digdeeper

As a major snowstorm caused travel chaos, serious weather alerts, highway closures and school cancellations, some working for Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation were told to head into the office.

“Just a reminder that we have a 5-day a week in person requirement,” the email, seen by Global News, said.

It added that the snow meant staff could arrive late and leave early as long as they made an effort to attend.

“Otherwise,” the note concluded, “please take a vacation day, which some … staff are doing today.”

The message was sent after schools in Toronto had announced they would close for the day, and while emergency services and Environment Canada were urging people to avoid all non-essential travel.

“Allow extra time for travel,” the weather agency wrote. “Non-essential travel should be avoided.”

About an hour after telling workers to head into the office or use a vacation day, the directive was revised.

“We are now being advised that if you have your equipment, you may work from home,” the follow-up, sent at 10:35 a.m., said. “Staff to decide for themselves if it’s safe or possible to drive in today. Please use your best judgment and prioritize safety.”

Was a pipe dream to think Carney would stand up to the orange menace.

https://archive.ph/tqMFM

The US has seized a sixth tanker in the Caribbean Sea in its ongoing efforts to control exports of Venezuelan oil, officials say.

The vessel, Veronica, was boarded in a predawn operation "without incident" as it was defying President Donald Trump's "quarantine of sanctioned vessels", said the US military.

"The only oil leaving Venezuela will be oil that is coordinated properly and lawfully," the Southern Command said.

Since the US military strikes on Venezuela and seizure of its president Nicolás Maduro this month, Trump has said he plans to tap into the country's huge oil reserves.

"The Veronica is the latest tanker operating in defiance of President Trump's established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean," US Southern Command said in a post on social media.

Hexachloroethane (perchloroethane)

is an organochlorine compound with the chemical formula C2Cl6. Its structure is Cl3C−CCl3. It is a white or colorless solid at room temperature with a camphor-like odor.[3] It has been used by the military in smoke compositions, such as base-eject smoke munitions (smoke grenades).

Use as smoke agent

Smoke grenades, called hexachloroethane smoke or HC smoke, utilize a mixture containing roughly equal parts of hexachloroethane and zinc oxide and approximately 6% granular aluminium. These smokes are toxic, which is attributed to the production of zinc chloride (ZnCl2).[8][9] According to Steinritz et al., "Due to its potential pulmonary toxicity," zinc chloride producing smoke grenades "have been discharged from the armory of most western countries (...)."[10]

Thursday was the final day to select an Affordable Care Act health insurance plan across much of the country, as the expiration of federal subsidies drives up health costs and lawmakers remain locked in a debate over how to address the issue.

That’s when the open enrollment window ends in most states for plans that start in February. About 10 states that run their own marketplaces have later deadlines, or have extended them to the end of the month to give their residents more time.

The date is a crucial one for millions of small business owners, gig workers, farmers, ranchers and others who don’t get their health insurance from a job and therefore rely on marketplace plans. A record 24 million Americans purchased Affordable Care Act health plans last year.

But this year, their decisions over health coverage have been more difficult than usual as clarity over how much it will cost is hard to come by. And so far, enrollment is lagging behind last year’s numbers — with about 22.8 million Americans having signed up so far, according to federal data.

A federal judge Thursday cleared the way for a New York offshore wind project to resume construction, a victory for the developer who said a Trump administration order to pause it would likely kill the project in a matter of days.

District Judge Carl J. Nichols, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled construction on the Empire Wind project could go forward while he considers the merits of the government’s order to suspend the project. He faulted the government for not responding to key points in Empire Wind’s court filings, including the contention that the administration violated proper procedure.

Norwegian company Equinor owns Empire Wind. Spokesperson David Schoetz said they welcome the court’s decision and will continue to work in collaboration with authorities. It’s the second developer to prevail in court against the administration this week.

San Jose will prohibit federal immigration activity at dozens of city properties and vacant lots.

