With air drones now being a fixture in nearly every army’s arsenal, defense industries are hard at work developing ground and underwater robotic vehicles, trying not to fall behind others. Most of the technology has already been developed for industrial robots, and the rapidly expanding self-driving vehicle segment of the automotive industry. VOA’s George Putic looks at the state of warfare robots.
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From: MeNeedIt
The hurricanes that brought howling winds and destructive floods to the Houston area and much of Florida are now swamping insurance companies with a multi-billion dollar wave of claims. Some insurance firms are using aerial photography to gather facts to help settle claims. Aerospace firm Airbus is offering free access to one of the world’s largest libraries of satellite images to speed the claims process — and build its business. As VOA’s Jim Randle reports, speed can save money.
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From: MeNeedIt
American television’s biggest stars are walking the red carpet Sunday in Los Angeles, posing for photos and interviews before the 69th annual Emmy awards presentation.
Late-night talk show personality Stephen Colbert will host the award show, which is sure to get political this year. Colbert, who’s Late Show often pokes fun at President Donald Trump and his administration, said “the biggest television star of the last year was Donald Trump” during an interview last week.
Additionally, comedy show Saturday Night Live, which regained popularity during the past year by imitating various politicians, is up for a number of awards. Melissa McCarthy, who portrayed former White House press secretary Sean Spicer on the show, was named the best guest actress in a comedy in last week’s Creative Arts Emmy ceremony.
The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian story that many have said is a reflection of modern times, has been nominated for best drama, along with Better Call Saul and House of Cards and newcomers This Is Us, The Crown, Stranger Things, and Westworld.
Nominated for best comedy are Veep, Master of None, Atlanta, black-ish, Silicon Valley, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Modern Family.
The Primetime Emmy awards have been held each year since 1949 to recognize members of the U.S. television industry. This year’s ceremony has a record number of African-American nominees, with 12 black actors up for best and supporting actor awards.
This year also includes a record number of nominated shows exclusively shown on streaming platforms such as Netflix and Hulu.
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From: MeNeedIt
Stuck in a refugee camp on the Greek island of Chios with poor internet and little credit, Abrar Hassan, like many others, was unaware that the tech world had been falling all over itself to help him.
More importantly, he was unaware of his rights and how best to prepare for the asylum interviews that would determine whether the 19-year-old, who fled a murderous family feud in Pakistan, had a future in Europe.
There has been an explosion of digital software applications, hackathons and websites since the refugee crisis filtered into Western public consciousness, with the tech world offering a range of solutions, whether to issues like Hassan’s, navigating the sea or job hunting.
Time has revealed the limits of such solutions when applied with little knowledge of the situation on the ground. Some tech tools, however, are bridging the gap.
No internet, no problem
Hundreds of micro SD memory cards that can be used in mobile phones have been given out in Chios. The memory cards are packed with information to help educate people about crucial details of the asylum process, such as the right to replace an inadequate translator during the asylum interview.
“When I came here I didn’t know anything about the Greek asylum system,” said Hassan, who passed his asylum interview and has remained on the island, helping to distribute SD cards to more refugees.
“This is the first time things have been clearly explained.”
The micro SD cards do not need an internet connection for people to access the text, audio and visual help offered in the Arabic, Farsi and Urdu languages.
They are the brainchild of Sharon Silvey, founder of RefuComm, a volunteer group working with refugees.
Silvey said that many tech products are often designed with little awareness of the audience they target.
“I’ve met thousands of refugees and I’ve not met one who said that they needed an app — it’s as simple as that. I’m not sure if refugees are involved at all [in development],” she said.
Steep learning curve
That criticism is partly acknowledged by some of those who have tracked the explosion of tech-focused assistance since fall 2015.
Ben Mason of Betterplace Lab, a Berlin-based nonprofit organization focused on what he calls “tech for good,” told VOA that the initial surge provided an “inspiring moment with people wanting to help and some good projects.”
“But there was quite a lot of misspent energy on ‘solutionism’ — the idea you can take a complex social problem and find a simple tech solution,” Mason added.
To avoid duplication of services, Techfugees — the most prominent tech network to emerge, with more than 15,000 members — called on users to consolidate their efforts and engage more with refugees themselves, many of whom rely on their own online social networks to get advice.
Tracking the success of this wave of tech support is difficult. Many projects have genuinely helped, such as Kiron Open Higher Education, which offers refugees access to higher education.
