Meghan’s Brand, As Ever, Will Live On
As the Duke and Duchess of Sussex head back to Britain, Meghan’s brand will continue selling wine and fruit spreads.
How a Progressive Democrat in Florida Gave Her Party New Hope — and New Fears
Angie Nixon, a state lawmaker from Jacksonville, shocked Democrats in red Florida by soundly defeating her centrist primary opponent. Now comes the hard part.
Mapping America’s Largest ‘Dead Zone’
In a decades-long crisis, marine life has suffered as oxygen periodically dwindles in waters along the Gulf Coast.
'Off the Charts' El Nino Is Already the Strongest Since Records Began
A rapidly developing El Nino is already reaching record-setting levels for this time of year and is expected to intensify further over the coming months. "The El Nino has blossomed. It is off the charts. Usual measures of El Nino have blown past prior record levels in the period with good data, even though maximum effects are still several months in the future," writes renowned climate scientist James Hansen at Columbia University in New York in a newsletter sent today. Climate scientists disagree over whether it has already surpassed previous "super El Nino" events on every metric, but several say the signal is unprecedented in forecasts and could ultimately become the strongest modern event on record. New Scientist reports: There are different ways of measuring El Ninos, which occur when warm surface waters spread eastwards along the equator across the surface of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Hansen thinks the best measure is how much warmer than usual the upper 300 meters of the eastern tropical Pacific becomes. "Our preferred metric, the heat anomaly in the upper 300 meters of the Equatorial Pacific Ocean... already exceeds the 1997-98 super El Nino," he writes.
[...] What's clear is that this developing super El Nino will soon exceed previous events on all measures. "I have never seen an El Nino signal this intense in our forecasts," [Adam Scaife at the Met Office, the UK's national weather service] said in a statement released today. "If the forecast is accurate... then 2026 will far exceed our recent experience of El Nino and its worldwide climate influences."
While Hansen is comparing the developing super El Nino to other modern events for which we have direct temperature records, Hayley Fowler at Newcastle University in the UK thinks it could also exceed historical events suspected to be even larger. "The super El Nino evolving in the Pacific will likely be the biggest ever recorded, reaching or exceeding the levels of the 1877-1878 El Nino which caused widespread impacts, including famines and around 50 million deaths (3-4 percent of the global population at the time), mostly across Asia and South America," Fowler said in a statement.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Canada-U.S. Trade Talks Collapse; Washington Imposes New Tariffs
Mark Carney suspended talks and will take out retaliatory tariffs against the United States after days of negotiations to stave off new levies by the Trump administration ended in an impasse.
China Joins Europe In Scrapping Windows For Linux
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: According to a Bloomberg report, attributed to China's Ministry of State Security, the country has ordered some government agencies to drop Windows 10 China Government Edition for Chinese-made Linux distributions. Why not Windows 11? Because China, like many other non-US governments, no longer trusts American companies with their software and services. This approach is all about digital sovereignty. In addition, even before the recent trend of governments outside America moving away from Windows, Beijing has started a long-running push to replace foreign technology in sensitive systems with domestic, open-source alternatives.
[...] The Chinese government did not specify which Linux versions would replace Windows 10. However, the stock prices of Chinese Linux suppliers, Kylin Software and Tongxin Software Technology (commonly known as UnionTech), immediately jumped. These companies' respective operating systems, Kylin OS (no relation to Ubuntu Kylin) and UnionTech OS (UOS), were already positioned as domestic desktop and server replacements for Windows in government, state-owned enterprise, and critical-infrastructure environments. [...] Huawei's HarmonyOS 2, which began as an Android variant but is now a proprietary mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) operating system, is also being developed into a PC platform. HarmonyOS 2 won't be deployed anytime soon. Kylin and UOS are the only mature desktops that are ready for institutional desktop deployments.
[...] ... this transition won't be easy. For agencies now moving off the government Windows build, the issue will be more demanding than simply swapping one desktop interface for another. Migration requires application testing, peripheral and driver validation, identity system integration, document-format compatibility, staff retraining and, in many cases, replacement or adaptation of Windows-dependent line-of-business software. The report provides no details on exactly how this transformation will occur. But the speed of the shift suggests that these issues are already being addressed in China's centralized managed desktop stack.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
With Midterms Approaching, Trump Implores Republicans: Pretend I’m on the Ballot!
President Trump was in South Carolina to stump for Darline Graham, sister of Lindsey. But his own political future was on his mind, too.
