A new immersive cinema is helping firefighters to better prepare for megafires

The Conversation
September 30, 2024 

Man with fire Photo: Shutterstock

As summer approaches, the threat of bushfires looms. Earlier this month, an out-of-control blaze in Sydney’s northern beaches burnt more than 100 hectares of bushland, threatening nearby homes.

Climate change is making bushfires larger, hotter and faster. Previously unthinkable catastrophes, such as the “Black Summer” megafires in Australia in 2019/2020 and the ones that ravaged Maui, Hawaii, in August 2023, are becoming more common.

Firefighters put their lives on the line to battle these fires. Yet many are not meaningfully and comprehensively prepared to respond to erratic and extreme conflagrations. This increases their chances of being injured, or worse. It may also hinder their ability to make the best decisions.

To help address this, the University of New South Wales’ iCinema Research Centre has created iFire. This cutting-edge training system allows firefighters and emergency responders to virtually teleport into a burning landscape and train for the real thing. It could revolutionize the way we prepare for other natural disasters as well.
Megafires are becoming more common

The rate of extreme fire events has doubled over the past decade. These fires can combine with the atmosphere to produce their own weather systems, generating multiple fire fronts. As the planet continues to warm, this situation will only get worse.

Much current research is focused on understanding these worsening fire threats. This is vital. But data and charts don’t meaningfully prepare firefighters for how to respond to such extreme, unanticipated fires.

“Experiential preparedness” is the missing element.

It helps firefighters prepare by virtually experiencing and rehearsing how to respond to real and future extreme fires through immersive scenarios. This can be done in a large-scale, three-dimensional cinema or on a smart tablet or phone.

Simulating the fireground

The iFire collaboration builds on iCinema’s award-winning iCasts immersive training system for mine workers.

Since it was developed in 2008, iCasts has exposed and trained thousands of miners and planners in simulations of known threats before they go underground. This has resulted in a dramatic reduction in serious injuries at Australian mine sites and many lives saved.

iFire takes a similar approach. It uses a combination of mathematical modeling of actual fires provided by CSIRO’s Data61 research institute, advanced visualization and artificial intelligence (AI) tools to recreate immersive simulations of three real case studies: a pine plantation fire, a grass fire and the 2020 Bridger-Foothills fire in the United States.

The system puts fire crews in the centre of these simulated firegrounds using immersive cinematic scenarios. The crews feel as though they are physically present. They can experience the fire from any point of view – aerial or on the ground – at any point in time, and interactively engage with it.

Importantly, the scenarios are not static reproductions of past events. Fire crews and incident commanders can adjust variables to experience the influence of changes in conditions. For example, they can change the air temperature or wind direction and see how this affects the dynamic behavior of the fire in real time.

This allows them to better perceive risks and practice making key decisions in preparation for when they are on the actual firegrounds and under enormous pressure to act fast.
A more advanced system

iFire is already in the hands of those who need it. It has recently been installed at the Fire and Rescue NSW Emergency Services Academy in Sydney using a 130‑degree, three-dimensional, cinematic theatre.

The UNSW iCinema Centre and Fire and Rescue NSW will use iFire to develop training modules for frontline response. These modules will provide simulations where fire crews practice how to be situationally aware in the face of an unpredictable fire situation. They learn how to make the best decisions in managing the unfolding fire.

But the iFire team is working towards building a more advanced AI system that learns the underlying and unforeseen patterns of fire behavior to create more precise and detailed simulations of these unpredictable fires.

This will enable incident commanders and firefighters to engage with unanticipated fireground threats and better prepare to protect people and property under threat from flames.

The longer-term goal is that the iFire system will ultimately enable firefighters on a tablet or any other smart screen device in any location to experience the look and feel of a possible future fire scenario in real time. This won’t be as immersive, but it will be effective for use in the field when managing a fire and will improve tactical and strategic responses.

Although iFire has been specially designed for firefighters, the technology behind it can be tweaked for many purposes. For example, it can be used to help better train and prepare emergency service workers for other natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes.


