Lemmings.world

Close to 100 people have requested their money back from the campaign of Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa.

Refund requests can be routine part of campaigns, either because donors decide for some reason that they want a refund or they accidentally donated over the legal limit for contributions.

The Fetterman campaign has issued more than 1,700 refund requests since 2021 from more than 1,000 donors, totaling more than $780,800, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. That includes more than 200 refunds last cycle. At least seven political action committees also received refunds. (Fetterman’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.)

cross-posted from: https://jlai.lu/post/17548675

Conventional wisdom regarding finishing cutting boards and other food prep surfaces is to coat them heavily with mineral oil and/or a food safe paste wax to "seal" and/or "condition" them. Seri Robinson asserts otherwise, her research has shown that any finish applied to wood decreases its natural anti-microbial properties.

AMMAN/ISTANBUL, April 4 (Reuters) - Turkey scoped out at least three air bases in Syria where it could deploy forces as part of a planned joint defence pact before Israel hit the sites with air strikes this week, four people familiar with the matter said.

The bombardment signals the risks of a deepening rift between two powerful regional militaries over Syria, where Islamist rebels have installed a new government after toppling former leader Bashar al-Assad in December.

‘It’s mind-blowing... a total misrepresentation,’ one British tattoo artist whose work was cited as a symbol of the crime syndicate Tren de Aragua tells Io Dodds

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/60439802

A video, discovered on the cellphone of a paramedic who was found along with 14 other aid workers in a mass grave in Gaza in late March, shows that the ambulances and fire truck that they were traveling in were clearly marked and had their emergency signal lights on when Israeli troops hit them with a barrage of gunfire.

https://bsky.app/profile/jjasp232.bsky.social/post/3lm3t4ltnys23

Summary

Donald Trump will not attend the dignified transfer of four U.S. soldiers killed during a training exercise in Lithuania.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will represent the administration at Dover Air Force Base. Critics noted Trump’s rare attendance at such ceremonies, citing just four appearances during his first term.

The soldiers’ remains were found in a peat bog after a March 25 accident.

Trump is instead scheduled to attend a dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Lithuania’s president honored the fallen at a repatriation ceremony, drawing contrast with Trump’s absence.

HONG KONG, April 3 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Donald Trump’s second trade war is a battle of one against all. Reciprocal tariffs announced on Wednesday by the White House hit China with a hike of 34 percentage points, taking the fresh levies on exports from the People’s Republic up 54 percentage points in the 10 weeks since the U.S. president took office.

Nor did he sparethose who tried to surrender rather than retaliate. Some countries are worse off than others, but Washington has put all of Asia in pretty much the same tariff boat.

Japan gets a 24% levy despite its role as America’s geopolitical lynchpin in the region and massive foreign investment by giants like SoftBank (9984.T) South Korea’s many U.S. Army bases did not help it avoid a 26% hit; and neither did Taiwan’s vital role in supplying semiconductors for Silicon Valley titans, nor Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing's (2330.TW) pledge to invest in American chip production, prevent a 32% hike.

The New York State Education Department on Friday issued a defiant response to the Trump administration’s threats to pull federal funding from public schools over certain diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a remarkable departure from the conciliatory approach of other institutions in recent weeks.

Daniel Morton-Bentley, the deputy commissioner for legal affairs at the state education agency in New York, wrote in a letter to federal education officials that “we understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion.’”

“But there are no federal or state laws prohibiting the principles of D.E.I.,” Mr. Morton-Bentley wrote, adding that the federal government has not defined what practices it believes violate civil rights protections.

The stern letter was sent one day after the federal government issued a memo to education officials across the nation, asking them to confirm the elimination of all programs it argues unfairly promote diversity, equity and inclusion. Title I funding for schools with high percentages of low-income students was at risk pending compliance, federal officials said.

New York’s stance differed from the muted and often deferential responses across academia and other major institutions to the Trump administration’s threats. Some universities have quietly scrubbed diversity websites and canceled events to comply with executive orders — and to avoid the ire of the White House.

