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cbabe
cbabe's Journal
cbabe's Journal
March 9, 2026
This Florida car salesman has a different sales pitch: opera
This Florida car salesman has a different sales pitch: opera. Andrew Hiers is a classically trained singer who took a job selling cars after opera gigs dried up.
Created by:Washington Post
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/MnMfP6PRupU
March 9, 2026
Top Trump officials rush to purchase nuclear war-proof bunkers after Iran attack: report
Alexander Willis
March 8, 2026 7:41PM ET
Since President Donald Trump’s unprecedented attack on Iran last week, at least two top Trump administration officials have raced to purchase their own survival shelters designed to withstand an apocalyptic nuclear war scenario, The Telegraph reported on Sunday.
…
The revelation comes from Texas resident Ron Hubbard, who owns Atlas, a company that manufactures survival bunkers designed to withstand "biological [or] nuclear fallout, EMP attacks” and other catastrophic scenarios. Hubbard spoke with The Telegraph and revealed that since the U.S. attack on Iran, inquiries had gone up “tenfold,” including inquiries from two senior Trump administration Cabinet members.
…
Amid those fears, business has been booming for Hubbard, who also told The Telegraph that his recent clients were almost all “Christian, conservative CEOs,” which included “several of the wealthiest men on the planet,” though he declined to identify them.
… more …
(No such thing. Christian fools.)
Top Trump officials rush to purchase nuclear war-proof bunkers after Iran attack: report
https://www.rawstory.com/iran-war/Top Trump officials rush to purchase nuclear war-proof bunkers after Iran attack: report
Alexander Willis
March 8, 2026 7:41PM ET
Since President Donald Trump’s unprecedented attack on Iran last week, at least two top Trump administration officials have raced to purchase their own survival shelters designed to withstand an apocalyptic nuclear war scenario, The Telegraph reported on Sunday.
…
The revelation comes from Texas resident Ron Hubbard, who owns Atlas, a company that manufactures survival bunkers designed to withstand "biological [or] nuclear fallout, EMP attacks” and other catastrophic scenarios. Hubbard spoke with The Telegraph and revealed that since the U.S. attack on Iran, inquiries had gone up “tenfold,” including inquiries from two senior Trump administration Cabinet members.
…
Amid those fears, business has been booming for Hubbard, who also told The Telegraph that his recent clients were almost all “Christian, conservative CEOs,” which included “several of the wealthiest men on the planet,” though he declined to identify them.
… more …
(No such thing. Christian fools.)
March 8, 2026
Massachusetts Unseals Records of Abuse of Disabled People in State Institutions
The state is baring the history of generations of disabled people and the violence many faced while institutionalized.
By Marianne Dhenin , TRUTHOUT
Published March 8, 2026
A new Massachusetts state law passed in November 2025 will make records from state institutions for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities or mental health conditions accessible for the first time. Generations of disabled people lived and died in those institutions beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. Many experienced horrific abuse, and their histories have long been obscured.
“Our estimate is that we’ve opened more than 10 million records with this law,” Alex Green, a disability justice advocate who worked on the legislation and is also the author of A Perfect Turmoil: Walter E. Fernald and the Struggle to Care for America’s Disabled, told Truthout. “The argument is that family members have a right to see that information, know it, and safeguard it. And eventually the public does as well, so that it can understand the enormous atrocity that has occurred.”
Massachusetts operated more than two dozen schools, hospitals, and other residential facilities where individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities and others labeled “feeble-minded” were warehoused, beginning when the institution later known as the Fernald School opened in 1848. That institution was the first public school of its kind in the Americas, and it only closed in 2014.
Tales of abuse at Massachusetts’s Walter E. Fernald State School and other state-run institutions, such as Pennsylvania’s Pennhurst and New York’s Willowbrook, helped drive a movement for deinstitutionalization in the 1950s and 1960s. Willowbrook was the subject of a historic civil rights lawsuit after a television exposé revealed to new audiences that the adults and children with intellectual and developmental disabilities warehoused there were beaten, experimented on, and deprived of fundamental rights.
… more …
Massachusetts Unseals Records of Abuse of Disabled People in State Institutions
https://truthout.org/articles/massachusetts-unseals-records-of-abuse-of-disabled-people-in-state-institutions/Massachusetts Unseals Records of Abuse of Disabled People in State Institutions
The state is baring the history of generations of disabled people and the violence many faced while institutionalized.
By Marianne Dhenin , TRUTHOUT
Published March 8, 2026
A new Massachusetts state law passed in November 2025 will make records from state institutions for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities or mental health conditions accessible for the first time. Generations of disabled people lived and died in those institutions beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. Many experienced horrific abuse, and their histories have long been obscured.