Dennis Del Favero, ARC Laureate Fellow and executive director, iCinema Research Centre, UNSW Sydney; Michael J. Ostwald, Professor of Architectural Analytics, UNSW Sydney, and Yang Song, Scientia Associate Professor, School of Computer Science and Engineering, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Online spaces are rife with toxicity. Well-designed AI tools can help clean them up

The Conversation
September 30, 2024 

Person using MacBook (Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash)

Imagine scrolling through social media or playing an online game, only to be interrupted by insulting and harassing comments. What if an artificial intelligence (AI) tool stepped in to remove the abuse before you even saw it?

This isn’t science fiction. Commercial AI tools like ToxMod and Bodyguard.ai are already used to monitor interactions in real time across social media and gaming platforms. They can detect and respond to toxic behaviour.

The idea of an all-seeing AI monitoring our every move might sound Orwellian, but these tools could be key to making the internet a safer place.

However, for AI moderation to succeed, it needs to prioritise values like privacy, transparency, explainability and fairness. So can we ensure AI can be trusted to make our online spaces better? Our two recent research projects into AI-driven moderation show this can be done – with more work ahead of us.

Negativity thrives online

Online toxicity is a growing problem. Nearly half of young Australians have experienced some form of negative online interaction, with almost one in five experiencing cyberbullying.

Whether it’s a single offensive comment or a sustained slew of harassment, such harmful interactions are part of daily life for many internet users.

The severity of online toxicity is one reason the Australian government has proposed banning social media for children under 14.

But this approach fails to fully address a core underlying problem: the design of online platforms and moderation tools. We need to rethink how online platforms are designed to minimize harmful interactions for all users, not just children.


Unfortunately, many tech giants with power over our online activities have been slow to take on more responsibility, leaving significant gaps in moderation and safety measures.

This is where proactive AI moderation offers the chance to create safer, more respectful online spaces. But can AI truly deliver on this promise? Here’s what we found.
‘Havoc’ in online multiplayer games


In our Games and Artificial Intelligence Moderation (GAIM) Project, we set out to understand the ethical opportunities and pitfalls of AI-driven moderation in online multiplayer games. We conducted 26 in-depth interviews with players and industry professionals to find out how they use and think about AI in these spaces.

Interviewees saw AI as a necessary tool to make games safer and combat the “havoc” caused by toxicity. With millions of players, human moderators can’t catch everything. But an untiring and proactive AI can pick up what humans miss, helping reduce the stress and burnout associated with moderating toxic messages.

But many players also expressed confusion about the use of AI moderation. They didn’t understand why they received account suspensions, bans and other punishments, and were often left frustrated that their own reports of toxic behavior seemed to be lost to the void, unanswered.


Participants were especially worried about privacy in situations where AI is used to moderate voice chat in games. One player exclaimed: “my god, is that even legal?” It is – and it’s already happening in popular online games such as Call of Duty.

Our study revealed there’s tremendous positive potential for AI moderation. However, games and social media companies will need to do a lot more work to make these systems transparent, empowering and trustworthy.

Right now, AI moderation is seen to operate much like a police officer in an opaque justice system. What if AI instead took the form of a teacher, guardian, or upstander – educating, empowering or supporting users?

Enter AI Ally

This is where our second project AI Ally comes in, an initiative funded by the eSafety Commissioner. In response to high rates of tech-based gendered violence in Australia, we are co-designing an AI tool to support girls, women and gender-diverse individuals in navigating safer online spaces.

We surveyed 230 people from these groups, and found that 44% of our respondents “often” or “always” experienced gendered harassment on at least one social media platform. It happened most frequently in response to everyday online activities like posting photos of themselves, particularly in the form of sexist comments.


Interestingly, our respondents reported that documenting instances of online abuse was especially useful when they wanted to support other targets of harassment, such as by gathering screenshots of abusive comments. But only a few of those surveyed did this in practice. Understandably, many also feared for their own safety should they intervene by defending someone or even speaking up in a public comment thread.