In the “fail fast, try again” ethos of the tech industry, meanwhile, other services proved useless or quickly disappeared, and some became notorious.
iSea, a highly hyped, award-winning app, was taken offline after it emerged that rather than live satellite images, it showed a single static image of the sea, rendering it useless for its purported role of helping crowdsource rescue operations.
Stuck in silos
Mason, who recently wrote a report on Germany’s tech response to the refugees crisis, argues that while it had “yet to deliver at scale,” the scene is “maturing,” with a small but emerging number of tech solutions created by refugees themselves.
Meghan Benton, a senior policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute, said there have been successes, but for tech to truly impact efforts to help refugees, it will have to be about “a connection to mainstream services — rather than a parallel world, which serves small pockets, and might die from one week to the next.”
Not that such a solution is simple.
The ever-shifting nature of the refugee presence in Europe presents its own issues. For example, the U.N.’s refugee agency in Greece told VOA that as refugees moved from camps into urban settings, helping provide internet services would become even more difficult.
Meanwhile, the slow adaption of many European states to harnessing this tech talent and enthusiasm — for example, in its slow, bureaucratic funding methods — may, to varying extents, be influenced by the politics of the refugee crisis.
A distant prospect
Thousands still languish on the islands and face deportation until their asylum interviews are held.
When it comes to the asylum process, Greek authorities are perceived as more of an obstacle to the fair treatment of refugees than a partner to work with, RefuComm’s Silvey said.
For her, the idea of integrating her services remains a distant prospect.
Silvey said she would not be discouraged, though, and is now hunting for funds to roll out her idea further, and aims to launch it in Italy.
And with a team made up mostly of refugees as volunteers, RefuComm doesn’t lack the contact with beneficiaries that has plagued other tech solutions.
“Millennials are creating all these high-tech solutions, and then some old grandma comes up with a low-tech solution that works,” quips Silvey, 56.
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From: MeNeedIt
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated India’s biggest dam on Sunday, ignoring warnings from environment groups that hundreds of thousands of people will lose their livelihoods.
The controversial Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada river in the country’s western state of Gujarat that will provide power and water to three big states was dedicated to the people of India by Narendra Modi.
The project has been beset by controversies since the laying of the foundation stone by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1961. The construction of the project began in 1987.
The dam is the second biggest dam in the world after the Grand Coulee Dam in the United States.
Ahead of the inauguration Modi said in a tweet, “This project will benefit lakhs of farmers and help fulfil people’s aspirations.” (1 lakh = 100,000)
The dam is expected to provide water to 9,000 villages and the power generated from the dam would be shared among three states — Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat.
The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), led by social activist Medha Patkar, has been protesting against the project, raising several environmental concerns.
Construction on the dam had been suspended in 1996 following a stay by the Supreme Court which allowed work to resume, four years later, but with conditions.
Patkar and her supporters started the protest against the inauguration of the dam on Saturday and the opening of its gates which would raise the level of water and risk displacing several villages.
“Today is a very sad day for India, and for one of our biggest peoples’ movements and struggle — the Narmada Bacchao Andolan,” Ravi Chellam, executive director at Greenpeace India said in a statement.
“The Sardar Sarovar Project… signals ruin not development for tens of thousands of unsuspecting, hapless and poor farmers,” Chellam added.
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From: MeNeedIt
Hurricane season roared on Saturday as Jose threatened heavy surf along the U.S. East Coast, Tropical Storm Norma edged toward Mexico’s resort-studded Baja California Peninsula, and Tropical Storm Maria formed in the Atlantic and was expected to strengthen into a hurricane, taking aim at some already battered Caribbean islands.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Lee formed in the Atlantic far from land.
A tropical storm warning was in effect for the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula because of Norma, which the U.S. National Hurricane Center reported had weakened into a tropical storm on Saturday, with maximum sustained winds of 100 kph (65 mph).
Norma was 355 kilometers (220 miles) south of Cabo San Lucas and moving north at 4 kph (2 mph), with forecasters saying it could approach waters southwest of the peninsula late Sunday or early Monday.
The peninsular region that’s home to the twin resort cities of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo was hit about two weeks ago by Tropical Storm Lidia, which flooded streets and homes and killed at least four people.
The Baja California Sur government readied storm shelters and canceled classes for Monday as well as a planned military parade in the state capital, La Paz, amid Mexican Independence Day celebrations.