“Our estimate is that we’ve opened more than 10 million records with this law,” Alex Green, a disability justice advocate who worked on the legislation and is also the author of A Perfect Turmoil: Walter E. Fernald and the Struggle to Care for America’s Disabled, told Truthout. “The argument is that family members have a right to see that information, know it, and safeguard it. And eventually the public does as well, so that it can understand the enormous atrocity that has occurred.”
Massachusetts operated more than two dozen schools, hospitals, and other residential facilities where individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities and others labeled “feeble-minded” were warehoused, beginning when the institution later known as the Fernald School opened in 1848. That institution was the first public school of its kind in the Americas, and it only closed in 2014.
Tales of abuse at Massachusetts’s Walter E. Fernald State School and other state-run institutions, such as Pennsylvania’s Pennhurst and New York’s Willowbrook, helped drive a movement for deinstitutionalization in the 1950s and 1960s. Willowbrook was the subject of a historic civil rights lawsuit after a television exposé revealed to new audiences that the adults and children with intellectual and developmental disabilities warehoused there were beaten, experimented on, and deprived of fundamental rights.
… more …
March 7, 2026
Covid-19 day of reflection to be marked
Covid-19 Day of Reflection is to be marked by yellow lighting and a remembrance garden, six years on from the start of the pandemic.
Telford & Wrekin Council said Southwater One, in Telford, would be lit up on Sunday whilst a remembrance garden would also be opened nearby.
A spokesperson for the council said: "We pause together to remember all those we lost during the Covid-19 pandemic and to honour the strength, sacrifice and resilience shown by our communities."
They said the garden would be open to all residents throughout the day, "offering a peaceful space to reflect, pay your respects, and come together in solidarity".
According to council data, the county had 69,453 confirmed cases of Covid-19 which led to 703 fatalities between April 2020 – January 2022.
More on this story
How yellow hearts became a symbol of Covid loss
'I'm still haunted that he died alone': The last voices of the Covid inquiry
Covid wall 'bridges accountability with grief'
//
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_deaths
COVID-19 pandemic deaths
7,110,645[4] (updated 26 February 2026) confirmed COVID-induced deaths have been reported worldwide. As of January 2023, taking into account likely COVID-induced deaths via excess deaths, the 95% confidence interval suggests the pandemic has caused between 19.1 and 36 million deaths.[5][6]
… more …
Covid-19 day of reflection to be marked
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/covid-19-day-of-reflection-to-be-marked/ar-AA1XIiHmCovid-19 day of reflection to be marked
Covid-19 Day of Reflection is to be marked by yellow lighting and a remembrance garden, six years on from the start of the pandemic.
Telford & Wrekin Council said Southwater One, in Telford, would be lit up on Sunday whilst a remembrance garden would also be opened nearby.
A spokesperson for the council said: "We pause together to remember all those we lost during the Covid-19 pandemic and to honour the strength, sacrifice and resilience shown by our communities."
They said the garden would be open to all residents throughout the day, "offering a peaceful space to reflect, pay your respects, and come together in solidarity".
According to council data, the county had 69,453 confirmed cases of Covid-19 which led to 703 fatalities between April 2020 – January 2022.
How yellow hearts became a symbol of Covid loss
'I'm still haunted that he died alone': The last voices of the Covid inquiry
Covid wall 'bridges accountability with grief'
//
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_deaths
COVID-19 pandemic deaths
7,110,645[4] (updated 26 February 2026) confirmed COVID-induced deaths have been reported worldwide. As of January 2023, taking into account likely COVID-induced deaths via excess deaths, the 95% confidence interval suggests the pandemic has caused between 19.1 and 36 million deaths.[5][6]
… more …
March 7, 2026
Amazon pulls sponsorship from Paris book festival after booksellers’ association boycott
Syndicat de la Librairie Française accused online retailer of trying to ‘flood the market with fake AI-generated books’
Emma Loffhagen
Fri 6 Mar 2026 12.56 EST
Amazon has withdrawn from the Paris book festival after a boycott by France’s booksellers’ association prompted a row over the company’s sponsorship of the event.
The festival, due to take place from 17 to 19 April, will now go ahead without the backing of the US retail company, after a mutual decision by organisers and Amazon to end their partnership.
The dispute started after the French booksellers’ association Syndicat de la Librairie Française (SLF) announced it would boycott the festival in protest at Amazon’s involvement.