These are worrying findings. In response, we are designing our AI tool as an optional dashboard that detects and documents toxic comments. To help guide us in the design process, we have created a set of “personas” that capture some of our target users, inspired by our survey respondents.




Some of the user ‘personas’ guiding the development of the AI Ally tool. Ren Galwey/Research Rendered

We allow users to make their own decisions about whether to filter, flag, block or report harassment in efficient ways that align with their own preferences and personal safety.

In this way, we hope to use AI to offer young people easy-to-access support in managing online safety while offering autonomy and a sense of empowerment.

We can all play a role

AI Ally shows we can use AI to help make online spaces safer without having to sacrifice values like transparency and user control. But there is much more to be done.

Other, similar initiatives include Harassment Manager, which was designed to identify and document abuse on Twitter (now X), and HeartMob, a community where targets of online harassment can seek support.


Until ethical AI practices are more widely adopted, users must stay informed. Before joining a platform, check if they are transparent about their policies and offer user control over moderation settings.

The internet connects us to resources, work, play and community. Everyone has the right to access these benefits without harassment and abuse. It’s up to all of us to be proactive and advocate for smarter, more ethical technology that protects our values and our digital spaces.

The AI Ally team consists of Dr Mahli-Ann Butt, Dr Lucy Sparrow, Dr Eduardo Oliveira, Ren Galwey, Dahlia Jovic, Sable Wang-Wills, Yige Song and Maddy Weeks.

Lucy Sparrow, Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction, The University of Melbourne; Eduardo Oliveira, Senior Lecturer in Software Engineering, The University of Melbourne, and Mahli-Ann Butt, Lecturer, Cultural Studies, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Droughts drive Spanish boom in pistachio farming

Agence France-Presse
October 1, 2024 

With Spain getting hotter, the amount of land devoted to drought-resistant pistachio trees has jumped nearly five-fold since 2017 to 79,000 hectares (195,000 acres) (Pierre-Philippe MARCOU/AFP)

Two decades ago, Miguel Angel Garcia harvested grapes and grains on his farm in central Spain, like his father and grandfather before him.

Now he produces pistachios -- a more lucrative crop that can better withstand the droughts that have become more frequent and intense in Spain.

Garcia harvests 10 to 20 tonnes of the green nut each year at his 26-hectare (64-acres) farm in Manzanares in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha, part of a boom in pistachio production in Spain.

"Wine and cereals weren't viable anymore," said the 58-year-old, who planted his first pistachio trees in 2007. "If I hadn't changed, I wouldn't have been able to make a living from my farm."

In the stony plot behind him, an electric harvester latched onto the trunk of a small pistachio tree and then shook it, causing nuts to fall into a vast canvas set up below, open like an upside-down umbrella.

Pistachio trees, which are native to the Middle East, are "resistant" and "adapted to the climate we have here" with its hot and dry summers and cold spells in winter, Garcia said.

The amount of land devoted to pistachio trees in Spain has jumped nearly five-fold since 2017 to 79,000 hectares (195,000 acres) in 2024, according to agriculture ministry figures.

- 'Strong demand' -

This makes Spain the biggest pistachio grower in Europe in terms of surface area, and the world's fourth-largest after the United States, Iran and Turkey.


Most pistachios are grown in Castilla-La Mancha as well as Extremadura in the west and Andalusia in the south, which are facing water shortages due to climate change.

This crop comes from a "desert region" and is "much better adapted" to the new climate realities, said Mario Gonzalez-Mohino, an agricultural engineer and the director of the specialist website Pistacho Pro.

Spain experienced its hottest August on record this year, with temperatures averaging 25 degrees Celsius (77 Fahrenheit) -- and the national weather agency says 2024 could rival 2022 as the warmest ever registered.