In the Atlantic, Hurricane Jose was far from land but generating powerful swells that the center said were affecting coastal areas in Bermuda, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and the U.S. Southeast.
East Coast cautioned
The center added that tropical storm watches were possible for the U.S. East Coast later in the day and advised people from North Carolina to New England to monitor Jose’s progress.
The hurricane had maximum sustained winds of 130 kph (80 mph). It was located about 775 kilometers (485 miles) south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and was heading north at 9 kph (6 mph).
Also Saturday, Tropical Storm Lee formed in the eastern Atlantic with sustained winds of 65 kph (40 mph). The storm was about 1,160 kilometers (720 miles) west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands and posed no immediate threat to land.
To the west, Tropical Storm Maria formed and is expected to strengthen, prompting hurricane watches for Antigua, Barbuda, St. Kitts, Nevis, and Montserrat — some of which were devastated by Hurricane Irma.
The hurricane center said Maria was about 1,000 km (620 miles) east-southeast of the Lesser Antilles. It had maximum sustained winds of 85 kph (50 mph) and was heading west at 31 kph (20 mph). It should approach the Leeward Islands on Tuesday.
The death toll from Irma in the Caribbean was 38.
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From: MeNeedIt
The European Union’s top energy official says the United States has signaled that it may be willing to re-engage in the Paris climate pact, despite President Donald Trump’s announcement in June that the U.S. would withdraw in order to renegotiate the deal.
Miguel Arias Canete, European commissioner for climate action and energy, said Saturday that the shift came during a meeting in Montreal of more than 30 ministers, led by Canada, China and the European Union.
The Montreal meeting took place in preparation for the annual U.N. General Assembly, the main events of which begin Tuesday.
“The U.S. has stated that they will not renegotiate the Paris accord, but they will try to review the terms on which they could be engaged under this agreement,” Canete said after the meeting.
Stance ‘has not changed’
However, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted a different message shortly after Canete’s statement was released. “Our position on the Paris agreement has not changed.,” she said. “@POTUS has been clear, US withdrawing unless we get pro-America terms.”
Trump drew international criticism when he declared the U.S. would pull out of the Paris Agreement and seek a renegotiation.
The Paris Agreement is a U.N.-negotiated deal signed in 2015 by every nation except Syria and Nicaragua. A withdrawal by the United States is seen as a possible catalyst for withdrawals by other nations.
The agreement seeks a global response to curb carbon dioxide emissions.
The United States produces the world’s second-highest level of greenhouse gas emissions, next to China.
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From: MeNeedIt
For more than 60 years, Harry Dean Stanton played crooks and codgers, eccentrics and losers.
He endowed them with pathos and compassion and animated them with his gaunt, unforgettable presence, making would-be fringe figures feel central to the films appeared in.
The late critic Roger Ebert once said no movie can be altogether bad if it includes Stanton in a supporting role, and the wide cult of fans that included directors and his fellow actors felt the same.
“I think all actors will agree, no one gives a more honest, natural, truer performance than Harry Dean Stanton,” director David Lynch said in presenting Stanton with the Inaugural “Harry Dean Stanton Award” in Los Angeles last year.
Stanton died Friday of natural causes at a Los Angeles hospital at age 91, his agent John S. Kelley said.
Lynch, a frequent collaborator with the actor in projects like “Wild at Heart” and the recent reboot of “Twin Peaks,” said in a statement after Stanton’s death that “Everyone loved him. And with good reason. He was a great actor (actually beyond great) — and a great human being.”
When given a rare turn as a leading man, Stanton more than made the most of it. In Wim Wenders’ 1984 rural drama “Paris, Texas,” Stanton’s near-wordless performance is laced with moments of humor and poignancy. His heartbreakingly stoic delivery of a monologue of repentance to his wife, played by Nastassja Kinski, through a one-way mirror has become the defining moment in his career, in a role he said was his favorite.
“‘Paris, Texas’ gave me a chance to play compassion,” Stanton told an interviewer, “and I’m spelling that with a capital C.”
The film won the grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival and provided the actor with his first star billing, at age 58.
“Repo Man,” released that same year, became another signature film: Stanton starred as the world-weary boss of an auto repossession firm who instructs Estevez in the tricks of the hazardous trade.
He was widely loved around Hollywood, a drinker and smoker and straight talker with a million stories who palled around with Jack Nicholson and Kris Kristofferson among others and was a hero to such younger stars and brothers-in-partying as Rob Lowe and Emilio Estevez.