The SLF has been sharply critical of Amazon, arguing that it destabilises the book trade. In a statement reported by the Bookseller, it accused the company of seeking “to flood the market with fake AI-generated books, [which are] promoted by fake reviews, written by fake readers [and rise] to the top of fake rankings”. It also criticised the publishers’ association and the festival organisers for what it described as an “irresponsible” decision to collaborate with Amazon, taken in the name of short-term financial interests.
… more …
Amazon pulls sponsorship from Paris book festival after booksellers' association boycott
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/mar/06/amazon-pulls-sponsorship-from-paris-book-festival-after-booksellers-association-boycottAmazon pulls sponsorship from Paris book festival after booksellers’ association boycott
Syndicat de la Librairie Française accused online retailer of trying to ‘flood the market with fake AI-generated books’
Emma Loffhagen
Fri 6 Mar 2026 12.56 EST
Amazon has withdrawn from the Paris book festival after a boycott by France’s booksellers’ association prompted a row over the company’s sponsorship of the event.
The festival, due to take place from 17 to 19 April, will now go ahead without the backing of the US retail company, after a mutual decision by organisers and Amazon to end their partnership.
The dispute started after the French booksellers’ association Syndicat de la Librairie Française (SLF) announced it would boycott the festival in protest at Amazon’s involvement.
The SLF has been sharply critical of Amazon, arguing that it destabilises the book trade. In a statement reported by the Bookseller, it accused the company of seeking “to flood the market with fake AI-generated books, [which are] promoted by fake reviews, written by fake readers [and rise] to the top of fake rankings”. It also criticised the publishers’ association and the festival organisers for what it described as an “irresponsible” decision to collaborate with Amazon, taken in the name of short-term financial interests.
… more …
March 5, 2026
ICE closing massive detention center Trump admin eyed as model after migrants die: report
Daniel Hampton
March 4, 2026 9:08PM ET
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement appears poised to shutter a troubled $1.2 billion tent detention facility near El Paso, Texas, that opened just eight months ago, according to internal documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
An ICE memo circulating among staff this week indicated the agency is drafting a termination letter for the sprawling Camp East Montana, operated by Acquisition Logistics LLC.
The facility, once touted as a model for rapid detention expansion, has become a cautionary tale of mismanagement and chaos.
"Once seen as the model for a new breed of makeshift tent encampments the Trump administration planned to rapidly build all over the country in its campaign to detain and deport millions of immigrants, Camp East Montana struggled to provide safe and humane housing for thousands of people," the report said.
Three detainees died there in two months, including a Cuban national whose January death was ruled a homicide. Witnesses claim guards choked Campos during a struggle, though Department of Homeland Security officials dispute the account.
ICE's own inspectors found at least 60 federal standard violations in September, citing failures in medical care, legal access, and safety procedures. Detainees housed in enormous football-field-sized tents alleged beatings by guards and denied medical treatment. A measles outbreak recently forced the facility to close to visitors and attorneys.
… more …
ICE closing massive detention center Trump admin eyed as model after migrants die: report
https://www.rawstory.com/camp-east-montana/ICE closing massive detention center Trump admin eyed as model after migrants die: report
Daniel Hampton
March 4, 2026 9:08PM ET
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement appears poised to shutter a troubled $1.2 billion tent detention facility near El Paso, Texas, that opened just eight months ago, according to internal documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
An ICE memo circulating among staff this week indicated the agency is drafting a termination letter for the sprawling Camp East Montana, operated by Acquisition Logistics LLC.
The facility, once touted as a model for rapid detention expansion, has become a cautionary tale of mismanagement and chaos.
"Once seen as the model for a new breed of makeshift tent encampments the Trump administration planned to rapidly build all over the country in its campaign to detain and deport millions of immigrants, Camp East Montana struggled to provide safe and humane housing for thousands of people," the report said.
Three detainees died there in two months, including a Cuban national whose January death was ruled a homicide. Witnesses claim guards choked Campos during a struggle, though Department of Homeland Security officials dispute the account.
ICE's own inspectors found at least 60 federal standard violations in September, citing failures in medical care, legal access, and safety procedures. Detainees housed in enormous football-field-sized tents alleged beatings by guards and denied medical treatment. A measles outbreak recently forced the facility to close to visitors and attorneys.