Spain's production -- nearly 9,000 tonnes per year -- is "still limited" but "it will increase rapidly because the vast majority of plots have not gone into production", since it takes at least seven years before a newly planted tree gives its first harvest, he added.

Joaquin Cayuela Verges, secretary general of the Pistamancha agricultural cooperative that groups 51 pistachio farms, said the boom had only started.

"There is strong demand, it's a dynamic sector," he said.

The cooperative, based in the town of Pozuelo de Calatrava, sells 90 percent of its pistachio production in Europe, mainly France and Germany, at 10-11 euros per kilo (around $5 a pound).

- 'Matter of patience' -

To keep up with its rapid expansion, Pistamancha is spending five million euros to build a new plant to sort, peel and dry its pistachios.

It will be able to process one million kilos of pistachios per year when completed, Cayuela Verges said.

Can this boom lead to overproduction that will drive down prices? Those involved in the industry see little risk since the amount of pistachios produced in Spain falls well short of domestic demand.

In Spain pistachios are still "mostly imported", mainly from the United States, said Gonzalez-Mohino, who predicts a "bright future" for national producers of the crop.

Pistachios are mostly eaten as snacks but are also widely used in Middle Eastern cuisine, as well as in the production of cakes, sweets, ice cream and cosmetics.

"A lot of people think they'll get rich but when you plant pistachio trees, you have to realise that you won't get anything for several years" until the trees "start bearing fruit", Garcia said.

"I have been investing" in this crop for 15 years and "it's only now that I can recoup what I have spent and earn a living. Pistachios are a matter of patience," he said.

'You have mostly transgender': Trump lobs bizarre new claim about U.S. education

David Edwards
October 1, 2024 

Fox Nation/screen grab

Former President Donald Trump asserted that the current U.S. education system was "mostly transgender" instead of "reading, writing, arithmetic."

During an interview on Fox Nation with host Kellyanne Conway, Trump defended his plan to disband the U.S. Department of Education.

"We're going to move education back to the states where they can run their educational programs, and they'll do great," he promised. "And you take states like Iowa and Idaho and so many, they'll have great education."

"But we have to get out of this Washington thing. Half the buildings in Washington are occupied by education," he continued. "And you'll have to get through it. But we're going to move it back to the states so that all these states, Indiana, you know, the states that are really well run, they're going to have phenomenal education."

"We'll have like one person and a secretary sitting there to make sure they have English."

Trump then complained about the current school curriculum.

"We want reading, writing and arithmetic," he said. "Right now, you have mostly transgender. Everything's transgender."

"Some of these school programs I looked at the other night, they're destroying our country," the former president added. "So education is exciting."

Watch the video below or at this link.

MSNBC legal analyst stunned by 'radical decision' in Georgia abortion ruling

Tom Boggioni

RAW STORY
October 1, 2024 

Lisa Rubin (MSNBC screenshot)

A ruling on Monday by Judge Robert McBurney claiming Georgia’s Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act infringes on a woman’s state constitutional rights was a "radical decision" that should thrill women who are battling conservatives intent on making them second-class citizens.

That is the opinion of MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin during an appearance on "Morning Joe" on Tuesday morning.

The ruling by McBurney dismantled a six-week limit on abortions and is expected to have far-reaching impact in the war over women's health care.

According to Rubin, McBurney's opinion that "When a fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society can assume care and responsibility for that separate life, then – and only then – may society intervene" opens a door to opposing abortion bans.

"I want to be clear with you and tour viewers," she told co-hosts Willie Geist and Jonathan Lemire. "This is almost a radical decision in its recognition of the right of women to control their body."

"More importantly, to prevent against a sort of involuntary servitude or forced labor," she added. "There is a recognition that women are not as he says collectively owned community property. That they cannot be forced to carry a fetus before viability any more than you or I could be forced to give up a kidney."

"That's a fairly radical conception of the right to abortion, and made a lot of women I know think, 'My god, this is the end of judicial gaslighting. There is somebody here who sees us,'" she concluded.

Watch the video below or at this link.