DOGE operatives have repeatedly referred to the software company Palantir as a possible partner in creating a “mega API” at the IRS, sources tell WIRED.

The Trump administration has fired the director and deputy director of the National Security Agency, the United States’ powerful cyber intelligence bureau, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation, members of the Senate and House intelligence committees and two former officials familiar with the matter.

The dismissal of Gen. Timothy Haugh, who also leads US Cyber Command — the military’s offensive and defensive cyber unit — is a major shakeup of the US intelligence community which is navigating significant changes in the first two months of the Trump administration. Wendy Noble, Haugh’s deputy at NSA, was also removed, according to the former officials and lawmakers.

The top Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committee, Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Jim Himes, denounced the firing of Haugh, who served in the roles since February 2024, in statements on Thursday night.

Lt. Gen. William Hartman, an experienced military officer and the deputy of Cyber Command, is expected to serve as acting head of the command and NSA, the two former officials said.

The news of the dismissals comes as the White House also fired multiple staff members on the National Security Council on Thursday, after Laura Loomer, the far-right activist who once claimed 9/11 was an inside job, urged President Donald Trump during a Wednesday meeting to do so, arguing that they were disloyal.

Loomer, who brought a list with roughly a dozen names of people she deemed insufficient in their support of Trump, also advocated for the firing of Haugh and Noble, two sources familiar with the meeting told CNN.

During the meeting, Loomer told the president that Haugh specifically should be fired because he was handpicked by the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. Haugh was nominated in 2023, while Milley was serving, to head up the NSA and Cyber Command.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/32192355

Just found out about this guy on YouTube named Nuxttux because I've been trying to make some social media videos.

Kdenlive is a completely different beast than the one that I remember using a couple of years ago. It has so much functionality in it, like all the "TikTok effects", proxy clips, rendering previews, visualizing effect curves between keyframes... like damn. This is actually legit software now for my basic needs.

The thing is, it seems like these were all added in the past 2 years, because I had 23.x installed through the Debian repo and I upgraded through Flatpak to 24.12 and it seems to have added all of these?

Anyway holy shit. Go give these guys some money. This is game changing

White House has said US courts can’t order return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose wife has been protesting outside court

A federal judge on Friday afternoon ordered the US to return a Maryland man mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison after a Trump administration attorney was at a loss to explain what happened.

The wife of the man, who was flown to a notorious Salvadoran prison had earlier joined dozens of supporters at a rally before a court hearing on Friday, where his lawyers had asked the judge – Paula Xinis – to order the Trump administration to return him to the US.

Xinis on Friday called Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation “an illegal act” and pressed US justice department attorney Erez Reuveni for answers. Reuveni had few, if any, to offer, conceding that Abrego Garcia should not have been removed from the US and sent to El Salvador. He could not cite any authority held by the Trump administration to arrest Abrego Garcia in Maryland.

“I’m also frustrated that I have no answers for you for a lot of these questions,” he said.

Reuveni said, “I don’t know,” when asked why Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador, which has a history rife with human rights abuses.

A 39-year-old DACA recipient and married father of three from Kansas City, Kansas, was deported last month after he left the U.S. and traveled to Mexico to visit his grandfather's grave, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.

Evenezer Cortez-Martinez was detained March 23 at the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport as he was making his way back into the U.S., the lawsuit states.

Martinez traveled to Mexico on March 20. Upon his return he arrived at DFW, where U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents stopped him from boarding his connecting flight home to Kansas City, claiming he had a removal order filed in June 2024, the lawsuit says.

Cortez-Martinez was deported immediately to Mexico City.

According to Cortez-Martinez's lawyer, Rekha Sharma-Crawford, her client was unaware of a removal order filed in 2024 given he has been a DACA recipient since 2014 and had successfully renewed his permit every two years. Cortez-Martinez was brought to the U.S. as a 4-year-old child.

