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NASA shamed into firing top DEI executive after trying to ‘hide’ her

The chief DEI officer at NASA‘s jet propulsion lab was fired after her title was changed to hide her from Donald Trump‘s war on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. 

Trump and ‘First Buddy’ Elon Musk have been happy warriors against DEI, working to rid the federal government of what they call unfair practices.

Neela Rajendra had run the lab’s central diversity office, at one point arguing that having deadlines for work projects undermine inclusion, according to The Washington Free Beacon.

However, amid a series of 900 job cuts due to budgeting issues made in 2024, the diversity office was cut but Rajendra was mysteriously kept on. 

She’d had all references to DEI washed from from her title but reportedly kept many of the same job duties as ‘head of employee success.’Expand article logo  Continue reading

In early March, Rajendra was still in charge of the lab’s ‘Black Excellence Strategic Team.’ 

However, earlier this week in response to reports she was being protected from Trump administration DEI cuts, the lab parted ways with Rajendra. 

‘Neela Rajendra is no longer working at [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory]. We are incredibly grateful for the lasting impact she made to our organization. We wish her the very best,’ lab director Laurie Leshin wrote in an all-staff email on Thursday.

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Bernie Sanders Has Been Saying US Is “Rapidly Moving Towards Oligarchy” SINCE 1993

Bernie Sanders, who is currently on a tour with AOC to “fight Oligarcy” has been parroting the same tired mantra for over three decades, claiming that the US is “rapidly moving toward an Oligarchy.”

Does anyone need any more evidence that this guy is talking out of his rear end than this?

Presumably Bernie still needs you to send him money to ‘fight’ this never ending rapid descent into Oligarchy.

It’s been so rapid that Bernie could barely buy three mansions for himself in the time that the country has moved toward it.

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Points For Honesty: UK Tech Firm Says “Only Immigrants From India Will Be Considered” In DevOps Want Ad

UK tech firm Avantao Technologies has apologized after posting a job ad stating “only candidates who are immigrants from India will be considered”, according to the Daily Mail.

The listing, for a DevOps engineer role in Ilford, also asked visa-related questions like “What is your native country?” and “Are you seeking sponsorship for employment in the UK?”

The Daily Mail report says that the company claims the ad was a staff training “test” that was mistakenly published. Sure.

“Unfortunately, that has been published, and we are unable to retract it because it was a mistake made by the employee who posted it live and then departed on holiday,” a spokesperson told MailOnline.

“We are very sorry to hear that this has occurred… a mistake is a mistake, and we have taken action against the individual… we genuinely apologise.”

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Florida’s New Social Media Bill Says the Quiet Part Out Loud and Demands an Encryption Backdoor

At least Florida’s SB 868/HB 743, “Social Media Use By Minors” bill isn’t beating around the bush when it states that it would require “social media platforms to provide a mechanism to decrypt end-to-end encryption when law enforcement obtains a subpoena.” Usually these sorts of sweeping mandates are hidden behind smoke and mirrors, but this time it’s out in the open: Florida wants a backdoor into any end-to-end encrypted social media platforms that allow accounts for minors. This would likely lead to companies not offering end-to-end encryption to minors at all, making them less safe online.

Encryption is the best tool we have to protect our communication online. It’s just as important for young people as it is for everyone else, and the idea that Florida can “protect” minors by making them less safe is dangerous and dumb.

The bill is not only privacy-invasive, it’s also asking for the impossible. As breaches like Salt Typhoon demonstrate, you cannot provide a backdoor for just the “good guys,” and you certainly cannot do so for just a subset of users under a specific age. After all, minors are likely speaking to their parents and other family members and friends, and they deserve the same sorts of privacy for those conversations as anyone else. Whether social media companies provide “a mechanism to decrypt end-to-end encryption” or choose not to provide end-to-end encryption to minors at all, there’s no way that doesn’t harm the privacy of everyone.

If this all sounds familiar, that’s because we saw a similar attempt from an Attorney General in Nevada last year. Then, like now, the reasoning is that law enforcement needs access to these messages during criminal investigations. But this doesn’t hold true in practice.

In our amicus brief in Nevada, we point out that there are solid arguments that “content oblivious” investigation methods—like user reporting— are “considered more useful than monitoring the contents of users’ communications when it comes to detecting nearly every kind of online abuse.” That remains just as true in Florida today.

Law enforcement can and does already conduct plenty of investigations involving encrypted messages, and even with end-to-end encryption, law enforcement can potentially access the contents of most messages on the sender or receiver’s devices, particularly when they have access to the physical device. The bill also includes measures prohibiting minors from accessing any sort of ephemeral messaging features, like view once options or disappearing messages. But even with those features, users can still report messages or save them. Targeting specific features does nothing to protect the security of minors, but it would potentially harm the privacy of everyone.

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Senate Probes Meta Over Alleged Censorship Tools and Data Sharing Ties with Chinese Communist Party, Whistleblower Testifies

US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, on Wednesday organized a hearing about Meta’s alleged work to develop custom censorship tools for China’s Communist Party (CCP) and share user data with China – which Meta denies.

Whistleblower and former Facebook Director Global Policy Sara Wynn-Williams, who left the company at some point around 2018, presented her testimony during the hearing dubbed, “A Time for Truth: Oversight of Meta’s Foreign Relations and Representations to the United States Congress.”

Senator Josh Hawley, who chaired the meeting, showed internal Facebook documents that Wynn-Williams previously shared with Congress, that appeared to corroborate the whistleblower’s claims.