J.D. Vance's pledge to kill landmark Biden policy would 'devastate his hometown': analyses

Matthew Chapman
October 1, 2024 

Sen. J.. Vance of Ohio in Detroit on June 16, 2024 (Gage Skidmore

A key campaign pledge from Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) would have disastrous consequences on the southwest Ohio community where Vance grew up and the state he represents, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

Vance and former President Donald Trump have repeatedly set their sights on repealing the Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark piece of legislation signed by President Joe Biden that reforms energy production and fixes some holes in health care coverage, investing in climate response while simultaneously bringing down the federal deficit.

But Ohio gets a lot of benefits out of that law, reported Madeleine Ngo and Alan Rappeport.

Since the IRA was signed into law, "companies have announced more than $7 billion in clean energy investments in Ohio, according to an analysis from E2, an environmental nonprofit organization" — a greater investment than all but six other states.

"Among the companies benefiting is the steel manufacturer Cleveland-Cliffs, whose facility in Middletown was awarded a grant of up to $500 million from the Energy Department," the report stated.

This project, intended to upgrade the plant to use cleaner fuels, "is expected to create about 170 permanent jobs and up to 1,200 temporary union construction jobs" — directly in the town Vance spent his childhood

The town was also the focus of his famous memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy."

Middletown's acting city manager has lauded the investments as "outstanding," and said it would also free up resources for the local government to improve roads and water infrastructure, according to the report.

In other words, concluded Democratic strategist Jesse Lee in a post on X, "Vance wants to devastate his hometown."

Trump and Vance's vows to roll back the IRA have faced other political challenges as well — chiefly the fact that their plan would mean repealing a wildly popular program that allows Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, saving money for both elderly beneficiaries and the government as a whole.

The menstrual police are coming: Inside the GOP's plan for total control over women

Thom Hartmann, AlterNet
October 1, 2024

Police Car (Dreamstime/TNS)

“Menstrual police?” you may be thinking. That’s not possible! Not in America!

The Comstock Act is an 1873 law that, if enforced, would outlaw all abortions in America by banning the shipping via mail, UPS, FedEx, etc., of any device, drug, or instrument that can be used to produce an abortion. It would even shut down hospital abortions.

It could also be used to empower new state or even federal police agencies specifically overseeing women violating its provisions. Like the menstrual police, which a Trump senior advisor just said was a very real possibility.

First the background.

It’s the opinion of the Biden Administration that the Comstock Act — which is still on the books — is no longer enforceable, and the Biden DOJ (along with those of every president since Richard Nixon) refuses to enforce it.

Senator JD Vance disagrees.

He (and a few other Republican senators) sent a letter to Merrick Garland demanding that the Comstock Act be enforced by the FBI and DOJ now. He wrote:

“It is disappointing, yet not surprising, that the Biden administration’s DOJ has not only abdicated its Constitutional responsibility to enforce the law, but also has once again twisted the plain meaning of the law in an effort to promote the taking of unborn life.”

That’s right: JD Vance wants the Comstock Act enforced now.

The authors of Project 2025 agree as well, saying that the next Republican president should immediately restore enforcement of the law to end all abortion in America. They propose the next Republican president should launch:

“[A] campaign to enforce the criminal prohibitions” of the Comstock Act, including “against providers and distributors of abortion pills.”

They’re not kidding around and this is no rhetorical exercise. As JD Vance noted in the letter to Garland that he wrote and signed:
“As you are aware, violations of the Federal mail-order abortion laws constitute predicate offenses under both the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and Federal criminal money laundering statutes. RICO provides for enhanced criminal penalties and civil causes of action against anyone who, in connection with an enterprise, engages in a pattern of violating the Federal mail-order abortion laws.
“In addition, the Federal money laundering statutes outlaw certain international and domestic financial transactions involving proceeds from violations of the Federal mail-order abortion laws.”

