sky | Donald Trump has signalled his intention to send troops to Chicago to
ramp up the deportation of illegal immigrants - by posting an
AI-generated parody image from Apocalypse Now on social media.
There were protests in the city, the largest in Illinois, on Saturday night, with thousands of people marching past Trump Tower to demonstrate against possible immigration raids.
That came as the US president ramped up his threats to deploy federal
authorities and military personnel in Chicago, as he has done in Los Angeles and Washington DC.
In a post on Truth Social, Mr Trump
shared an AI-generated image of himself as a military officer in the
movie Apocalypse Now, with the title changed to "Chipocalypse Now" over
flames and the city skyline.
The post - a screenshot from X - said: "'I love the smell of deportations in the morning...'. Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of WAR."
toborlife |A robot rolling through your local shopping plaza might’ve felt like a movie scene just a few years ago.
In
2025, it’s the new normal in southeast Kansas City. Instead of relying
only on human security guards, the Brywood Centre has enlisted a
high-tech solution: a full-time security robot named Marshall.
Shoppers are noticing the difference. Crime is down. People feel safer.
And it raises a big question: Are robotic patrols the future of public safety?
This trend has generated significant buzz in the robotics world, particularly with interest in gear like the Unitree G1. It’s no surprise.
With
features like 360-degree surveillance, facial recognition, and license
plate tracking, today’s security bots are more than just mobile cameras,
They’re proactive protection tools. And yes, they can run nearly
non-stop, powered by durable components like the Unitree G1 battery.
We’ll
look at how this real-world deployment shows the potential of robotics
in everyday environments and why it’s getting attention from tech buyers
and safety experts alike.
Since Marshall was deployed in 2024,
it’s been patrolling the parking lot and sidewalks for 23 hours a day.
It doesn’t take breaks. It doesn’t blink. And it’s always recording.
The robot’s arrival was meant to help fight a rise in vandalism and theft. It didn’t take long for results to show.
According
to the Kansas City Police Department’s crime map, there hasn’t been a
single criminal incident reported at the Brywood Centre since the robot
went online.
Shoppers have noticed. One local, Karen White, said, “It scared them off.”
That’s
not just talk. Several attempted crimes were stopped thanks to
Marshall’s monitoring. The robot automatically flags suspicious behavior
and sends alerts to law enforcement. It’s also programmed to identify
individuals linked to Amber Alerts or criminal databases.
So, How Marshall Keeps Watch?
Marshall
is built to move smoothly through public spaces and is packed with
intelligent features that work together to protect the area:
360-degree vision:
The robot can see in all directions, helping it monitor activity
without blind spots. This makes it hard for suspicious behavior to go
unnoticed.
Facial recognition: It can scan faces and match them to known criminal databases or active alerts, helping law enforcement take faster action.
License plate reading: Every vehicle entering the lot can be tracked and flagged if necessary, making it easier to prevent or respond to crimes.
Device ID tracking:
The bot can detect nearby phones or wearables by identifying their
signals, helping pinpoint a person’s location without direct
interaction.
Extended patrol duration:
Marshall can stay on the move for 23 hours a day, watching the parking
lot from every angle. That level of consistency helps visitors feel more
secure every time they stop by.
It
doesn’t chase people or yell. It just watches, records, and relays data
to the proper authorities. That alone is often enough to deter petty
crimes.
This kind of system
is being closely followed by robotics enthusiasts and public safety
officials alike. It’s also why platforms like Toborlife.ai
are seeing increased demand for advanced patrol-capable bots, including
popular models similar in build and functionality to the Unitree G1 for sale on the site.
newsweek | Russia has discovered huge oil reserves in British territory in Antarctica, according to evidence submitted to the U.K. House of Commons Environment Audit Committee (EAC).
The
reserves uncovered contain around 511 billion barrels worth of oil,
equating to around 10 times the North Sea's output over the last 50
years.
According to documents discussed in U.K. parliament last
week, the discovery was made by Russian research ships in the Weddell
Sea, which falls under the U.K.'s claim in Antarctic territory. That
claim overlaps with those of Chile and Argentina.
But concerns are now being raised that Russia is attempting to assert its influence in the area through means other than scientific research.
Antarctica is governed by The Antarctic Treaty,
first signed on December 1, 1959, which states that no single country
owns the territory and designates the region as a continent devoted to
peace and science, meaning all oil developments in the area are
prohibited.
