cm0002

A nationwide license plate recognition system tasked with reducing crime is being ousted from communities across the country — forcing local officials to reckon with mounting fears of federal surveillance during President Donald Trump’s second term.

Public safety company Flock Safety has billed its surveillance systems as a program to root out criminal activity on local streets, with its cameras already installed in more than 6,000 municipalities nationally. But as Trump’s deportation campaign brought an increased, forceful presence of federal agents to states across the country, some local officials in predominantly liberal cities and towns now argue the cameras themselves pose the bigger danger for their cities, offering federal law enforcement a back door for tracking residents’ movements.

Korra has always been one of the most divisive Avatars in the franchise’s history. For some fans, The Legend of Korra expanded the universe in incredible ways, delivering some of the best animation of its era. For others, Korra’s character arc and especially her sudden romance with Asami it felt very incomplete, rushed, and emotionally inconsistent. Even now, nearly a decade after her series concluded, Korra’s legacy splits the fandom in ways Aang’s never did.

With the announcement of Avatar: Seven Havens, the next animated project from creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko arriving in 2027, those debates have resurfaced stronger than ever. The new series introduces a world devastated by cataclysm, a fragile Avatar cycle, and a young Earthbender named Pavi who discovers she’s the next Avatar after Korra. Immediately, the narrative turns toward Korra’s era and the flaws, gaps, and unresolved threads that defined her story.

The Sharp PC-G801 was an impressive little pocket computer when it debuted in 1988. However, in the year 2025, a Z80-compatible machine with just 8 kB of RAM is hardly much to get excited about. [shiura] decided to take one of these old machines and upgrade it into something more modern and useful.

The build maintains the best parts of the Sharp design — namely, the case and the keypad. The original circuit board has been entirely ripped out, and a custom PCB was designed to interface with the membrane keypad and host the new internals. [shiura] landed on the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W to run the show. It’s a capable machine that runs Linux rather well and has wireless connectivity out of the box. It’s paired with an ESP32-S3 microcontroller that handles interfacing all the various parts of the original Sharp hardware. It also handles the connection to the 256×64 OLED display. The new setup can run in ESP32-only mode, where it acts as a classic RPN-style calculator. Alternatively, the Pi Zero can be powered up for a full-fat computing experience.

In what appears to be the latest example of a troubling trend of "vibe coding" software development tools behaving badly, a Reddit user is reporting that Google's Antigravity platform improperly wiped out the contents of an entire hard drive partition.

A post on Reddit late last week reported that Antigravity, described by Google in a launch blog post from November 18 as an "agentic development platform," took it upon itself to wipe out a user's entire D drive, bypassing the Recycle Bin in the process, making it impossible to recover the deleted material.

Archaeologists in Greece have uncovered the grave of an ousted noblewoman whom they are calling "The Lady with the Inverted Diadem." The seventh-century-B.C. burial is notable for the elaborate bronze crown placed upside down on the woman's head, which may have signified a final end to her power.

After being pressed by reporters, Persad-Bissessar admitted on Friday that at least 100 marines were in the country, along with a military-grade radar, believed to be a long-range, high-performance AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR, which the US defence company Northrop Grumman said was used for air surveillance, defence and counter-fire.

The prime minister claimed the radar installation in the country, which is only seven miles away from Venezuela at its closest point, is part of a counter-drug trafficking strategy, and that she had withheld details in the interest of national security and to avoid alerting drug traffickers.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro remained defiant on Monday as US President Donald Trump plotted "next steps" against the South American nation with top national security brass.

Before thousands of Venezuelans at a rally in Caracas, the nation’s embattled president said he would not accept peace on US terms unless it came “with sovereignty, equality, and freedom.”

“We do not want a slave’s peace, nor the peace of colonies! Colony, never! Slaves, never!” he said.

The speech came days after Trump announced that the US would close Venezuelan airspace, which many interpreted as a final step before a series of strikes on the mainland.

