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To Slow Global Warming, Could Methane Be Stripped From the Air? (Maria)
The author writes, “Pulling molecules of planet-warming carbon dioxide straight from the air has been likened to finding needles in a haystack. Removing methane, a shorter lived but far more potent greenhouse gas produced by rice paddies and oil wells, is more like finding specks of dust on the head of a needle in the hay. That’s why a report released [yesterday by] the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommends spending between $150 million and $400 million over 3 to 5 years on the problem, much of it to answer whether it’s even feasible to capture a molecule that makes up just 2 parts per million in the atmosphere.”
Rudy Giuliani’s Daughter: Trump Took My Dad From Me. Please Don’t Let Him Take Our Country Too (Dana)
From Vanity Fair: “I am constantly asking myself how America is back here, even considering the possibility of electing Donald Trump again, after all of the damage he has caused, both in office and since. While Kamala Harris has gained extraordinary momentum by infusing this election with vitality and hope, I worry that too many Americans remain disconnected from the visceral, psychologically draining memory of Trump’s deeply destabilizing presidency. If enough people truly remembered what that chaos felt like, another Trump term wouldn’t even be on the table. But for those open to seeing the bare and unvarnished truth, there are unmistakable reminders of Trump’s destructive trail all around us, and it has broken my heart to watch my dad become one of them.”
China’s ‘Salt Typhoon’ Cooks Up Cyberattacks on US ISPs (Sean)
The author writes, “A freshly discovered advanced persistent threat (APT) dubbed ‘Salt Typhoon’ has reportedly infiltrated Internet service provider (ISP) networks in the US, looking to steal information and potentially set up a launchpad for disruptive attacks. Citing ‘people familiar with the matter,’ the Wall Street Journal broke the news on Sept. 25 that the Chinese-sponsored state hackers have successfully targeted ‘a handful’ of cable and broadband service providers during the campaign. Other details are scant, but Salt Typhoon’s efforts highlight China’s priorities when it comes to geopolitical realities, researchers note.”
‘Dial Back The Rhetoric,’ Republican Assembly Elections Chair Urges (Al)
From Wisconsin Public Radio: “The chair of the [Wisconsin] state Assembly’s elections committee is urging people to ‘dial back the rhetoric’ after Madison’s city clerk accidentally sent out duplicate absentee ballots. Republican state Rep. Scott Krug made the statement after Republican US Rep. Tom Tiffany called for an investigation and questioned whether the clerk’s office can be trusted. On Monday, the Madison City Clerk’s office issued a statement saying a “data processing error” led to duplicate absentee ballots being sent to around 2,000 voters in the city. It said affected voters were being contacted and told to destroy their duplicate ballots. The city’s statement also said ‘because the duplicate ballots have identical barcodes, in the unlikely event that a voter submits two absentee ballots, only one can be counted.’ … Tiffany accused the city clerk’s office of changing its story regarding the duplicate ballots.”
The Hardest Case for Mercy: Inside the Effort To Spare the Parkland Shooter (Laura)
From The Marshall Project: “What began with a dying woman in a public housing project south of Fort Lauderdale would become one of the nation’s longest of longshot bids for mercy. School shooters — in Columbine, Colorado; Sandy Hook, Connecticut; Uvalde, Texas — typically kill themselves or are shot dead by police. They seldom see a courtroom. Nikolas Cruz, though, was taken alive, and while he would plead guilty to each of the 17 murders, prosecutors wanted him executed. And so the question of his punishment would go before a jury, making him the rampage killer with the greatest number of victims to ever stand trial. … The defense did not dispute Cruz’s guilt, nor excuse the devastation he’d wrought. Their job was to investigate, and then tell, the history of his life so that the jury, thus informed, might sentence him to life behind bars rather than execution.”
Inside the $621 Million Legal Battle for the ‘Soul of the Internet’ (Reader Jim)
From Rolling Stone: “To many, the Internet Archive is its own kind of sanctuary — a vestige of a bygone internet built on openness and access, a Silicon Valley standout interested not in series funding or shareholder value, but the preservation of any piece of the cultural record it can get. But to the corporations and people that own the copyrights to large swaths of that record, the Internet Archive is like a pirate ship stuffed with digital plunder. Two lawsuits have brought these long-simmering tensions to the courts and public consciousness, with financial repercussions in the hundreds of millions that could bring down the internet’s greatest library.”
A Fancy New Restaurant in London, Staffed by the Recently Homeless (Russ)
The author writes, “In London’s upmarket Primrose Hill, a Michelin-starred chef is employing people on the edge of homelessness as chefs, wait staff, and cocktail makers.”
