IF YOU ENJOY SR AND FIND IT USEFUL WOULD YOU PLEASE DONATE
When I began Schwartzreport my purpose was to produce an entirely fact-based daily publication in favor of the earth, the inter-connectedness and interdependence of all life, democracy, equality for all, liberty, and things that are life-affirming. Also, to warn my readers about actions, events, and trends that threaten those values. Our country now stands at a crossroads, indeed, the world stands at a crossroads where those values are very much at risk and it is up to each of us who care about wellbeing to do what we can to defend those principles. I want to thank all of you who have contributed to SR, particularly those of you who have scheduled an ongoing monthly contribution. It makes a big difference and is much appreciated. It is one thing to put in the hours each day and to do the work for free, but another to have to cover the rising out-of-pocket costs. For those of you who haven’t done so, but read SR regularly, I ask that you consider supporting it.
Here is some good news from Switzerland that has the potential to make a very good impact on rail power in the U.S.
As testing in the US nears completion, Stadler’s Flirt H2 passenger train has taken to the track to set a distance record of 2,803 km on a single tank of hydrogen Credit: Stadler Rail
A hydrogen fuel-cell passenger train developed by Swiss rail vehicle maker Stadler Rail has achieved a new Guinness World Record, traveling for almost two days around the clock for a distance of 1,741.7 miles.
Efforts to clean up dirty trains are already well underway, with heavy investment in electrifying networks around the world as well as rolling out battery-electric locomotives such as the FLXDrive, the Blues train and the Flirt Akku.
That last example is made by Stadler Rail AG, and managed to achieve a Guinness World Record in 2021 for the longest per-charge battery-only journey of 224 km (~140 miles), on a route between Berlin and Warnemünde during a freezing local winter – not bad for a train that was designed with an operational per-charge range of 80 km.
Not all rail networks can support electrification and that battery range just won’t be enough for long-haul transportation of goods or people. That’s where hydrogen could come in, […]
Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley, Staff Writers - RollingStone
Stephan:
The Trump Christofascist Party (TCP) is now openly and actively trying to rig the election in November because they fear that Trump will not win the necessary votes if we have a free and fair election, so they are trying to build a pseudo-election procedure like Russia or Hungary. It seems the Democrats are finally waking up to this, and trying to block it. So that is good news.
Criminal Trump and President Biden Credit: Win McNamee & Nathan Howard / Getty
For years, Donald Trump has made it abundantlyclear that if he doesn’t win the2024 presidential election, he is willing to cheat and steal it. Since President Joe Biden’s inaugural address, according to sources with intimate knowledge of the situation, Biden and his inner circle have been drawing up meticulous plans and creating a large legal network focused on wargaming a close election finish, in which the former president and Republican Party launch a scorched-earth, Big Lie–fueled crusade.
Long before Trump began leading in battleground-state polling — and years before he was a declared 2024 candidate — the ex-president and many of his influential allies were already busy plotting ways to tilt the election in his favor. These yearslong efforts, conducted both secretly and out in the open, have already yielded tangible results for Trump and the conservative electiondenier movement. These wide-ranging operations have alarmed the Democratic Party elite, who aren’t just worried about Biden’s sagging poll numbers. Numerous Democratic lawmakers, operatives, Biden campaign advisers, and administration officials tell Rolling Stone that if the president does ultimately beat Trump this November, the election will […]
If you are on TikTok you may have already been hacked, and your information compromised. But even if you aren’t, and are using some other social media app, it may still be happening to you. What is particularly horrifying about what is going on with the internet is how few people are required to compromise the privacy and information of millions of users, and how cheap it is. Read this and think seriously about what you are doing on social media.
Seven Chinese men have been charged with enacting a widespread “malicious” cyber-attack campaign Credit: U.S. Department of Justice
Millions of Americans’ online accounts have been caught up in a “sinister” Chinese hacking plot that targeted US officials, the justice department and FBI said on Monday.
Seven Chinese nationals have been charged with enacting a widespread cyber-attack campaign.
They are accused of ties to a hacking operation that ran for 14 years.
The US State Department announced a reward of up to $10m (£8m) for information on the seven men.
The seven men allegedly sent over 10,000 “malicious emails, impacting thousands of victims, across multiple continents”, in what the justice department called a “prolific global hacking operation” backed by China’s government.
“Today’s announcement exposes China’s continuous and brash efforts to undermine our nation’s cybersecurity and target Americans and our innovation,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said.
“As long as China continues to target the US and our partners, the FBI will continue to send a clear message that cyber espionage will not be tolerated, and we will tirelessly pursue those who threaten our […]
Mexico is being devastated by the gun violence of its gangs and cartels, and they have recognized that the guns used in this violence are coming from the United States and they have had enough. The article describes what Mexico as a country is doing in response. I have never seen a lawsuit like the one described in this report, but I see it as good news, and I hope they win. The American gun psychosis is out of control.
The majority of weapons confiscated by authorities in Mexico have been traced back to sales in the U.S. Credit: Shutterstock
A federal judge in the United States ruled Monday that Mexico’s lawsuit against five Arizona gun stores for alleged involvement in trafficking firearms from the U.S. can proceed.
The Mexican government filed the lawsuit in October 2022, accusing gun stores in Tucson, Phoenix and Yuma of facilitating the illegal movement of guns into Mexico, where firearms are used to commit tens of thousands of homicides annually.
Tucson-based U.S. District Judge Rosemary Márquez rejected arguments that the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) protects the gun stores from Mexico’s lawsuit.