Pentagon Fires Editor and Publisher of Independent Military Publication
The firings at Stars and Stripes also claimed a Middle East correspondent. They are the latest effort by the Pentagon to diminish the news outlet’s editorial independence.
Postal Service Publishes Finalized Plan to Restrict Mail Ballots
The plan complies with President Trump’s executive order to restrict mail voting, which was blocked by federal courts and is under review at the Supreme Court.
Judge Strikes Down Trump’s 75-Country Visa Ban
The ruling from the Southern District of New York found that the policy went beyond Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s legal authority.
U.S. Agreed to Pay Liberia $5 Million in Connection with Deportees, Documents Say
The Trump administration approved the payment after Liberia said it would consider taking migrants from other countries.
U.S. Cuts Colorado River Water for Arizona, California and Nevada
Arizona’s share of the river will shrink by a third, likely increasing reliance on groundwater and raising pressure on agriculture.
Trump Threatens Defamation Suit Over National Guard Report, Aiming to Intimidate a Critic
It was the latest example of President Trump’s bid to use the legal system against those who voice unflattering facts and opinions generally protected by the First Amendment.
Defense Rests Case in Lindsay Clancy Murder Trial
The two sides focused Friday on whether Ms. Clancy was experiencing psychosis when she strangled her three young children in 2023. Closing arguments could begin on Monday.
Desperation Mounts as Thousands in Indiana Endure 10 Days Without Power
Floods from powerful thunderstorms devastated Gary, where a third of residents live below the poverty line and full restoration isn’t expected until next week.
Anthropic Could Aim to Raise $100 Billion in Blockbuster I.P.O.
The offering could value the five-year-old A.I. start-up at $2 trillion, its bankers have told potential investors, which would exceed Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
5 Deportees Are Flown by US to Equatorial Guinea After they Resist Deplaning in Liberia
At least five of the people flown to Liberia under the Trump administration’s third-country deportation program resisted leaving the plane. They were then flown to Equatorial Guinea.
TikTok Settles With U.S. Over Child Privacy Concerns for $400 Million
The Justice Department resolved a lawsuit that accused the social media company of illegally gathering children’s information.
Township Fights Nuclear Weapons Data Center By Passing a Moratorium on Electrical Infrastructure
Ypsilanti Township, Michigan, has imposed a six-month moratorium on "major electric utility infrastructure" in its latest attempt to delay a proposed $1.2 billion University of Michigan-Los Alamos data center that would support nuclear-weapons research. Township leaders, who have already paused water service for data centers, say the project has moved forward without adequate consultation and want more time to study noise, grid impacts, and other effects on residents. 404 Media reports: Last year, the university announced it was partnering with LANL on the construction of a massive 220,000 square foot hyperscale data center in Ypsilanti Township and residents have been fighting it ever since. During a meeting of the Township Board on August 18, the council unanimously passed a resolution that will delay the construction of new electrical infrastructure for 180 days. Data centers need a lot of energy, and Michigan's power authority will have to build new substations in the Township to power the proposed facility. The moratorium asked the local power authorities to use the six month delay to study noise pollution and how the new infrastructure would affect existing customers.
The moratorium is narrowly focused on "the nature and scale of electrical infrastructure necessary to serve new high-energy-demand land uses [...] including infrastructure associated, but not limited to hyper-scale data centers, mid-sized data centers, artificial intelligence computing facilities, and high-performance computational centers, industrial facilities, and other intensive electrical users."
Earlier this month, the University of Michigan announced it had settled on a specific plot of land in Ypsilanti Township -- a 144-acre plot on Textile Road. In a press release about the decision, the University said the data center would have the "capacity to change the world" and insisted it would not be a "high value target risk" in a war, that it would not store any hazardous nuclear material, and was not a weapons production facility. LANL previously confirmed that the data center will be used for nuclear weapons research. Ypsilanti Township Supervisor Brenda Stumbo told WEMU news that the selection of the site was a "travesty of justice" because it ignores constituents' concerns about environmental impact.
During the August 18 moratorium vote, the Board projected a large stock photograph of an electric substation behind its members. The photo was meant to remind people of the size of the incoming infrastructure and the lack of communication from the university about it. "This picture's really important to think about because U of M has been so crystal clear that they've been communicating to us abundantly -- which is not true," Township clerk Debbie Swanson said during the meeting. "That speaks to the lack of respect."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Meghan of Sussex Eyes Role in Netflix Show ‘The Gentlemen’
The duchess’s representatives have had exploratory talks about her joining a third season of “The Gentlemen,” two people said. Netflix has not yet ordered a third season of the show.