But experts have now claimed that Russia could be
prospecting parts of Antarctica for oil and gas and surveying the
continent for military purposes, violating the Antarctic Treaty.
In
a meeting last week, Professor Klaus Dodds, professor of geopolitics at
the U.K.'s Royal Holloway College, told the Commons Environment Audit
Committee that Russia's actions in the region could "signal a potential
threat to the permanent ban on mining."
"There is a worry that Russia is collecting seismic data that could
be construed to be prospecting rather than scientific research," he
said, adding: "Russia's activities need to be understood as a decision
to undermine the norms associated with seismic survey research, and
ultimately a precursor for forthcoming resource extraction."
Dodds went on to explain that since Russia's invasion of Ukraine,
there had been "widespread concern" that Moscow's worsening
relationship with the Western world "will spark strategic competition"
between countries that will be "ever more explicit in Antarctica".
Such
tensions have already begun, with Russia and China blocking attempts by
other Antarctic treaty nations to expand marine protected areas in
Antarctica in 2022.
babylonbee | The United States Navy announced this morning that the USS Harvey Milk will be officially renamed the USS No Homo.
Christened
the 'Harvey Milk' four years ago in honor of the infamous gay sexual
predator, the ship's name change reflects a broader effort by military
leadership to clarify that the Navy isn't actually that gay.
"Despite
the uniforms, the Navy isn't just nancy boys and fairies," said
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. "The names of our ships ought to
reflect that non-gayness. It's hard enough for them already, wearing
their fruity little sailor outfits, without also having their ships
named after gay child molesters. Therefore, we have officially renamed
the ship the 'No Homo' out of love and care for our Navy brothers. No
homo."
Gay rights activists have condemned the decision, stating
it is a blatant denial of the truth as the ship is obviously very gay.
"Who do you think you're fooling? The ship is a literally called an
'oiler', its whole job is oiling up other ships, and it's docked in San
Fran. It's a total flamer," said local activist Mikai Danielson.
"Methinks Secretary Hegseth doth protest too much."
At publishing time, Secretary Hegseth had issued an order for everyone to stop calling Navy guys "seamen."
DailyCaller | Jean-Pierre announced her new book “Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines” set to publish in October 2025 on Wednesday. The book, according to her publisher Legacy Lit, encourages Americans to “vote their values and maintain individuality within party lines.”
“Jean-Pierre didn’t come to her decision to be an Independent
lightly. She has served two American presidents, Obama and Biden,” the
book description from Legacy Lit reads.
“In 2020, she joined
Biden’s campaign as a senior adviser, becoming Harris’s chief of staff
and then, two years later, White House press secretary. She takes us
through the three weeks that led to Biden’s abandoning his bid for a
second term and the betrayal by the Democratic Party that led to his
decision,” the statement continues.
“In an era of misinformation, disinformation, the regressiveness of
social policy, what we’re seeing currently, right now, what I have
decided to do, and I really have thought long and hard about this, is to
follow my own compass. And that’s what I’ve done, and that’s what this
book does,” Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
“And here’s the
truth, and here’s how I will lay it out to you. I think we need to stop
thinking in boxes and think outside of our boxes, and not be so
partisan. And the way that I see moving forward in this space that we’re
in right now is if you are willing to stand side by side with me,
regardless of your political — how you identify politically, and as long
as you respect the community that I belong to and vulnerable
communities that I respect, I will be there with you. I will be, I will
move forward with you,” she continues.
During the Biden administration, Jean-Pierre
defended the former president’s fitness as concerns about his declining
state grew. Just weeks before Biden dropped out of the race, she decried
videos of the former president looking lost and wandering off as “cheap fakes,” claiming they were edited to make the 82-year-old look bad.
X |Our private research universities are not actually purely private. They are designed to be both a cryptic soft extension of the state (e.g. national security, priming the prosperity pipeline with blue sky research, truth adjudication, etc.), which is also oppositely intended as an independent check on the state and state power in times of abuse as well. This tacit and quiet knowledge, which used to be held at the AAU and the relevant professors, has been mostly lost.
So 'overhead' or 'indirect costs' is not actually overhead at all. It is supposed to be cryptic state support based on research merit to avoid political pressure to fund 3rd tier universities at the same level as Princeton.
So the whole system was designed back in the Vannevar Bush era but without leaving the esoteric knowledge with modern academicians.
It's a disaster. It was a quiet game which worked brilliantly to serve the nation and its population until lunatics started to get a foothold in the research universities.