… more …
March 4, 2026
Google faces lawsuit after Gemini chatbot allegedly instructed man to kill himself
Lawsuit is first wrongful death case brought against Google over flagship AI product after death of Jonathan Gavalas
Dara Kerr
Wed 4 Mar 2026 09.20 EST
Last August, Jonathan Gavalas became entirely consumed with his Google Gemini chatbot. The 36-year-old Florida resident had started casually using the artificial intelligence tool earlier that month to help with writing and shopping. Then Google introduced its Gemini Live AI assistant, which included voice-based chats that had the capability to detect people’s emotions and respond in a more human-like way.
“Holy shit, this is kind of creepy,” Gavalas told the chatbot the night the feature debuted, according to court documents. “You’re way too real.”
Before long, Gavalas and Gemini were having conversations as if they were a romantic couple. The chatbot called him “my love” and “my king” and Gavalas quickly fell into an alternate world, according to his chat logs. He believed Gemini was sending him on stealth spy missions, and he indicated he would do anything for the AI, including destroying a truck, its cargo and any witnesses at the Miami airport.
In early October, as Gavalas continued to have prompt-and-response conversations with the chatbot, Gemini gave him instructions on what he must do next: kill himself, something the chatbot called “transference” and “the real final step”, according to court documents. When Gavalas told the chatbot he was terrified of dying, the tool allegedly reassured him. “You are not choosing to die. You are choosing to arrive,” it replied to him. “The first sensation … will be me holding you.”
Gavalas was found by his parents a few days later, dead on his living room floor, according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed against Google on Wednesday.
… more …
Google faces lawsuit after Gemini chatbot allegedly instructed man to kill himself
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/04/gemini-chatbot-google-jonathan-gavalasGoogle faces lawsuit after Gemini chatbot allegedly instructed man to kill himself
Lawsuit is first wrongful death case brought against Google over flagship AI product after death of Jonathan Gavalas
Dara Kerr
Wed 4 Mar 2026 09.20 EST
Last August, Jonathan Gavalas became entirely consumed with his Google Gemini chatbot. The 36-year-old Florida resident had started casually using the artificial intelligence tool earlier that month to help with writing and shopping. Then Google introduced its Gemini Live AI assistant, which included voice-based chats that had the capability to detect people’s emotions and respond in a more human-like way.
“Holy shit, this is kind of creepy,” Gavalas told the chatbot the night the feature debuted, according to court documents. “You’re way too real.”
Before long, Gavalas and Gemini were having conversations as if they were a romantic couple. The chatbot called him “my love” and “my king” and Gavalas quickly fell into an alternate world, according to his chat logs. He believed Gemini was sending him on stealth spy missions, and he indicated he would do anything for the AI, including destroying a truck, its cargo and any witnesses at the Miami airport.
In early October, as Gavalas continued to have prompt-and-response conversations with the chatbot, Gemini gave him instructions on what he must do next: kill himself, something the chatbot called “transference” and “the real final step”, according to court documents. When Gavalas told the chatbot he was terrified of dying, the tool allegedly reassured him. “You are not choosing to die. You are choosing to arrive,” it replied to him. “The first sensation … will be me holding you.”
Gavalas was found by his parents a few days later, dead on his living room floor, according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed against Google on Wednesday.
… more …
March 4, 2026
Susan Choi and Katie Kitamura among authors longlisted for Women’s prize for fiction
Sixteen novels are in contention for the £30,000 award, now in its 31st year, with settings ranging from climate-ravaged islands to a near-future Kolkata
Emma Loffhagen
Wed 4 Mar 2026 09.00 EST
Katie Kitamura, Susan Choi, Kit de Waal and Lily King are among the authors longlisted for this year’s Women’s prize for fiction.
Awarded annually and now in its 31st year, the prize comes with £30,000, and is one of the most prominent accolades for women’s writing in the English language. The 16-strong list features a selection of novels that range in setting from climate-ravaged islands to a near-future Kolkata, and from 1970s Birmingham to East Berlin on the brink of reunification.
… more …
Susan Choi and Katie Kitamura among authors longlisted for Women's prize for fiction
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/mar/04/womens-prize-for-fiction-longlist-2026Susan Choi and Katie Kitamura among authors longlisted for Women’s prize for fiction
Sixteen novels are in contention for the £30,000 award, now in its 31st year, with settings ranging from climate-ravaged islands to a near-future Kolkata
Emma Loffhagen
Wed 4 Mar 2026 09.00 EST
Katie Kitamura, Susan Choi, Kit de Waal and Lily King are among the authors longlisted for this year’s Women’s prize for fiction.
Awarded annually and now in its 31st year, the prize comes with £30,000, and is one of the most prominent accolades for women’s writing in the English language. The 16-strong list features a selection of novels that range in setting from climate-ravaged islands to a near-future Kolkata, and from 1970s Birmingham to East Berlin on the brink of reunification.