In this, they’re aligned with the GOPs favorite authoritarian strongman, Viktor Orbán. As a spokeswoman for Hungary’s top human rights organization noted, there is:
“[A] rather strict system within the [Hungarian] state infrastructure that requires pregnant women to contact the state nurse services upon learning about their pregnancy and check in regularly.”

Would Vance (who is probably more likely to finish out Trump’s term than Trump himself, given how obese and in poor health the 78-year-old candidate is) require girls and women who miss their periods to register with the state like in Hungary?

Or perhaps require menstruating women to wear watches or rings that monitor their ovulation, with the data being sent directly to the Menstrual Police?

Yeah, that sounds pretty out there, right?

Until you consider that just last week Trump/Vance Senior Advisor Jason Miller told a Newsmax interviewer that it’s “going to be up to the states” if they want to set up systems to “monitor women’s pregnancies.”

Yep. Under the next Republican administration every fertile woman in every Republican-controlled state could be subject to intrusive state surveillance.

Did I mention that to set something like this up JD Vance wants the Comstock Act — which could be the foundation for this — enforced now? As he wrote to Attorney General Garland:
“We demand that you act swiftly and in accordance with the law, shut down all mail-order abortion operations, and hold abortionists, pharmacists, international traffickers, and online purveyors, who break the Federal mail-order abortion laws, accountable.”

Corrupt Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito agrees with him. In open court, during oral arguments earlier this year, he opined:
“This [Comstock Act] is a prominent provision. It’s not some obscure subsection of a complicated, obscure law. Everybody in this field knew about it.”

And Clarence Thomas laid out the possibility of future litigation when he essentially threatened the lawyer for Danco Laboratories, the manufacturer of Mifepristone, during oral arguments:

“How do you respond to an argument that mailing your product and advertising it would violate the Comstock Act?” He went onto note that the law “is fairly broad, and it specifically covers drugs such as yours.”

Former NY Postmaster and anti-pornography crusader Anthony Comstock lobbied for and shepherded through Congress his law; it passed on March 3, 1873 and was titled “An Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, obscene Literature and Articles of immoral Use.” Today we refer to it as the Comstock Act.

Its language with regard to abortion is not at all ambiguous:

“Every obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article, matter, thing, device, or substance … designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use; and
“Every article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose; and
“Every written or printed card, letter, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind giving information, directly or indirectly, where, or how, or from whom, or by what means any of such mentioned matters, articles, or things may be obtained or made, or where or by whom any act or operation of any kind for the procuring or producing of abortion will be done or performed, or how or by what means abortion may be produced, whether sealed or unsealed; and
“Every paper, writing, advertisement, or representation that any article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing may, or can, be used or applied for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose; and
“Every description calculated to induce or incite a person to so use or apply any such article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing—
“Is declared to be nonmailable matter and shall not be conveyed in the mails or delivered from any post office or by any letter carrier.” (emphasis mine)

The penalty is also not ambiguous. Persons mailing information about abortion, or drugs or devices to produce an abortion:
“[S]hall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both, for the first such offense, and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both, for each such offense thereafter.” (emphasis mine)

An expansive read of this law could include anybody who emails or shares abortion information online with a pregnant woman, or even indirectly helps her get an abortion, as is already happening in some Red states. NPR, for example, noted in a headline:
“A Nebraska woman is charged with helping her daughter have an abortion” because she shared information about Mifepristone with her daughter in a Facebook private message that the Nebraska police tracked down.

JD Vance and his fellow Republican members of Congress want the Comstock Act enforced nationwide now. They point out that they don’t even need a ruling from the Supreme Court: they just need a Republican president who will direct his Department of Justice and FBI to root out all those people who are sending women Mifepristone through the mail — or information about abortion online — and throw them in prison.

Along with the docs and nurses, clinics and hospitals, and even newspapers and magazines (and their writers and publishers) who may write about abortion in a way Republicans could construe as informing women about what abortion is and how to get or induce one.

After all, the Comstock Act is still on the books. All it requires is an administration willing to enforce it.