Wynn-Williams accused Meta executives of “repeatedly” undermining US national security and betraying American values as they allegedly set out to build “an $18 billion business in China” and work directly with the CCP, including censoring a Chinese dissident.

According to her testimony, Meta executives are guilty of lying to employees, shareholders, Congress, and the American public about the giant’s dealings with China, which she dubbed “illegal and dangerous,” dating back to 2015.

One of Wynn-Williams’ allegations is that Facebook’s “moderation” tools for the CCP allowed those using them to censor access to content in entire regions, or on particular dates, such as the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Wynn-Williams also claimed that Meta was willing to allow access to user data, including that of Americans, as it built a physical pipeline between the US and China, which the latter country could have used to intercept information.

“The only reason China does not currently have access to US user data through this pipeline is because Congress stepped in,” she told the committee.

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OpenAI Whistleblower Parents Now Say He ‘Was Shot Twice’ in the Head in Death Ruled a ‘Suicide’ by Chief Medical Examiner

Suchir Balaji, the OpenAi whistleblower who allegedly committed suicide was shot twice in the head, according to his parents.

Balaji, 26, was found dead in his San Francisco apartment with a gunshot wound to the head in November shortly after he told the New York Times that OpenAi was violating copyright laws.

His death was initially ruled a suicide by a medical examiner, however his parents immediately hired a private investigator and did a second autopsy.

Balaji’s father insisted his son was happy and not suicidal.

“He was happy, not depressed or anything. It was his birthday week. He made plans to see us in January.”

“How can anyone believe that there was no suicide note left?” he continued. “We have seen the blood shots in the bathroom, signs of fight,” Balaji’s father said at a presser in December.

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Trump Considering Buying Foreign Ships To Make Up Gap With China

Upset by the pace of domestic shipbuilding, President Donald Trump said he may look to foreign companies to produce vessels for the U.S. His comments came after his sweeping executive order seeking to revamp the American shipbuilding industry that pales in comparison to China’s, which has been assessed to have a whopping 200-times larger capacity than the United States. Trump didn’t spell out whether he was talking about commercial ships, naval vessels or both. However, this makes particular sense for expanding the U.S. Navy and is an option we have repeatedly highlighted in the past, given the litany of issues the service is facing.

“We may order, would have to go to Congress for this, but we may buy some ships from other countries that we’re close to and do great jobs with ships,” Trump told reporters on Thursday.  “But we’re going to start the process of rebuilding. We don’t really essentially build ships anymore, which is ridiculous. It’s going to be very big business for us in the not-too-distant future. But in the meantime, we have countries that do very well at building ships, and we’ll be dealing with those countries. So we may be ordering top-of-the-line ships from those countries. And within a fairly short period of time, we’ll be building our own ships. So we’ll probably have to go to Congress for that, but we’re not going to have a problem.”

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As Kratom Consumers Face Global Market Disruption, It’s Time For FDA To Put Safety Over Stigma

For over a decade, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has quietly crippled the kratom supply chain. Now, Indonesia’s new export regulations—meant to raise kratom quality standards and appeal to U.S. regulators—may have just squeezed the most responsible products out of the market.

At the end of 2024, the Indonesian government enacted sweeping new trade regulations aimed at tightening the export market for kratom, a tree native to Southeast Asia with leaves containing psychoactive alkaloids that have long been used as an herbal remedy.

One provision of the policy strengthens quality control for kratom exports, which was notably absent in the past. Moving forward, all kratom shipments must be sterilized before leaving Indonesia, and only batches that meet minimum thresholds for the concentration of the primary active compound, mitragynine, will qualify for export. These steps are designed to limit contamination and prevent exporters from bulking up shipments with non-kratom plant material.

The second component of the regulations is a prohibition on the export of raw kratom leaf with a particle size over 0.6 millimeters, which includes crushed-leaf kratom. In the United States, crushed leaf is most often used to make extracts. By imposing particle size restrictions, Indonesia aims to ensure that the economic value of processing raw kratom into finished extract products stays within its own borders, rather than being captured by foreign companies.

These new standards represent a step forward for kratom quality control and international industry fairness. The intentions are worth celebrating and supporting.

However, the new regulations have also inadvertently disrupted the supply chain of safer, more traditional kratom products while failing to address the root cause of regulatory tension between the U.S. and Indonesia.

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National Guard Deployed to Albuquerque, New Mexico as Crime Crisis Skyrockets

Albuquerque, New Mexico, is turning to the National Guard for support as crime continues to surge in the state’s largest city. The move comes after local law enforcement requested help dealing with what officials describe as an unrelenting public safety crisis — including violent crime, rampant drug use and a growing homeless population.

Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham approved the deployment of between 60 and 70 National Guard troops in response to an emergency request from Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina. Troops will begin arriving in May and are expected to remain in the city for six months to a year, depending on conditions on the ground.

Albuquerque, home to over a quarter of New Mexico’s population, has been overwhelmed by crime in recent years. Central Avenue — a stretch of the historic Route 66 — has become a hotspot for illegal activity, open-air drug markets and homeless encampments, the Daily Mail reports. 

Locals have dubbed the area “The War Zone,” a label that has gained national attention following a visit from YouTuber Nick Johnson, who described the neighborhood as “the most frightful in America” to his 1.1 million followers.

Although the National Guard will assist local authorities, guardsmen will not be performing active police duties, nor will they be armed or in uniform. According to reports, including from the Albuquerque Journal, the troops will wear plain polo shirts and be assigned to tasks such as courthouse and airport security. 

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