The San Jose City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to ban U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from using 11 city garages and parking lots, as well as the parking areas of 75 community centers and libraries as staging areas or operational bases.

The city’s policy comes on the heels of Santa Clara County passing a similar policy to block ICE from using county-owned vacant lots, garages and other spaces for immigration enforcement. The city and county’s plan is part of a spreading, national movement to freeze ICE agents out of certain areas after Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an Oct. 6 executive order laying out similar rules.

“We are sending a bold and unmistakable message: City property exists to serve our residents, not to facilitate federal actions that undermine community trust or public safety,” District 5 Councilmember Peter Ortiz, who led the effort, said at the council meeting. “I do want to acknowledge that this policy has yet to be challenged in the court of law, and there are questions about enforcement. That being said, just as we see the executive branch of our federal government expanding beyond its historical role to target our residents, so should we, in order to defend those we love and call our neighbors.”

Not like I have anything against lesbian porn but ffs it doesn't even make semantic sense.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/41672329

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.nz/post/32680271

Germany sends 13 personnel, France deploys 15 mountain specialists to bolster territory's defenses

https://www.foxnews.com/world/troops-from-europe-deploy-greenland-rapid-2-day-mission-trump-eyes-us-takeover

Robert Pearson's family attempting to sue Washington, California and the CDL agency involved

https://www.foxnews.com/media/family-washington-man-allegedly-killed-illegal-migrant-trucker-says-no-lawyers-take-case

SYDNEY, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Social media companies have collectively deactivated nearly five million accounts belonging to Australian teenagers just a month after a world-first ban on under‑16s took effect, the country's internet regulator said, a sign the measure has had a swift and sweeping impact.

Built With AI to make a safe space out of its reach!

Demo Video

Source

This privacy tool can be installed on most Linux distros, including my favorite....hosting from termux (android)!

The project was driven by a my desire to create a private space for spreadsheet collaboration with no fluff, tracking ect.

Fully open and free tech stack

• SQLite Database
• Gunicorn WSGI Server backend
• Python for API and Application Routes
• Pure JS, HTML, CSS Frontend
• TOR for worldwide encrypted connection to the service.

Formulas

Supported functions include:

• Math: SUM, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, COUNT, ABS, - ROUND, SQRT, POWER, MOD
• Logic: IF, TRUE, FALSE
• Lookup: VLOOKUP
• Text: CONCAT, LEFT, RIGHT, MID, LEN, UPPER, LOWER, TRIM
• Date: TODAY, NOW

Hope you enjoy. While I plan to continue polishing the UI/Expirence, it is not complete but is in a usable state. I will continue to iterate on the application as I continue with real world testing and data processing.

Open to critique and suggestions for improvement!

So I was reading this article about Signal-creator Moxie Marlinspike's new project, Confer , which claims to be a verifiably E2E encrypted LLM chat service. There are a couple of short blog articles that give the gist of it, and some github repos including this one that includes scripts for producing the VM that will run your particular LLM session. But if I'm following this all correctly, it implies that every chat session (or perhaps every logged-in user) would have their own VM running their own LLM to ensure that the chain of trust is complete. This seems impossible from a scalability perspective, as even small LLMs require huge quantities of RAM and compute. Did I miss something fundamental here?

Pro-regime demonstrators at Tehran University chanted 'death to America' during government-organized event

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/iranian-protestors-hold-trump-assassination-attempt-photo-chant-death-america-state-media-shows

An AI tool used to help ICE identify potential new recruits with law enforcement experience wrongly categorized some potential new officers, sources say.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/ice-error-meant-recruits-sent-field-offices-proper-training-sources-sa-rcna254054

Some folks just want to do drugs while being on welfare in one of the wealthiest cities on Earth. If they wanted a home they could go to Midwest and buy something basic with a simple cash loan and work in McDonalds or Walmart.

Some folks just want to do drugs while being on welfare in one of the wealthiest cities on Earth. If they wanted a home they could go to Midwest and buy something basic with a simple cash loan and work in McDonalds or Walmart.