And, wow, are they impatient!

In a threatening letter sent to executives at CVS (among other pharmacy chains), Mississippi Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith and eight other Republican senators (Lankford, Daines, Braun, Rubio, Marshall, Risch, Crapo, and Blackburn) wrote that the Biden interpretation (and that of Congress in 1955, 1958, 1971, and 1994) that the Comstock Act is no longer in force is wrong.

They explicitly assert that the Comstock Act is still in effect and they want it enforced today:
“We write to express our support and agreement with 21 [Republican] State Attorneys General,” they wrote “who have reminded you that Federal law in 18 U.S.C. 1461-1462 [the Comstock Act] criminalizes nationwide using the mail, or interstate shipment by any express company or common carrier, to send or receive any drug that is ‘designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion.’”

Again, JD Vance agrees. As he wrote to AG Garland:
“[W]e expect that you put the law and your obligation to enforce it above the abortion industry’s dangerous and deadly political agenda.”

Thus, Trump‘s top senior advisor says it’s time to let authorities start monitoring pregnant women so Red state anti-abortion laws can be more vigorously enforced. When Trump Senior Advisor Jason Miller was specifically asked about setting up state Menstrual Police:
“[Trump] wouldn’t support monitoring pregnancies even if a state decided to do that?”

He replied:
“Well, he's made it very clear that he's not gonna go and weigh in and try to push various states in how they want to go and set up their particular rules and restrictions. That’s gonna be up to the states.”

These religious fanatics are playing for keeps, and American women have already died and are dying as a result of the actions they’ve already taken.

And the failure of our media to focus on their clear and explicit — and public — declarations of intention is journalistic malpractice.

Vote!

MARXIST Sri Lanka leader says he will uncover the truth of the 2019 Easter attack

\By Nirmala Carvalho

Sep 28, 2024

|Contributor

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A statue of Christ splattered with blood from the 2019 Easter bomb attack at St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, Sri Lanka, is pictured during Easter Mass at the church April 4, 2021. (Credit: Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters via CNS.)

MUMBAI, India – President Anura Kumara Dissanayake says he will do his utmost to uncover the truth on the 2019 Easter Sunday bomb attacks through a fresh probe.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the Archbishop of Colombo, told journalists that the new president gave this assurance when he called on him on Monday after swearing in as the new president of Sri Lanka.

“The new President told us that he would do his utmost to find the truth about the Easter Sunday bomb attacks,” Ranjith said.

“The people have voted in the NPP [the ruling party] to bring about a big change. This is a difficult task. We fully support him and invoke our blessings on the new President and his administration to bring about this change which the people wanted,” the cardinal continued

On April 21, 2019, which was Easter Sunday, three churches and three luxury hotels were bombed in a series of coordinated attacks that left over 200 people dead. ISIS spokespersons would later claim responsibility for the bombings, saying the targets had been Christians and citizens of countries involved in the anti-ISIS coalition.

RELATED: Sri Lanka cardinal hails verdict against ex-president in Easter Sunday bombings

Hotels hit by explosions included the Shangri-La, Kingsbury and Cinnamon Grand hotels and one other, all in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital. The three churches struck were the Catholic Shrine of St. Anthony in Kotahena, Colombo, the Catholic Church of St. Sebastian in Negombo and the Zion Church in Batticaloa. At least 45 foreign nationals were among the dead.

Though the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, with the lesser-known jihadist group National Thowheed Jamaath, it soon emerged that Sri Lankan intelligence services had been alerted that an attack was in the works, both by domestic sources and also tips from India’s intelligence service.

That information included the identity of the main perpetrator of the attacks and that both hotels and churches were likely to be targeted, yet no additional security measures were adopted.

The Head of the Communications Committee of the Archdiocese of Colombo, Father Cyril Gamini Fernando, said the church wants the new president to conduct a fresh probe to determine the truth behind the Easter Sunday attacks, including why warnings were ignored and who masterminded the massacre.