He appeared in more than 200 movies and TV shows in a career dating to the mid-1950s. A cult-favorite since the ’70s with roles in “Cockfighter,” ″Two-Lane Blacktop” and “Cisco Pike,” his more famous credits ranged from the Oscar-winning epic “The Godfather Part II” to the sci-fi classic “Alien” to the teen flick “Pretty in Pink,” in which he played Molly Ringwald’s father.
While fringe roles and films were a specialty, he also ended up in the work of many of the 20th century’s master auteurs, even Alfred Hitchcock in the director’s serial TV show.
“I worked with the best directors,” Stanton told the AP in a 2013 interview, given while chain-smoking in pajamas and a robe. “Martin Scorsese, John Huston, David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock was great.”
He said he could have been a director himself but “it was too much work.”
By his mid-80s, the Lexington Film League in his native Kentucky had founded the Harry Dean Stanton Fest and filmmaker Sophie Huber had made the documentary “Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction,” which included commentary from Wenders, Sam Shepard and Kristofferson.
More recently he reunited with Lynch on Showtime’s “Twin Peaks: The Return” where he reprised his role as the cranky trailer park owner Carl from “Fire Walk With Me.” He also stars with Lynch in the upcoming film “Lucky,” the directorial debut of actor John Carroll Lynch, which has been described as a love letter to Stanton’s life and career.
Stanton, who early in his career used the name Dean Stanton to avoid confusion with another actor, grew up in West Irvine, Kentucky and said he began singing when he was a year old.
Later, he used music as an escape from his parents’ quarreling and the sometimes brutal treatment he was subjected to by his father. As an adult, he fronted his own band for years, playing western, Mexican, rock and pop standards in small venues around Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. He also sang and played guitar and harmonica in impromptu sessions with friends, performed a song in “Paris, Texas” and once recorded a duet with Bob Dylan.
Stanton, who never lost his Kentucky accent, said his interest in movies was piqued as a child when he would walk out of every theater “thinking I was Humphrey Bogart.”
After Navy service in the Pacific during World War II, he spent three years at the University of Kentucky and appeared in several plays. Determined to make it in Hollywood, he picked tobacco to earn his fare west.
Three years at the Pasadena Playhouse prepared him for television and movies.
For decades Stanton lived in a small, disheveled house overlooking the San Fernando Valley, and was a fixture at the West Hollywood landmark Dan Tana’s.
Stanton never married, although he had a long relationship with actress Rebecca De Mornay, 35 years his junior. “She left me for Tom Cruise,” Stanton said often.
In listing Stanton’s survivors, the statement announcing his death said only:
“Harry Dean is survived by family and friends who loved him.”
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From: MeNeedIt
It was a Friday in June, a short workday before a public holiday weekend in Ukraine, and cybersecurity expert Victor Zhora had left the capital, Kyiv, and was in the western city of Lviv when he got the first in a torrent of phone calls from frantic clients.
His clients’ networks were being crippled by ransomware known as Petya, a malicious software that locks up infected computers and data. But this ransomware was a variant of an older one and wasn’t designed to extort money — the goal of the virus’ designers was massive disruption to Ukraine’s economy.
“I decided not to switch on my computer and just used my phone and iPad as a precaution,” he said. “I didn’t want my laptop to be contaminated by the virus and to lose my data,” he said.
Virus spread like wildfire
The Petya virus, targeting Microsoft Windows-based systems, spread like wildfire across Europe and, to a lesser extent, America, affecting hundreds of large and small firms in France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Britain.
While many Europeans saw the June cyberattack as just another wild disruption caused by anonymous hackers, it was identified quickly by experts, like the 37-year-old Zhora, as another targeted assault on Ukraine. Most likely launched by Russia, it was timed to infect the country’s networks on the eve of Ukraine’s Constitution Day.
The cyberattack started through a software update for an accounting program that businesses use when working with Ukrainian government agencies, according to the head of Ukraine’s cyberpolice, Sergey Demedyuk. In an interview with VOA in his office in the western suburbs of Kyiv, Demedyuk said, “every year cyberattacks are growing in number.”
“Sometimes when targeting a particular government agency or official, they mount complex attacks, first using some disguising action, like a denial-of-service attack, and only then launch their main attack aiming, for example, at capturing data,” he said.