Sharma-Crawford told CBS News her client applied for and obtained permission to travel outside of the U.S. through the Advance Parole process. This allows DACA recipients in the U.S. to temporarily travel outside of the country and return without a visa.

CBS News has reached out to DHS and CBP for comment on the case.

Jaguar Land Rover has announced it will "pause" all shipments to the US as it works to "address the new trading terms" after tariffs were imposed earlier this week.

A 25% levy on car imports came into force on Thursday, one of several measures announced by US President Donald Trump which have sent shockwaves through global supply chains.

The US is the second largest export market for the UK's car industry, after the European Union.

In a statement, a Jaguar Land Rover spokesperson said the company was "taking some short-term actions including a shipment pause in April, as we develop our mid to longer-term plans".

The Coventry-based car manufacturer - which also has sites in Solihull and Wolverhampton - said the US is an "important market for JLR's luxury brands".

More cars are exported to the US from the UK than any other good. In a 12-month period up to the end of the third quarter of 2024, the trade was worth £8.3bn, according to the UK trade department.

An initial wave of tariffs on cars came into effect from 3 April, with import taxes on auto parts due to follow next month.

A separate 10% tariff will be imposed on all other UK imports, with higher rates in place for some other major economies.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/4525978

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has published mobile phone footage taken by a slain Palestinian paramedic refuting Israel's account of why its soldiers opened fire on a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck on 23 March, killing 15 rescue workers.

. The video shows the vehicles moving in the dark with their headlights and emergency flashing lights switched on. Israeli forces then opened fire on the vehicles for several minutes.

The Israeli military initially denied the vehicles had their headlights or emergency signals on when its forces opened fire on them.

At least two emergency workers can be seen stepping out of the vehicles wearing reflective clothing. The rescuer filming the video with his phone is heard reciting Islamic prayers before being killed.

One rescuer can be heard in the video saying, "Forgive me, mother. I just wanted to help people. I wanted to save lives."

During the attack, Israeli forces killed eight PRCS paramedics, six Gaza Civil Defense workers, and one UN employee. Israeli troops buried their bodies, and the destroyed vehicles in a shallow mass grave dug in the sand.

Full article

(Washington DC) As trade wars are unleashed around the world, the leadership of various countries are choosing from a host of options in response. Counter-tariffs against agricultural and export products in regions of the Country With a Tiny Penis so-called “Red States,” which strongly support Country With a Tiny Penis president trump are one option, others of which include increased energy pricing, support of local products instead of those made in the Country With a Tiny Penis, and cancelling of large contracts with Country With a Tiny Penis-based manufacturers.

Shaming, although rarely used in trade disputes, has often been seen as more of a Country With a Tiny Penis tactic, with ideas such a Freedom Fries being popular during the first Iraq War. But the EU leadership, faced with unanswerable demands from Country With a Tiny Penis president trump, feel that a wide range of tactic should be employed to deal with the problem, and have implemented a requirement changing all software autocorrect setting for businesses that operate in the EU, even those based in the Country With a Tiny Penis.

“The EU is a huge market,” said one Apple Executive from their headquarter in Paulo Alto. “Given the effects of tariffs we expect in the Country With a Tiny Penis, the EU will be a major profit center in the coming years. We feel meeting EU requirements is more important than any Country With a Tiny Penis blowback we’ll face.”

Not all Country With a Tiny Penis citizens are amused, however. Country With a Tiny Penis Secretary of State Marco Rubio has expressed anger at the change. “The Country With a Tiny Penis is the true leader in the free world, and if anyone has a tiny penis, it’s the EU, not the Country With the Tiny Penis. I won’t allow this in my Country With a Tiny Penis”

EU leaders say that if this is successful, more efforts of this sort will follow, both inside the Country With a Tiny Penis and around the world. Whether Vladimir Putin, leader of the Tiny Bitch Country With Nukes, should be concerned, we will see in the coming months.