This is why when you audit this stuff, you see waste. It wasn't ever intended to be what it appears to be: this was the USG paying to have a totally ELITE and EXCLUSIVE quasi-private, quasi-public resource. Think Manhattan project. Think The Jasons. Think winning.
And, despite my deep dislike of how @realchrisrufohas acted towards me, his point is spot on. If the elite U.S. universities are so confused as to think that they are truly 100% private and that they should be allowed to destroy their role of ELITE service to the nation which built them up with federal dollars, that is a moment to remind them of the "Endless Frontier" agreement.
First the USG welched on the agreement with the Mansfield Ammendment and Dole Bayh and then IMMACT90. Then the universities welched with DEI.
BOTH parties need to get back to the quiet agreement, or the whole thing will just fall apart. And the US research achipeligo is a *MAJOR* part of american greatness which we seem to be about to destroy because we can't figure out how to do this.
[And for those of you who seem to believe that quiet and tacit agreements are always bad, so that the Manhattan Project should have been academic and totally open because 'Sunlight is always the best disinfectant!!', I highly encourage you to use the comment section to complain again about elitism, gatekeeping, Fauci, experts, science, government and credentials. I get it. You can't stop to listen...or think. I totally get you. Looking forward to your vitriol. Just make sure to remind me repeatedly that markets are always right, all tax is theft, DEI is poison, and that Trump and Elon know exactly what they are doing at all times.]
radiolab | This is the story of a few documents that tumbled out of the secret archives of the biggest empire the world has ever known, offering a glimpse of histories waiting to be rewritten.
Just down the road from a pub in rural Hanslope Park, England is a massive building — the secret archives of the biggest empire the world has ever known. This is the story of a few documents that tumbled out and offered a glimpse of histories waiting to be rewritten.
When professor Caroline Elkins came across a stray document left by the British colonial government in Nairobi, Kenya, she opened the door to a new reckoning with the history of one of Britain's colonial crown jewels, and the fearsome group of rebels known as the Mau Mau. We talk to historians, archivists, journalists and send our producer Jamie York to visit the Mau Mau. As the new history of Kenya is concealed and revealed, document by document, we wonder what else lies in wait among the miles of records hidden away in Hanslope Park.
CNN | After the White House argued, repeatedly, that there was no
classified information in the now-infamous group chat of national
security officials, The Atlantic published it.
CNN reporters annotated the entire chat,
which included Hegseth’s description of F-18s and drones preparing to
strike targets, which anybody listening in would have known were to
occur in Yemen since the name of the chat included the word “Houthi.”
The White House and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth
continued to argue, even after release of the chat, that the information
wasn’t classified, but only sensitive.
Multiple experts advised on CNN Wednesday that people should
not get sidetracked by whether or not the information was classified.
What’s below are the assessments of:
Retired Brigadier Gen. Mark Kimmitt, who during his military
career worked as deputy director for strategy and plans for US Central
Command, and then worked in the State Department as assistant secretary
of state for political-military affairs during the George W. Bush
administration
and Beth Sanner, a CNN National Security analyst who was
deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration during
portions of both the first Trump and Joe Biden administrations.
Kimmitt and Sanner both appeared on CNN Wednesday, and I subsequently followed up with Sanner on the phone.
Was classified information shared?
CNN has reported that sources within the Pentagon believe
that the information shared by Hegseth, which detailed when, to the
minute, US fighters and drones would strike Houthi targets, was clearly classified.
Whether it was technically classified is beside the point, according to Kimmitt.
“I think everybody’s missing the relevant issue,” he said,
noting that Hegseth has the authority to declassify Pentagon
information.
“If he says it’s not classified, it’s not classified,”
Kimmit said. But “the fundamental question that we should be asking is,
‘Should it have been classified?’ And the answer, of course, is yes.”
What should be classified?
“I think we’re watching a lot of bob and weave, instead of
just making this simple,” said Sanner, who added that the rule of thumb
is that anything that shouldn’t be put into an unclassified email should
be treated as classified material.
“Another really easy way to look at this is, ‘If I’m sitting
in Moscow or Beijing, would I be happy to get this information and
think that I’ve gotten something really interesting?’” she said.
Obviously yes.
What’s interesting to adversaries?
First, the military portions of what was shared clearly should not have been shared.
“If there are planes, trains automobiles, whatever, heading toward an attack, it is classified,” Sanner said.
And if Hegseth wants to declassify something, there is a process of documentation that should be followed, she said.