The US has framed its military buildup in the Southern Caribbean as part of a campaign to stop drug smuggling, the same justification it has used to carry out the extrajudicial bombings of more than 20 boats in the region—which have killed at least 83 people—while disclosing zero proof of the victims' involvement with drug trafficking.

Trump has also accused Maduro of being the leader of the so-called "Cartel de los Soles," which he slapped with the label of “Foreign Terrorist Organization” last month, even though it is not an "organization" at all, but a media shorthand to refer to alleged connections between Venezuelan leaders and the drug trade.

Meanwhile, both US and international assessments have found that Venezuela is but a minor player in the global drug trade.

The US has amassed more than 15,000 troops outside Venezuela, the most it's sent to the region since 1989, when the administration of former President George H.W. Bush launched a land invasion of Panama to overthrow its drug-running dictator Manuel Noriega. Documents obtained by T**he Intercept last week suggested that the US seeks to maintain "a massive military presence in the Caribbean" for years to come.

"By a factor of at least 10, the US presence is too great for even an intensified anti-drug operation," wrote US national editor Edward Luce in the Financial Timeson Tuesday.

Trump's motive for stopping drug trafficking was further called into question after he pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, a onetime US ally who was sentenced last year to 45 years in prison for helping to traffic at least 400 tons of cocaine to the US. The pardon was issued as part of Trump's efforts to influence Honduras' upcoming election to secure the victory of right-wing candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura.

The goal of regime change was essentially confirmed on Monday when Reutersreported that Trump had offered Maduro safe passage out of Venezuela if he were willing to abdicate power during a phone call on November 21.

“You can save yourself and those closest to you, but you must leave the country now,” Trump reportedly told Maduro.

Maduro reportedly said he'd be willing to accept the offer if his family members were granted complete amnesty and the US removed sanctions against them, as well as over 100 other Venezuelan officials. He also asked for the case against him before the International Criminal Court (ICC) to be dropped.

Trump rejected that deal, and his offer of safe passage expired on Friday, the day before the US announced it had closed Venezuelan airspace. Trump confirmed to the press on Sunday that the talks had happened, but provided few additional details.

Maduro has categorically denied involvement with drug trafficking and has portrayed the White House's sabre-rattling as a "colonial threat." Last week, while brandishing the sword of South American anticolonial hero Simón Bolívar, he pledged that Venezuela would be a "colony never again."

On Sunday, he accused Trump of trying to "seize" the nation's oil reserves. He has called for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to step in to help the country counter what he said were “growing and illegal threats” from Trump.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves—about a fifth of the Earth’s total, and more than Iraq had at the time of the George W. Bush administration's 2003 invasion. However, US sanctions against Venezuela largely block American oil companies from accessing the reserves, which are controlled by the nation’s state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela. These sanctions, which have limited Venezuela's ability to export its most valuable natural resource, are considered one of the primary reasons for the nation's economic instability in recent years.

While at a rally in 2023, Trump said he regretted not having "taken [Venezuela] over" during his first term. "We would have gotten to all that oil; it would have been right next door,” he said.

"We’ve seen this tragic play before," wrote Richard Steiner, a former marine professor with the University of Alaska, this weekend in Common Dreams. "The Bush administration justified its disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq with the pretext that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which, as it turned out, it didn’t. And as US Central Command commander General John Abizaid admitted about the Iraq war at the time: 'Of course it’s about oil, it’s very much about oil, and we can’t really deny that.'"

"A similar pretext—this time 'drug interdiction'—is being used to justify a potential US invasion and regime change in Venezuela," he continued. "But this is not about stopping the flow of dangerous drugs, it is about actually increasing the flow of the dangerous drug some pushers want to keep us all hooked on—oil."

OQB @FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca

The Palestinian Health Ministry reported Saturday that nearly two months after Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire agreement, the death toll in Israel's war on Gaza has passed 70,000 as the Israel Defense Forces have continued to claim they are targeting only Hamas fighters—while killing civilians including two children who were gathering firewood for their father on Saturday.