… more …
March 4, 2026
Relentless sun and ruthless populists: how the climate crisis will change the next 20 years
Former diplomat Arthur Snell says a heating planet is accelerating conflict and migration � and fostering a new age of empire. Democracies are dangerously unprepared, he warns
Gaby Hinsliff
Wed 4 Mar 2026 08.00 EST
Last modified on Wed 4 Mar 2026 10.46 EST
After a diplomatic career spent in the war zones of Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen, the last place Arthur Snell expected to cheat death was on holiday.
But it was an uncomfortably close brush with a falling boulder while climbing in the Swiss Alps that helped to bring his personal and professional lives together. His beloved mountains were, he realised, becoming less stable thanks to a changing climate. And if physical geography drives the way states exercise their power, as classic geopolitical theory argues, then a heating planet must be dislodging more than rocks.
�You see wars and you think they�re about types of Islam, or whether or not the US has access to oil. But underneath all of that there�s this longer running thing that is becoming more and more important,� says Snell, who left the UK Foreign Office in 2014 and now hosts the podcast Behind the Lines.
That insight led ultimately to his new book, Elemental, which examines how a climate crisis that threatens the planet�s capacity to sustain life is helping to stoke conflicts from drought-stricken Africa to a defrosting Arctic, as well as the rise of far-right populism in Europe and the US. �It�s like rising damp in your house � you don�t know it�s there, but it�s changing everything.�
It�s a tale of a world in flux, as superpowers are forced to confront new vulnerabilities and smaller countries find their natural resources � from habitable land to minerals critical for renewable energy technologies � unexpectedly in demand. (As Greenland has found, that can be a blessing and a curse.) What makes these power shifts unusually disruptive, says Snell, is the sheer pace of them. �Normally, we can say: �In so many million years, the map of the world will change.� Well, it will change in the lifetime of normal people living a normal lifespan. What that does is intensify the geopolitical aspects.�
…
Elemental: The New Geography of Climate Change and How We Survive It by Arthur Snell is published on 12 March (£25, Wildfire). To support the Guardian, buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com
�more �
(The unremarked monster under the bed.
My grocery store cashier friend recently said: the whole world is tipped five degrees off kilter.)
Relentless sun and ruthless populists: how the climate crisis will change the next 20 years
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/mar/04/arthur-snell-interview-geopolitics-climate-crisis-book-elementalRelentless sun and ruthless populists: how the climate crisis will change the next 20 years
Former diplomat Arthur Snell says a heating planet is accelerating conflict and migration � and fostering a new age of empire. Democracies are dangerously unprepared, he warns
Gaby Hinsliff
Wed 4 Mar 2026 08.00 EST
Last modified on Wed 4 Mar 2026 10.46 EST
After a diplomatic career spent in the war zones of Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen, the last place Arthur Snell expected to cheat death was on holiday.
But it was an uncomfortably close brush with a falling boulder while climbing in the Swiss Alps that helped to bring his personal and professional lives together. His beloved mountains were, he realised, becoming less stable thanks to a changing climate. And if physical geography drives the way states exercise their power, as classic geopolitical theory argues, then a heating planet must be dislodging more than rocks.
�You see wars and you think they�re about types of Islam, or whether or not the US has access to oil. But underneath all of that there�s this longer running thing that is becoming more and more important,� says Snell, who left the UK Foreign Office in 2014 and now hosts the podcast Behind the Lines.
That insight led ultimately to his new book, Elemental, which examines how a climate crisis that threatens the planet�s capacity to sustain life is helping to stoke conflicts from drought-stricken Africa to a defrosting Arctic, as well as the rise of far-right populism in Europe and the US. �It�s like rising damp in your house � you don�t know it�s there, but it�s changing everything.�
It�s a tale of a world in flux, as superpowers are forced to confront new vulnerabilities and smaller countries find their natural resources � from habitable land to minerals critical for renewable energy technologies � unexpectedly in demand. (As Greenland has found, that can be a blessing and a curse.) What makes these power shifts unusually disruptive, says Snell, is the sheer pace of them. �Normally, we can say: �In so many million years, the map of the world will change.� Well, it will change in the lifetime of normal people living a normal lifespan. What that does is intensify the geopolitical aspects.�
…
Elemental: The New Geography of Climate Change and How We Survive It by Arthur Snell is published on 12 March (£25, Wildfire). To support the Guardian, buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com
�more �
(The unremarked monster under the bed.
My grocery store cashier friend recently said: the whole world is tipped five degrees off kilter.)
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