A federal rule banning fake online reviews is now in effect. 

The Federal Trade Commission issued the rulein August banning the sale or purchase of online reviews. The rule, which went into effect Monday, allows the agency to seek civil penalties against those who knowingly violate it.

“Fake reviews not only waste people’s time and money, but also pollute the marketplace and divert business away from honest competitors,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said about the rule in August. She added that the rule will “protect Americans from getting cheated, put businesses that unlawfully game the system on notice, and promote markets that are fair, honest, and competitive.”

Saw that a previous post was removed for being a bad source so I found a better one.

After it persuaded Gallatin County officials to issue $160 million in bonds so Sheehy’s company could expand locally, the firm used most of the money to pay off previous investors.

Bridger Aerospace Group, a Montana-based aerial firefighting company helmed by Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, was losing money in 2020 when its top executives made a business pitch to elected officials in the county where it’s based.

At a recorded public meeting, the executives asked whether Bridger could use Gallatin County’s name and pristine credit rating to raise $160 million in a municipal bond offering. If the three county commissioners said yes, Bridger would gain access to lower-cost money to expand its operations.

…

Four years later, Bridger is still losing money, its securities filings show, and the $160 million bond deal that sprang from that 2020 meeting is under scrutiny as Sheehy vies for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

The politics writer Olivia Nuzzi and New York magazine have parted ways just over a month after she was placed on leave following the disclosure that she had engaged in a “personal” relationship with Robert F Kennedy Jr.

A woman named Laura McCaskill used an Apple AirTag to track down her stolen Harris/Walz campaign sign, which led her to a home in Nixa, Missouri. When confronted, the young man's mother admitted that the signs in the trunk of the car belonged to her son, who she described as "just an idiot."

The incident involved the theft of around 60 signs from various homes in the neighborhood. McCaskill and other residents plan to file police reports, and McCaskill expressed concern about the entitlement and lack of accountability shown by the young man and his mother. The document also discusses the legal implications of stealing campaign signs, referencing Missouri Statute 115.637 which classifies such actions as a misdemeanor offense.

Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/AxANy

Carriers fight plan to require unlocking of phones 60 days after activation.

T-Mobile and AT&T say US regulators should drop a plan to require unlocking of phones within 60 days of activation, claiming that locking phones to a carrier's network makes it possible to provide cheaper handsets to consumers. "If the Commission mandates a uniform unlocking policy, it is consumers—not providers—who stand to lose the most," T-Mobile alleged in an October 17 filing with the Federal Communications Commission.

The proposed rule has support from consumer advocacy groups who say it will give users more choice and lower their costs. T-Mobile has been criticized for locking phones for up to a year, which makes it impossible to use a phone on a rival's network. T-Mobile claims that with a 60-day unlocking rule, "consumers risk losing access to the benefits of free or heavily subsidized handsets because the proposal would force providers to reduce the line-up of their most compelling handset offers."

Dozens of interviews with people deeply familiar or involved with the election process point to a clear consensus: Not only could Trump make a second attempt at overturning an election he loses, he and his allies are already laying the groundwork.

Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/8e3Ri

Smith’s case, known as Hamm v. Smith, first arrived on the Court’s doorstep in August 2023. Since then, the justices have met more than two dozen times to decide what to do about the case, and each time they’ve put the decision off until a future meeting.

No one outside of the Court can know for sure why the justices keep delaying, but if you follow the Court’s Eighth Amendment cases closely, it’s easy to see how the Hamm case could open up all kinds of internal rifts among the justices.

The Eighth Amendment, which has a vague ban on “cruel and unusual punishments,” is at the center of the Hamm case because, for decades, the Court has held this amendment forbids executions of intellectually disabled offenders (and offenders who commit a crime while they are juveniles). The idea is that both groups have diminished mental capacity, at least as compared to non-disabled adults, and thus bear less moral responsibility even for homicide crimes.

That idea, however, has long been contested by the Court’s various ideological factions, and the Hamm case potentially reopens up all of the Court’s issues with the amendment at once. Indeed, in the worst-case scenario for criminal defendants, the justices could potentially overrule more than 60 years of precedents protecting against excessive punishments.

Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/SU1Ce

Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/gjSYB

Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/0c2mB

Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/Z2L18

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21661720

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21661707

cross-posted from: https://hcommons.social/users/adachika192/statuses/113344728993220989

She Exposed a Prestigious Medical Journal’s Silence on the Holocaust. Now She’s Asking about Gaza:
A historian who exposed the New England Journal of Medicine's silence on Nazi atrocities confronted the journal’s treatment of Gaza during a Harvard symposium. (The Intercept, 2024-10-17)

[https://theintercept.com/2024/10/17/new-england-journal-medicine-israel-gaza-hospitals/]
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“Earlier this year, two Harvard medical historians published an article … found that the New England Journal of Medicine, … either chose not to cover the Nazi regime’s racist and antisemitic health policies, mass killings, and medical experimentation, or, in one case, praised the Nazi health care system for its approach to public health.

“The New England Journal of Medicine convened a symposium on Wednesday where the authors, Joelle M. Abi-Rached and Allan M. Brandt, could present their findings — and Abi-Rached took the opportunity to call the journal out for repeating its mistakes today.”

@palestine@lemmy.ml
@palestine@a.gup.pe
@israel
#SilenceIsComplicity

Police body camera footage showed Hill emerging from the garage of a friend’s house holding up a cellphone in his left hand, his right hand not visible, seconds before he was fatally shot by Coy. About 10 minutes passed before officers at the scene began coming to the aid of Hill, who lay bleeding on the garage floor. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/RhjXB

Archived at https://archive.is/O3W42

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21661988

[gift article - expires in 30 days] By Bilal Shbair and Erika Solomon

Bilal Shbair reported from central Gaza, visiting the site of the fire at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital compound and speaking to several members of the Dalou family.

Published Oct. 20, 2024 Updated Oct. 21, 2024, 7:51 a.m. ET

Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/oiiNc

An American Civil Liberties Union lawyer will make history in December as the first openly transgender attorney to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court, opposing Tennessee's Republican-backed law banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.

The ACLU's Chase Strangio, 41, represents a group of transgender people who pursued a lawsuit challenging the measure that prohibits medical treatments including hormones and surgeries for minors experiencing gender dysphoria.

ACLU Legal Director Cecillia Wang called Strangio the leading U.S. legal expert on transgender rights.

"He brings to the lectern not only brilliant constitutional lawyering, but also the tenacity and heart of a civil rights champion," Wang said.

An Israeli military unit that has been accused of human rights abuses against Palestinian detainees is reportedly under investigation by the US state department in a move that could lead to it being barred from receiving assistance.

The inquiry into the activities of Force 100 was instigated following a spate of allegations that Palestinians held under its guard at a detention centre have been subject to torture and brutal mistreatment, including sexual assault, Axios reported on Monday.

Nine members of Force 100, a unit inside the Israeli Defence Forces, are the subject of criminal investigation over allegations that they sexually assaulted a prisoner at the Sde Teiman detention camp in the Negev desert, which human rights groups have dubbed “the Israeli Guantanamo”.