Ukraine’s 360-member cyberpolice department was formed in 2015. The department is stretched, having not only to investigate cybercrime by nonstate actors but also, along with a counterpart unit in the state security agency, defend the country from cyberattacks by state actors. Demedyuk admits it is a cat-and-mouse game searching for viruses and Trojan horses that might have been planted months ago.
Cybersecurity summit
On Wednesday, the director of U.S. National Intelligence, Dan Coats, told a cybersecurity summit in Washington that digital threats are mounting against the West, and he singled out Russia as a major culprit, saying Moscow “has clearly assumed an ever more aggressive cyber posture.”
“We have not experienced — yet — a catastrophic attack. But I think everyone in this room is aware of the ever-growing threat to our national security,” Coats added.
And many of the digital weapons the West may face are being refined and developed by Russian-directed hackers in the cyberwar being waged against Ukraine, said Zhora and other cybersecurity experts.
“They are using Ukraine as a testing laboratory,” said Zhora, a director of InfoSafe, a cybersecurity company that advises private sector clients and Ukrainian government agencies.
Eye of the digital storm
Since the 2014 ouster of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine has been in the eye of a sustained and systematic digital storm of big and small cyberattacks with practically every sector of the country impacted, including media, finance, transportation, military, politics and energy. Sometimes, the intrusions are highly tailored; other times, more indiscriminate attacks like Petya are launched at Ukraine.
Russian officials deny they are waging cyber warfare against Ukraine. Zhora, like many cybersecurity experts, acknowledges it is difficult, if not impossible most times, to trace cyberattacks back to their source.
“Attribution is the most difficult thing. When you are dealing with professional hackers it is hard to track and to find real evidence of where it has come from,” he said. “But we know only one country is the likely culprit. We only really have one enemy that wants to destroy Ukrainian democracy and independence,” he added.
Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, has been less restrained in pointing the finger of blame. Last December, he said there had been 6,500 cyberattacks on 36 Ukrainian targets in the previous two months alone. Investigations, he said, point to the “direct or indirect involvement of [the] secret services of Russia, which have unleashed a cyberwar against our country.”
Ukraine’s cyberpolice head agrees. Demedyuk says his officers have been able to track attacks, especially denial-of-service intrusions, back to “Russian special services, tracking them to their own facilities and their own IP addresses.” But the original source of more complex intrusions, he said, are much harder to identify, with the hackers disguising themselves by using servers around the world, including in Asia and China.
Digital weapons refined
Digital intrusions have seen data deleted and networks crippled with real life consequences. And digital weapons are being refined often with the knowledge gained from each intrusion.
Zhora cites as an example of this evolution the difference between two large cyberattacks on the country’s electricity grid, the first in December 2015 and the second at the end of last year, which cut off energy to hundreds of thousands of people for several hours.
With the first attack the hackers used malware to gain access to the networks and then shut the system down manually.
“They sent an email and when someone opened it, the payload was downloaded and later it spread across the network and they used the path created for the hackers to get to the administrator’s work station and then in a live session switched off the subsystems overseeing electricity distribution,” he said.
But with the 2016 attack no live session was necessary.
“They used a malware which opened the doors automatically by decoding specific protocols and there was no human interaction. I think they got a lot of information in the first attack about the utility companies’ networks and they used the knowledge to write the malware for the second intrusion,” he said.
Digital threats to US
In his speech midweek in Washington, Coats specifically cited possible digital threats to America’s critical infrastructure, including electrical grids and other utilities, saying it is of rising concern.
“It doesn’t take much effort to imagine the consequences of an attack that knocks out power in Boston in February or power in Phoenix in July,” he said.
After the second cyberattack on Ukraine’s electrical grid, a group of American government and private sector energy officials was dispatched to Kyiv, where they spent a month exploring what happened, according to Ukrainian officials.
One lesson the visitors drew was that it would be much harder in the U.S. to switch the grid back on after an intrusion. The Ukrainians were able to get the electricity moving again by visiting each substation and turning the system on again manually, an option apparently more challenging in the U.S., where grid systems are even more automated.
“Virtual attacks are every bit as dangerous as military ones — we are living on a battlefield,” Zhora said.
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From: MeNeedIt
Fans of the American hip hop group the Insane Clown Posse will march on Washington Saturday in protest of their designation as a street gang by the federal government.
