California

USA: Boeing Begins Assembly Of New Zealand’s First P-8A Aircraft

SAN FRANCISCO, Mar 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Boeing announced yesterday, its P-8A team and Spirit AeroSystems employees, have laid the keel beam for New Zealand’s first P-8A.

Laying the keel is an important production milestone, during the building of any ship or aircraft, and represents the cornerstone of this latest P-8, Boeing said.

This process was done at the Spirit AeroSystems facility, where all Boeing 737 fuselages, nacelles and pylons are designed and built.

Over 500 Google staff rally behind colleague opposing the firm's Israel military contract

17 March 2022; MEMO: Google has come under fire for "unjustly retaliating" against an employee who objected to its contract with the Israeli military. More than 500 of its staff have rallied behind a colleague who alleges she is being pushed out of her job because of her anti-Israeli activism.

USA: Meta narrows guidance to prohibit calls for death of a head of state

March 14 (Reuters) - Facebook owner Meta Platforms (FB.O) said on Sunday that it is further narrowing its content moderation policy for Ukraine to prohibit calls for the death of a head of state, according to an internal company post seen by Reuters.

The move came after Reuters reported last week that Meta was temporarily allowing some posts on Facebook and Instagram calling for the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. 

Russia-Ukraine conflict: Tech giants clamp down on Russia state-linked news

SAN FRANCISCO, March 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Tech firms from Facebook to TikTok and Microsoft moved Monday to curb the reach of Russian state-linked news outlets, which stand accused of pushing misinformation about Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Social media platforms have become one of the fronts in the internationally condemned attack, home to sometimes false narratives but also real-time monitoring of a conflict that marks Europe’s biggest geopolitical crisis in decades.

USA: Man kills 3 daughters, 1 other, himself at California church

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A man shot and killed his three daughters, their chaperone and himself during a supervised visit with the girls Monday at a church in Sacramento, California, authorities said.

Deputies responding to reports of gunfire around 5 p.m. found five people dead, including the shooter, at the church in the Arden-Arcade neighborhood, said Sgt. Rod Grassmann with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office.

The victims included three girls ages 9, 10 and 13, Grassmann said.

Google bans Russian state media from receiving money for ads - agency

TASS, February 27. Google has decided to ban Russia’s state media from receiving money for ads, the Reuters news agency said on Sunday.

According to the agency, the tech giant temporarily paused Russia’s state-funded media outlets from placing ads on its services.

Earlier, YouTube confirmed that it had barred some Russian channels from receiving money for ads due to a special military operation in Ukraine. Prior to this, the monetization of Russian media was banned by Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.

USA: Remains of ancestors massacred by white men returned to Wiyot Tribe

Los Angeles, Jan 27 (AP) The most vulnerable members of the Wiyot Tribe were asleep the morning of Feb 26, 1860, when a band of white men slipped into their Northern California villages under darkness and slaughtered them.

Many of the children, women and elderly slain in what became known as the Indian Island Massacre had their eternal rest disturbed when their graves were later dug up and their skeletons and the artifacts buried with them were placed in a museum.

USA: Pelosi to seek reelection with Democratic majority at risk

LOS ANGELES (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Tuesday she will seek reelection, ending speculation that she would retire as Democrats face the threat of losing control of Congress in the 2022 midterms.

“While we have made progress, much more needs to be done to improve people’s lives,” the 81-year-old Pelosi said in an online video.

“This election is crucial. Nothing less is at stake than our democracy,” she added.

USA: PG&E’s criminal probation to end amid ongoing safety worries

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Pacific Gas & Electric is poised to emerge from five years of criminal probation, despite worries that nation’s largest utility remains too dangerous to trust after years of devastation from wildfires ignited by its outdated equipment and neglectful management.

The probation, set to expire at midnight Tuesday, was supposed to rehabilitate PG&E after its 2016 conviction for six felony crimes from a 2010 explosion triggered by its natural gas lines that blew up a San Bruno neighborhood and killed eight people.

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