“We also expect that the new government will take action based on the findings of the new probe. However, we understand that these matters may be implemented only after the general election,” he told the Daily Mirror.

“The people of Sri Lanka have taken an initiative for a change. They indicated that they want a new government which does things differently. Mr. Dissanayake and the new administration should understand this fact,” Fernando said.

RELATED: Sri Lankan cardinal says officials should not fear inquiry into 2019 attacks

“We believe that the new administration will do things differently. If not the new regime will have to face the same consequences which the government of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa faced in 2022,” he added.

Dissanayake appointed Ravi Seneviratne, a former senior security chief who headed the notorious Criminal Investigation Department (CID), as Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security.

Seneviratne joined the ranks of the National People’s Power, to head the party’s retired police collective. At the time, he said his decision to join the NPP was driven by a desire to restore the rule of law in the country, which he said deteriorated significantly in recent times.

Seneviratne previously claimed that Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government “prevented the investigation” into the Easter Sunday attacks and that a travel ban was imposed on more than 700 CID officers in a bid to intimidate investigators.

On Friday, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court started contempt of court proceedings against former State Intelligence Service (SIS) Director Nilantha Jayawardena for failing to pay the full compensation owed to the victims of the Easter Sunday attacks.

Large majority of Americans want to end Electoral College

Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams
September 28, 2024

Vote Buttons (Shutterstock)

Polling results released Wednesday, less than six weeks away from November's Election Day, show that a majority of Americans want to ditch the Electoral College and "would instead prefer to see the winner of the presidential election be the person who wins the most votes nationally."

Pew Research Center surveyed 9,720 adults across the United States in late August and early September, and found that 63% want to abolish the process outlined in the U.S. Constitution and replace it with a popular vote approach, compared with just 35% who favor keeping the current system.

The Electoral College is made up of electors who are supposed to act on behalf of their state's voters. Each state gets the same number of electors as its members of Congress, and Washington, D.C. gets three electors, bringing the current total to 538. The candidate who secures 270 electoral votes becomes the next president.

D.C. and most states allocate all of their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote in their state, though Maine and Nebraska give two votes to the statewide winner, and the remaining votes to the most popular candidate in each congressional district.

Pew noted Wednesday that "some Republicans have been pressing to change Nebraska's rules so that the statewide winner gets all five of its electoral votes. This would likely work to former President Donald Trump's advantage, given Nebraska's consistent support of GOP presidential candidates."

Republican Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen confirmed Tuesday that he has no plans to call a special legislative session to restore a winner-takes-all approach before the November election, in which Trump is set to face Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.


There have been just five presidential contests in which the Electoral College winner did not also win the nationwide popular vote—1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and most recently in 2016, when Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton by securing key "swing states."


Continuing a trend that's lasted over two decades, 8 in 10 Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents told Pew that they prefer a popular vote system for the presidential contest, while Republicans and Independents who lean toward the GOP were more divided: 53% want to retain the Electoral College and 46% would like to replace it.

"Reference sources indicate that over the past 200 years more than 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College," according to the National Archives. "There have been more proposals for Constitutional amendments on changing the Electoral College than on any other subject."

Among them is a joint resolution that Congressman Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) introduced just days after Trump incited a violent mob to disrupt the certification of his 2020 loss by storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021—for which the Republican nominee faces ongoing legal trouble.

"Americans expect and deserve the winner of the popular vote for any office to win and assume that office," Cohen said at the time. "More than a century ago, we amended our Constitution to provide for the direct election of U.S. senators. It is past time to directly elect our president and vice president. The Electoral College is a vestige of the 18th Century when voters didn't know the candidates who now appear daily on their phones and television screens."

"Last week's mayhem at the Capitol shows that attempts to manipulate the Electoral College vote by politicians employing falsehoods are a real danger," he added. "The president should always be elected by the people, not by politicians. Currently, the system allows politicians to make the ultimate decision. It is well past time to do away with this anachronistic institution and guarantee a fair and accurate vote for president."