On Saturday, the Insane Clown Posse (ICP), along with thousands of their diehard fans — who refer to themselves as “Juggalos” — will gather near the Lincoln Memorial to make a “collective statement from the Juggalo family to the world about what we are and what we are not.”
“At this point, it’s time for everyone to put up or shut up. You say you’re a recording artist who supports the Juggalo Family’s fight against discrimination? Then be there. Live. In person,” the rap duo said in a message to fans promoting the event.
The march is just the latest step taken by ICP and its fans to fight their designation by U.S. authorities as a “loosely organized hybrid gang.” The issue stems from a 2011 report produced by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in which Juggalos are said to “exhibit ganglike behavior and engage in criminal activity and violence.”
Horror rap
The ICP is known for its unique brand of horror rap that often includes lyrics referencing drug use and violence. It has attracted a fan base made up largely of poor, white people who’ve built an identity around the music produced by the rap duo and their trademark clown makeup.
“We represent people who weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouth but instead with a rusty fork,” one member of the group, Violent J, said during an interview in 1995.
Some fans of the rap group say the gang designation has had a severe negative impact on their lives, with some reporting they’ve been fired from jobs, lost custody of their children or been denied housing because of their support of ICP.
“Being labeled a gang member can be a permanent stain on an individual’s life, since it will come up in a simple background check every single time,” the group said on their website promoting the event.
The FBI, in a statement provided to NBC News, said its report was based on information provided by states and the report specifically notes “the Juggalos had been recognized as a gang in only four states.”
“The FBI’s mission is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution. We investigate activity which may constitute a federal crime or pose a threat to national security. The FBI cannot initiate an investigation based on an individual’s exercise of their First Amendment rights,” it said.
In 2012, The ICP, with the help of the Michigan branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), sued the FBI claiming the designation unfairly profiles their fans and violates their First Amendment rights.
The lawsuit was initially dismissed by a judge in 2014, but the ICP won an appeal in 2015 ordering a Michigan court to take up the case. The case currently remains under appeal.
ICP members Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, whose real names are Joseph Bruce and Joseph Ulster, are listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, along with four of their fans.
One of the plaintiffs, Scott Gandy, said he had to cover up an ICP tattoo in order to apply to join the military. Another plaintiff, Brandon Bradley, claims to have been repeatedly stopped, questioned and photographed by police in California for wearing Juggalo clothing and having a Juggalo tattoo.
Label argued
Government lawyers have argued that the FBI report did not label all ICP fans as gang members and did not force the actions taken by any independent police agency, and thus could not be held liable for the actions taken by those police officers.
Unsatisfied with the legal process, the Juggalos are set to march on Washington in the hope of gaining attention for their cause.
“I didn’t have a problem with this country. Then all of a sudden they technically made it illegal to be a Juggalo. It’s like they took that one thing away that made me not have a problem with the government,” Violent J said in a recent interview with Reason.
Jason Webber, a publicist for ICP and an organizer for the event, told NBC he expects about 3,000 people to attend the rally.
The Juggalos won’t be the only group marching Saturday on Washington. Another group, supporters of President Donald Trump, is planning the “Mother of All Rallies” (MOAR) to take place near the Washington Monument, and predicts a crowd of about 5,000 attendees.
The “Mother of All Rallies” moniker appears to be a reference to the Massive Ordinance Air Blast (more commonly known as the Mother of All Bombs), which was dropped earlier this year on an Islamic State cave complex in Afghanistan.
According to its website, the rally is meant to “send a message to the world that the voices of mainstream Americans must be heard.” Organizers say they’ll only allow American flags to be flown and the event is meant to be apolitical.
“No Confederate flags, communist flags, or foreign flags allowed. This is not a Democrat or Republican rally. It’s not a left or right rally,” the group’s website says. “We condemn racists of all colors and supremacy of all colors. Our patriots are of all colors and we are uniting under our constitutional rights.”
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From: MeNeedIt
Mention quantum computing and people generally think, “what the heck is quantum computing?” Quantum computing uses the “weirdness” of the quantum world to create a new way for computers to do their thinking. It leaves the fastest computers in the dust. Australian researchers may have taken a huge step toward making quantum computers cheap and accessible. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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From: MeNeedIt
From tears and hugs to big smiles, the end Sept. 15 of a 20-year mission to Saturn for the spacecraft Cassini was emotional for scientists and engineers. Mission team members say the end of Cassini marks the beginning of a new chapter in planetary exploration and the search for life. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles.
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From: MeNeedIt