In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) said that Márquez noted that “there were several red flags indicating to the stores that the firearms they sold would end up in Mexico and be used for unlawful purposes.”
Therefore, the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona “recognized that Mexico has the right to sue on behalf of itself and its people,” the SRE said.
“Notably, the judge said that Mexico argued successfully that the stores do not enjoy immunity for their negligent business practices,” the […]
Here is yet another report on research that shows fostering wellbeing is always the best option to choose — in this case providing workers with child care benefits. You would think this had become obvious, given all the studies that prove this, but it has not. Greed always seems to blind those who make the decisions, particularly in the United States which has become a culture that places profit above all other considerations. The weirdness of this is that fostering wellbeing is actually the more profitable choice, as this paper describes.
The cost of providing child care benefits to employees — like stipends and onsite day care — is an investment with outsized returns, finds an intriguing new study from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and nonprofit Moms First.
Why it matters: The increasing cost of child care in the U.S., along with a shortage of providers, keeps parents out of the workforce — a drag on the economy overall and a hit to employers in a tight labor market.
The big picture: These benefits are gaining more attention, particularly in the wake of the pullback of pandemic-era child care funding — but they’re still pretty rare.
12% of workers in the U.S. have access to child care benefits from an employer — a number that falls to 6% for part-timers and those in the lowest income quartile, per BCG.
Yet those are the workers who typically lose out on pay because of a child care emergency.
What they found: For every $1 spent on child care benefits, employers saw a net gain of between $0.90 and $4.25 through reduced absenteeism, less lateness, and lower rates of attrition.
The study debunks the idea that child care is a cost center. “These benefits pay for themselves,” the […]
In a way, I see this as good news, because institutions like the Brennan Center are beginning to realize and talk about how AI-generated fake videos and audio tapes can and are being used to influence voters. I just don’t think voters, particularly the bulk of voters who don’t really have any understanding of the actual issues involved or what politicians actually are trying to do. You have to always keep in mind that millions of Americans can’t even name the three branches of U.S. government, so how could they recognize a deepfake video or audio?
Illustration by Maksim Tkachenko / Getty
There’s something scary online involving Kari Lake — and it’s not what you might expect.
The nonprofit journalism site Arizona Agenda has a minute-long video from the TV news anchor turned GOP candidate, praising the site’s work . . . and then halfway through, revealing that it is all a deepfake. Watch it here. Especially, watch it on a phone, where the glitches are less noticeable. This is new, and unnerving, and ominous.
It is now less than two years since ChatGPT was released, and the world began to debate how much change advances in generative artificial intelligence would bring. Are they like Gutenberg’s Bible, made possible by the new technology of the printing press? Or are they yet another techno-fad, more hype than impact? Over the coming years, all this will unfold with massive repercussions for our work, healthcare, and lives. (A guarantee: The Briefing is written by a live person, and always will be!)
When it comes to elections, it is becoming increasingly clear that the biggest new threat in 2024 comes from the impact of generative AI on the information ecosystem, including through deepfakes like the one starring […]
Here is what is potentially major good news. According to the World Health Organization, “Since the beginning of the HIV epidemic, 85.6 million [65.0–113.0 million] people have been infected with the HIV virus and about 40.4 million [32.9–51.3 million] people have died of HIV. Globally, 39.0 million [33.1–45.7 million] people were living with HIV at the end of 2022.”
This may be the solution.
HIV-1 virus particles under electron micrograph with H9 T-cells (in blue) Credit: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
A new study has unveiled a likely future cure for HIV which uses molecular scissors to ‘cut out’ HIV DNA from infected cells.
To cut out this virus, the team used CRISPR-Cas gene editing technology—a groundbreaking method that allows for precise alterations to a patient’s genome, for which its inventors won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020.
One of the significant challenges in HIV treatment is the virus’s ability to integrate its genome into the host’s DNA, making it extremely difficult to eliminate—but the CRISPR-Cas tool provides a new means to isolate and target HIV DNA.
Because HIV can infect different types of cells and tissues in the body, each with its own unique environment and characteristics, the researchers are searching for a way to target HIV in all of these situations.
Have you noticed that criminal Trump is treated by the courts differently than anyone you know or have ever heard of? Thom Hartmann makes it clear with the facts that oligarchs live in different world than middle-class Americans. This has happened because poor and middle-class Americans have voted Trump Christofacist Party (TCPs) into office. Do you think these people will wake up to what they have done by the time of the November election? Tragically, I don’t think they will. That means there have to be many more of us who support Democracy vote, many more I say, because the TCPs are going to do everything they can to rig the election to the benefit of the TCPs.
In America today, if you can afford at least $50 million in lawyers fees, you can get away with rape, massive financial fraud over decades, ripping off people who just wanted to go to college, stealing from children’s Cancer charities, paying off porn stars to influence an election, and leading a treasonous insurrection against your own country that results in the death of at least six people plus 3 police officers (with over 100 police officers ending up in the hospital, many with life altering injuries) without ever spending a night in jail.
Michael Cohen was sent to New York’s notorious Riker’s Island prison for paying off porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy centerfold Karen MacDougal to keep them quiet in the weeks before the 2016 election about their affairs with Donald Trump.
Having the affairs wasn’t Cohen’s idea, and he never slept with either woman. It wasn’t even his idea to pay them off: that came from Donald Trump and David Pecker, who called it “catch and kill” as in, “pay off the women to kill the story.”
But Michael Cohen went to prison for this crime: a crime designed to get Donald Trump […]