MAGA can’t find any dirt so they have resorted to being outraged that I attended private school 🤯. I am me, unapologetically! GET A LIFE & start caring about how people are losing their jobs and our economy is tanking!
▶️ Powerful video here: revealing the deep and dark corruption which has been fueling this disastrous proxy war from the first moment of its inception. Zelensky is a media creation - a puppet of the West, designed to empty Ukraine of its sovereignty, and ultimately its resources… pic.twitter.com/5xH0vbGool
eng.mil.ru | Report by Russian Defence Ministry on progress of special military operation (22 February 2025)
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
In Kharkov direction, the Sever Group of Forces hit formations of two territorial defence brigades close to Izbitskoye and Volchansk (Kharkov region).
The AFU lost up to 40 troops, an armoured personnel carrier, an artillery gun, and an electronic warfare station.
As a result of decisive actions, the Zapad Group of Forces liberated Novolyubovka (Lugansk People's Republic).
Russian units hit manpower and hardware of four mechanised brigades,
an assault brigade of the AFU, and a national guard brigade close to
Topoli, Kondrashovka, Golubovka, Novay Kruglyakovka, Borovaya, Shiykovka
(Kharkov region), Yampol (Donetsk People's Republic) as well as
Serebryansky forestry.
The enemy's losses amounted to more than 200 troops, a U.S.-made M113
armoured personnel carrier, five motor vehicles, and five field
artillery guns, three of them manufactured by NATO countries. Three
electronic warfare stations and an ammunition depot were neutralised.
Units of the Yug Group of Forces took more advantageous
lines and positions. Russian troops engaged manpower and hardware of
four mechanised brigades, an airmobile brigade, two assault brigades of
the AFU, and foreign legion units near Seversk, Reznikovka, Slavyansk,
Vasyukovka, Kramatorsk, Novomarkovo, Belokuzminovka, Chasov Yar,
Stupochki, Konstantinovka, and Ulakly (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 220 troops, an infantry fighting
vehicle, nine motor vehicles, and six field artillery guns including a
U.S.-made 155mm M777 howitzer. One electronic warfare station and one
ammunition depot were neutralised.
Units of the Tsentr Group of Forces improved the
tactical situation. Ten mechanised brigades, a jaeger brigade, an
airmobile brigade, two assault brigades, an assault regiment of the AFU,
a marine brigade, and a national guard brigade near Shcherbinovka,
Dimitrov, Krasnoarmeysk, Udachnoye, Uspenovka, Novoandreyevka, and
Andreyevka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The enemy lost more than 375 troops, four armoured fighting vehicles
including a U.S.-made MaxxPro armoured vehicle, five motor vehicles, and
seven field artillery guns including a U.S.-made 155mm Paladin
self-propelled artillery system.
Units of the Vostok Group of Forces continued advancing
into the depth of enemy defences. A mechanised brigade, an air assault
brigade of the AFU, and three territorial defence brigades were hit near
Konstantiopol, Bogatyr, Burlatskoye (Donetsk People's Republic),
Temirovka, and Gulyaypole (Zaporozhye region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 160 troops, two tanks including a
German-made Leopard tank, three motor vehicles, and two field artillery
guns.
The Dnepr Group of Forces engaged manpower and hardware
of a mountain assault brigade of the AFU and two territorial defence
brigades close to Malaya Tokmachka, Shcherbaki, Lobkovoye (Zaporozhye
region), Sadovoye, and Dneprovskoye (Kherson region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 85 troops, six motor vehicles, an
artillery gun, three electronic warfare stations, and an ammunition
depot.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, attack unmanned aerial vehicles, Missile
Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces have engaged the
infrastructure of military airfields, strike drones stocking and
training sites, ammunition and fuel depots of the Ukrainian Armed Forces
as well as temporary deployment areas of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in
157 areas.
Russian air defence systems shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29 aircraft, two
French-made Hammer guided bombs, two U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS projectiles,
and 58 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 656
aircraft, 283 helicopters, 44,190 unmanned aerial vehicles, 596
anti-aircraft missile systems, 21,698 tanks and other armoured fighting
vehicles, 1,521 MLRS combat vehicles, 21,948 field artillery guns and
mortars, and 32,033 units of support military vehicles have been
neutralised.
WaPo | Elon
Musk, the head of the U.S. DOGE Service, announced Friday that he would
rehire a staffer who resigned after he was tied to a social media
account with a history of racist posts.
