- A Bell 206 sightseeing helicopter broke up in midair and crashed into the Hudson River near Jersey City yesterday afternoon, killing a family of 5 from Spain along with the pilot. It appears that the main rotor came off in flight, chopping off the tail boom as it went. The first thing that comes to mind is mast bumping, but it could also be a mechanical issue. I guess the NTSB will figure it out eventually.
- Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at stopping states from enforcing their own climate laws. Vermont, New York, and California are specifically named in the order. Whether or not the regime will be able to enforce this order remains to be seen, but regardless it's kind of funny that the American far right is really big on states' rights with regards to owning people, but takes a very different view on their rights to protect people.
-The International Maritime Organization's Maritime Environmental Protection Conference (MEPC) is meeting in London to negotiate an agreement on greenhouse gas emissions from shipping. The US is boycotting the meeting, instead sending a letter to the participants warning them that they will take reciprocal measures to protect their own shipping interests if an emissions price is imposed.
- Bridget Brink, the US Ambassador to Ukraine, is apparently planning to resign her position; she has not submitted a formal resignation but sources indicate that she has been "making farewell calls to colleagues". No doubt her position is increasingly untenable given the new regime in Washington.
- China's central bank is ordering major state-owned financial institutions to reduce US dollar purchases and to increase scrutiny on dollar purchases by their clients (the latter apparently an attempt to control speculation).
- Turkey has detained two journalists, accusing them of "threats" and "blackmail". Authorities say the accusation was made by the owner of a TV station who is currently in jail for money laundering; the journalists and their supporters believe the real reason for their arrest was their coverage of protests against the arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
- The UK intends to develop techniques to predict who is most likely to commit homicide. This involves the use of algorithms to analyze detailed information about large numbers of people; they claim that they will only be using data related to people with at least one criminal conviction, but activists are skeptical of this, and furthermore fear that the algorithms themselves will likely have built-in biases against the poor and minorities. I seem to recall Philip K. Dick having imagined something like this...
- A biotech company claims to have achieved the "de-extinction" of the Dire Wolf that lived throughout much of the Americas until the end of the Pleistocene. Critics argue that what have actually been created are genetically modified Grey Wolves with a few Dire Wolf genes inserted. Some Redditors speculate that this is a deliberate attempt to make people think protecting diversity is irrelevant (since hey, we can just bring back anything that goes extinct, right?) Regardless of whether that's the case or not, though, this certainly isn't something we should be relying on to protect biodiversity.
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