Fadi Abu Assi, 11, and Goma Abu Assi, eight, were close to a school sheltering displaced Palestinians near Beni Suhaila in southern Gaza when the IDF fired a drone in the area, killing both boys.

"They are children...what did they do? They do not have missiles or bombs, they went to gather wood for their father so he can start a fire," the boys' uncle, Mohamed Abu Assi, told Sky News.

Breaking the Silence, an IDF veterans' group whose members speak out against Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, condemned the military for a statement it released on the killing, which the group said amounted to "a pile of words meant only to keep justifying endless killing under insane and ruthless rules of engagement."

The IDF told Sky News that troops had "identified two suspects who crossed the yellow line," the point to which the IDF withdrew as part of the ceasefire deal in October.

The military said the two boys had "conducted suspicious activities on the ground, and approached IDF troops operating in the southern Gaza Strip, posing an immediate threat to them."

The IDF claimed it identified the eight- and 11-year-old boys and "eliminated the suspects in order to remove the threat."

Despite the ceasefire, said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, "the Israeli military is still killing children."

— (@)

Drop Site News condemned the New York Times' coverage of the boys' killing, with the newspaper writing in a headline that "Gazans say" Fadi and Goma Abu Assi were killed by Israeli forces.

"The boys’ bodies, their ages, and their identities are fully documented—including videos of their lifeless shrouds and their wheelchair-bound father weeping over them—backed by eyewitness accounts and hospital confirmation," said Drop Site.

⭕️ Israeli Troops Murder Two Gaza Boys, 11 and 8, as They Collected Firewood for Their Wheelchair-Bound Father — IDF Says “Suspects” were “Posing an Immediate Threat.”

Two Palestinian brothers — Fadi, 11, and Goma Abu Assi, 8 — were killed by an Israeli drone strike near a… https://t.co/VKCHVKnIaa pic.twitter.com/vNeIoapKjk
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) November 29, 2025

The Times also reduced "the 350+ Palestinians killed since the October 10 ceasefire to 'persistent violence,'" said the outlet.

The health ministry, whose statistics the World Health Organization and other international agencies have long viewed as credible, said 356 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the first phase of the truce began.

The Times' framing, said Drop Site, "hides the truth that the violence is one-directional, systematic, and directed at civilians who pose no threat to Israelis."

On Sunday, the outlet reported that the IDF was "boasting about breaking the ceasefire" as it announced troops had killed four Palestinian fighters as they emerged from underground tunnels in eastern Rafah.

"It remains unclear whether today’s casualties were fighters or civilians or children," said Drop Site.

Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas' political bureau, told Al Jazeera Sunday that the group is searching for the two remaining bodies of deceased Israeli captives, to be returned to Israel in accordance with the ceasefire deal, and accused Israeli officials of "using these bodies as a pretext to delay movement to the second phase of the ceasefire."

San Jose, CA – On November 22, the San Jose People’s Pride Coalition held a vigil and march for Trans Day of Remembrance, a day commemorating the lives lost to transphobia.

“Fight Trump’s Hate, Honor Their Names” was the theme of this year's action as Trump and Republicans’ attacks on trans people and other oppressed people continue to ramp up.

The event started with emcee Evelyn Cooper asking a member of the crowd to say the names of the 58 people who have died since the last Trans Day of Remembrance. Pictures of all of those named, along with candles, were laid in front of the speakers to underscore the number of those killed.

People’s Pride organizer Hazel Tongzhi began the evening by emphasizing that attacks on trans people did not start with Trump’s administration but are part of a larger systemic issue. “Those who died to violence are almost entirely oppressed nationalities – Black and Chicano – trans women. This is not mere coincidence. This is the structural issue of transphobia and transmisogyny particularly and the intersection of it with race and class,” stated Tongzhi.