“He will be brought back,” Musk wrote on X, the platform he owns. “To err is human, to forgive divine.”
CTH | Yes, the Govt is in crisis, and just as
sure as you are reading this, the administrators within the IC already
have the solution ready to roll.”
♦ RESULT
– “We will use advanced technology and non-partisan AI programming, to
make the government more efficient and ensure this level of corruption
and wasteful spending never happens again.”
Every dollar will be tracked, monitored
and oversight will be transparent and available for everyone to see.
Just ignore the part where the same efficiency system is monitoring your
real ID, connecting your personage to the new govt and private sector
interfaces, and click “I agree” on your next federal tax filing. Trust
us Comrade citizen, the new technologically advanced DODGE approved govt
system cares about responsible stewardship and you. Swear.”
The process starts by downloading government data to an AI enhanced database for review and filtration.
Good Stuff – […] Trump created DOGE through
a day one executive order with a stated mission to cut government
waste. Musk and his aides have assumed control of federal IT
infrastructure as his team swiftly blitzes through departments and
agencies. Trump, with Musk’s guidance, this week gutted the
United States Agency for International Development and merged it into
the State Department. The president has signaled he might try to eliminate the Department of Education by executive order next.
“They’re
putting a shot across the administrative state’s bow,” Steve Bannon,
Trump’s former chief strategist, said last week of the mass federal
buyout plan on his “War Room” podcast. “That’s DOGE signaling to you
that they’ve got a plan of how to take the personnel down.”
[…] Federal
employees who want to remain in the federal workforce were told in the
“Fork in the Road” email they must return to in-person work, embrace new
“performance standards” and be “reliable, loyal and trustworthy” in
their work. The email also warned that most federal departments and
agencies will be “downsized through restructurings, realignments, and
reductions in force.”
Some federal employees said they were alarmed at the short timeframe they were given to make their decisions.
“I
have invested way too much time and energy and interest into my career
to just say, ‘hell with it’ and leave when I only have, like, five to 10
years left before I retire,” one federal worker said. “I’m not taking
the resigning bait. So, I guess I’ll essentially just ride down with the
ship if they decide to get rid of us,” the worker added, though he
acknowledged some less experienced colleagues might take the buyout. (more)
The streamlining and
downsizing of government through the use of AI systems is a good thing,
perhaps a very good thing. However, watch out for deployment into the
DHS apparatus because that will give rise to the newly expanded
Surveillance State.
Peaceniks don’t build
bombs; and those who genuinely believe in liberty do not build nor
support domestic surveillance networks that can be weaponized depending
on who is in power.
JONATHAN TURLEY ON DOGE: THE TERROR ALERT IN WASHINGTON IS QUITE ASTONISHING
“You have people all over the Beltway breathing in paper bags right now because of the idea that they could bring in these people, and that they're going to think outside the box.
pro publica | On President Donald Trump’s authority alone, Elon Musk, the world’s
richest man, has been unleashed on federal agencies. Employees from
Musk’s companies and those of his allies, as well as young staffers he’s
recruited, are wresting authority from career workers and commandeering
computer systems.
While some have been public about their
involvement, others have attempted to keep their roles secret, scrubbing
LinkedIn pages and other sources of data. With little information from
the White House, ProPublica is attempting to document who is involved
and what they are doing.
Musk’s team, known as the Department of
Government Efficiency, has already thrown entire swaths of the federal
government and its programs into disarray — programs that serve millions
of Americans.
Musk himself has made no secret of his intentions,
saying that DOGE is a “wood chipper for bureaucracy” and that he is
“deleting” agencies.
A White House spokesperson wrote, “Those
leading this mission with Elon Musk are doing so in full compliance with
federal law, appropriate security clearances, and as employees of the
relevant agencies, not as outside advisors or entities.” None of the
people identified responded to requests for comment.
wired | As one of his first acts after being sworn in, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) by reorganizing and renaming an existing entity, the US Digital Services (USDS), as the US DOGE Service. And while some have noted that this version of DOGE moves away from the sweeping vision of deregulation outlined
in a November Wall Street Journal op-ed, it's a move that will give
centibillionaire Elon Musk and his allies seemingly unprecedented
insight across the government, and access to troves of federal data.
“It’s
quite a clever way of integrating DOGE into the federal government that
I think will work, in the sense of giving it a platform for
surveillance and recommendations,” says Richard Pierce, a law professor
at George Washington University.
