30 May 2020
A demonstrator (click here) in Minneapolis injured by rubber bullets during protests Thursday over the death of George Floyd.
Credit...
Microsoft (click here) is to replace dozens of contract journalists on its MSN website and use automated systems to select news stories, US and UK media report.
The curating of stories from news organisations and selection of headlines and pictures for the MSN site is currently done by journalists.
Artificial intelligence will perform these news production tasks, sources told the Seattle Times.
Microsoft said it was part of an evaluation of its business.
The US tech giant said in a statement: "Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis. This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time to time, redeployment in others. These decisions are not the result of the current pandemic."
Microsoft, like some other tech companies, pays news organisations to use their content on its website.
But it employs journalists to decide which stories to display and how they are presented.
Around 50 contract news producers will lose their jobs at the end of June, the Seattle Times reports, but a team of full-time journalists will remain.....
The driver is unarmed.
This is outrageous. The driver drove home to avoid being killed. Police are out of control. The driver allegedly ran a stop sign in Midland, Texas. The police reaction is insane. The officer involved is suspicious of everyone, including neighbors, in the area. This is a traffic violation. The driver is so fearful of police he solicited a witness in his grandmother in order that he wasn't killed. The five minutes the driver sat in the car were probably calling his grandmother and waiting for her to come to the front door. Police are ineffective if the trust by the people is so low that every interaction with an African American turns into a confrontation.
This entire interaction is wrong. A ticket for a traffic violation could have been mailed to the driver with the license plate number on the car. This is not the way to resolve a traffic violation. Something is very wrong in this country between African Americans and the police.
May 30, 2020
Bodycam footage (click here) shows a woman, dressed in a nightgown, seem to fall onto her grandson during the incident.
For those unaware of modern day protesting, it has gone high tech with lasers and low tech with umbrellas. The lasers confuse any vision that could identify the protesters. It is unfortunate protesters are not proud of their arrests, which should be resisted (Never make it easy for a protester to be arrested. Fight and live for another day.), as a badge of honor to their allegiance to equality, justice and life. It used to be judges would treat protesting as a traffic violation and issue $50.00 fines of which the person would be released. Lasers can be dangerous resulting in harm and a far different arrest with prison as a result, not just a $50 fine. Back in the day protesters could have patrons that would pay their $50.00 fine if they could not pay it themselves.
The umbrella became a useful tool, but, not to break windows. In Asia the favorite anti-protest methods are fire hoses and water cannons. No guns. Hence, the umbrella. Protesters would act together and open their umbrellas in unison to thwart the sprayed water. It was resistance and diminished the water pressure enough to allow them to stand their ground.
The looting is unfortunate and if caught on camera in or out of the store could result in legal problems. I don’t remember ever hearing an interview with a person that looted a store. I imagine there are many reasons like poverty, having food while protesting and as simple as just being a part of the protest to make shop owners, police and politicians feel the pain.
There is one time I remember someone talking about looting a liquor store. I think it was LA. Minority communities entrenched in poverty are food desserts and lack cohesive social contact except for church so men drank to become drunk. Pain kills to make it through the day. Wives, children or roommates hated the drinking, but, had no real tools to stop it. So with the opportunity to destroy the local liquor store where outside single cigarettes were sold regularly the destruction was carried out. At least the store wouldn’t open soon and community members had a chance to dry out.
Life goes on in poverty. It just doesn’t go on the way it does in other Middle Class and wealthy neighborhoods. The pain of poverty manifests behaviors and values alien to our country’s values. The word segregation comes to mind. I believe the ideal American neighborhood is diverse of race, color, creed and economic income with children that grow up in school caring about each other. The poor are always segregated with no hope for themselves or their children.
We can do better than this.
Yes, I mean it. Every American participated in bringing the Space Program to this point. Every American has the right to be proud of their country today.
May 30, 2020
SpaceX (click here for live video) will take another crack at its first crewed mission today (May 30), weather permitting, and you can watch the historic liftoff live.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch the Crew Dragon capsule today at 3:22 p.m. EDT (1922 GMT) from Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, kicking off the crucial Demo-2 test flight to the International Space Station (ISS). You can watch the launch and lots of pregame festivities live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV; coverage begins at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT)....
Minnesota Governor has the absolutely wrong approach. If there is violence by the "establishment" it will propagate a war that will cause more destruction than demonstrators that can do. I don't care who the demonstrators are and whether or not they were migrated into the area. The enemies of this country CANNOT find a foothold to begin a civil war!
Trump is president and he wants such unrest for his own purpose.
Americans killing Americans is not the path forward!
The statement that the demonstrators are wearing masks as camouflage is a hideous statement and nothing but propaganda. The Minnesota Governor is using words that will promote anger and will be used among those opposing the Minneapolis police as reason for more protests.
The Pentagon is wrong in sending police into the mix. The USA military is never to be used within the borders of the USA and yet here it is. Stop!
Intelligence agencies need to be involved and not soldiers.
Curfews are about safety and not identification.
May 30, 2020
By Andrew Ba Tran, Leslie Shapiro and Emma Brown
The number of people (click here) reported to have died of the novel coronavirus in the United States surpassed 100,000 this week, a grim marker of lives lost directly to the disease, but an analysis of overall deaths during the pandemic shows that the nation probably reached a similar terrible milestone three weeks ago.
Between March 1 and May 9, the nation recorded an estimated 101,600 excess deaths, or deaths beyond the number that would normally be expected for that time of year, according to an analysis conducted for The Washington Post by a research team led by the Yale School of Public Health. That figure reflects about 26,000 more fatalities than were attributed to covid-19 on death certificates during that period, according to federal data....
Mayhem is spreading the virus. People who were safe before are now exposed to sincere danger in their lives. Those at the gatherings when exposed will carry the virus back to their homes and other social activity, such as work or church.
There is an additional danger to anyone on the streets by unpredictable behavior by those that gather in Minnesota and St. Paul.
People need to obey the curfews, but, do it for the right reasons. This is not an oppressive initiative. It is a legitimate reason to take shelter and protect one's own life and the lives of the family and friends.
There is a report that the Pentagon is issuing orders to their police to report to Minnesota. I caution all parties involved to prevent violence.
The demonstrations that have continued is in the process of making these demonstrations permanent until there is more benevolence in minority communities. The best example of that is France and a long sustained protest. The USA is not France.
I thank any and all police that openly speaks out against the death of George Floyd. The unwarranted deaths of African Americans at the hand of law enforcement is painful, teaches the wrong lesson to our young people and provides a platform for hate to grow on both sides.
George Floyd's death serves as a time for these two communities in the USA to come together to end these wrongful acts. Police need to speak out to their communities regularly. Grievances being heard are necessary to bring about a country that is benevolent to the people. Poverty must be addressed in a real way to bring minorities out of danger both in heavy-handed policing and disease.
May 29, 2020
By Stefanie Dazio
Los Angeles – Murder. Brutality. (click here) Reprehensible. Indefensible. Police nationwide, in unequivocal and unprecedented language, have condemned the actions of Minneapolis police in the custody death of a handcuffed black man who cried for help as an officer knelt on his neck, pinning him to the pavement for at least eight minutes.
But some civil rights advocates say their denunciations are empty words without meaningful reform behind them.
Authorities say George Floyd was detained Monday because he matched the description of someone who tried to pay with a counterfeit bill at a convenience store, and the 46-year-old resisted arrest. A bystander’s disturbing video shows Officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, kneeling on Floyd’s neck, even as Floyd begs for air and slowly stops talking and moving....
