic clock keeps spookily accurate time (2021)
www.livescience.com
... Physicists imagine a day when they will be able to design a clock that's so precise, it can detect dark matter.
Physicists imagine a day when they will be able to design a clock that's so precise, it will be used to detect subtle disturbances in space-time or to find the elusive dark matter that tugs on everything yet emits no light. The ticking of this clock will be almost perfect.
That dream may not be far off: A group of researchers has created a clock that, with some tweaks, could be four to five times more precise than the world's best clocks. To put that into perspective, if today's most precise clocks started ticking at the birth of the universe, they would be off by only half a second today; with more improvements, this new clock has the potential to be off by only 0.1 second.
"Atomic clocks are by far the most precise instruments mankind has ever made by many orders of magnitude," said Vladan Vuleti, a professor of physics at MIT and senior author of a recent paper describing the work. Now, "we are pushing this boundary" further, he added. ...
@#19
Bodycam video appears to show Baltimore police officer planting evidence in drug bust, public defender says (2017)
abcnews.go.com
... Bodycam footage allegedly shows a Baltimore police officer tampering with evidence by planting what appears to be drugs, according to the Maryland Office of the Public Defender.
The video was taken on January 24 when three police officers were searching for drugs in a yard filled with debris, Baltimore Deputy Police Commissioner Jason Johnson said in a press release Wednesday.
The footage purports to show one of the officers hiding a bag of drugs in a can and then later "finding" the drugs, while two other officers "look on and take no action," the public defender's office said in a press release. ...
"Body cameras have an important role to play in the oversight and accountability of police officers but only if they are used properly and the footage is taken seriously," said Debbie Katz Levi, head of the Baltimore Public Defender's Special Litigation Section. "Officers should not be able to decide when to turn the cameras on and off, and footage like what was presented here needs to result in immediate action by the State's Attorney and the Police Department." ...
Yeah, it seems that officer did not know that the body-cam remembers and saves the 30-seconds of video it captured before it was "turned on."
Body cam video shows police officer planting drugs, attorneys say (2017)
www.cbsnews.com
... "What we think we see, and if you slow down the video especially in the first five seconds, the officer appearing to place a red can underneath some trash, push the fence up, and hide it," said public defender Debbie Katz Levi.
The footage was caught on camera in January, but not discovered by a public defender in Levi's office until this month.
Levi says the alleged act of planting drugs was caught because Baltimore police body cameras capture the 30 seconds before an officer actually hits the record button, but without audio.
When the sound does kick in, "he then walks down the alley and miraculously goes to the same space where he appeared to have just planted the can with the suspected narcotics," Levi said. ...
@#13 ... First of all, I have said this before, the "Blue Wall of Silence" is mostly TV and Movie fiction. In real life, good cops don't want to work around bad cops. ...
"In real life" that may be the case, or not.
But, how do those "good cops" act "in real life?"
Blue wall of silence
en.wikipedia.org
... The blue wall of silence,[1] also blue code[2] and blue shield,[3] are terms used to denote an informal code of silence among police officers in the United States not to report on a colleague's errors, misconduct, or crimes, especially as related to police brutality in the United States.[4] ...
Given the multiple police body cams videos that have been shown, and the lack of any reports by fellow officers shown in those body cam videos, about what occurred in those body cam videos ... I mean, really. Why does it seem to require body-cam videos to see what police officers are doing?
Maybe it was that Blue Wall of Silence that provided the substantiation for the body-cam requirement?
@#223 ... Cal Fire will receive two more CL-415 Super Scoopers from a Canadian non-profit ...
And, fwiw, major thanks to Canada, our long-time friend to the north.