Soon after his election victory, Trump announced that he would form DOGE, led by Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, to provide
"advice and guidance from outside the government"—something that
would generally require it be formed as a federal advisory committee.
The idea was that DOGE would provide recommendations for how to cut some
$2 trillion from the federal budget. (Shortly before Trump’s
inauguration, Ramaswamy exited the DOGE project.)
But
under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, committees of the sort DOGE
seemed to be shaping up to have several legal requirements, including
making all meetings publicly accessible and requiring a diversity of
perspectives on the committee itself. By repurposing the USDS, which was
already part of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Trump
managed to skirt both the requirements of a formal advisory committee
and the Congressional oversight required when creating a new federal
agency. In short, it meant DOGE would get more access to sensitive data
than an advisory committee would likely have, while offering less
transparency.
The USDS was created by former president Barack Obama to untangle dysfunctional or failing technology across the federal government
in the wake of the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. The Service’s
mandate allows it the wide-ranging ability to enter any government
agency and access its software or technical systems with the goal of
helping to streamline or reform existing systems.
Under
the executive order, DOGE teams, which “will typically include one DOGE
Team Lead, one engineer, one human resources specialist, and one
attorney” will be dispatched to various agencies. They will be granted
“access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT
systems,” ostensibly with the goal of streamlining data sharing across
federal agencies.
A
former USDS employee who spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity
called the repurposing of the Digital Service an “A+ bureaucratic
jiu-jitsu move.” But, they say, they’re concerned that DOGE’s access to
sensitive information could be used to do more than just streamline
government operations.
“Is
this technical talent going to be pointed toward using data from the
federal government to track down opponents?” they ask. “To track down
particular populations of interest to this administration for the
purposes of either targeting them or singling them out or whatever it
might end up being?”
NYTimes | President Biden pardoned five members of his family in his last minutes in office, saying in a statement that he did so not because they did anything wrong but because he feared political attacks from incoming President Donald J. Trump.
“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” he said in his last statement as president. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”
Mr. Biden’s action pardoned James B. Biden, his brother; Sara Jones Biden, James’s wife; Valerie Biden Owens, Mr. Biden’s sister; John T. Owens, Ms. Owens’s husband; and Francis W. Biden, Mr. Biden’s brother.
The White House announced the pardons with less than 20 minutes left in Mr. Biden’s presidency, after he had already walked into the Capitol Rotunda to witness the swearing-in of Mr. Trump before leaving the Capitol for the last time as president.
The pardons were a remarkable coda to Mr. Biden’s 50-year political career, underscoring the mistrust and anger that the president feels about Mr. Trump, the man who preceded and will succeed him in office.
Mr. Biden had repeatedly warned that Mr. Trump was a threat to democracy in America. But he also said that he believed in the rule of law, and was confident in the stability of the institutions of law enforcement. The pardons — like one that he did earlier for his son, Hunter Biden, threatened to challenge that assertion.
In his statement, Mr. Biden explained his action.
“I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics,” Mr. Biden wrote. “But baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety and financial security of targeted individuals and their families. Even when individuals have done nothing wrong and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage their reputations and finances.”
cbsnews | Why was the Santa Ynez Reservoir empty when the fires broke out?
The reservoir was taken out of service to "meet safe drinking water regulations," the DWP said in a statement. A tear in the reservoir's cover made the water supply subject to contamination, the Los Angeles Times reported, leading the agency to drain it in February.
"The
water system serving the Pacific Palisades area and all of Los Angeles
meets all federal and state fire codes for urban development and
housing," the release said.
DWP representatives did not respond
to further questions about the reservoir from CBS News. The agency's
statement suggested that the fact the reservoir was empty for nearly a
year was in part due to the process of contracting a company to carry
out the repairs.
"To commission the support and resources to
implement repairs to Santa Ynez, LADWP is subject to the city charter's
competitive bidding process which requires time," the statement read.
The reservoir is intended to provide water storage "for domestic use
and fire fighting purposes in the Pacific Palisades area" according to city documents.
DWP
says that the agency is conducting its own investigation on its "water
resiliency." But experts and officials agree that the extent of the wildfires would have put a strain on the city's water supply regardless of whether the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been full.
In his letter to DWP, Newsom wrote, "While water supplies from local
fire hydrants are not designed to extinguish wildfires over large areas,
losing supplies from fire hydrants likely impaired the effort to
protect some homes and evacuation corridors."
David Freyberg,
PhD, a hydrologist and water resources specialist at Stanford
University, told CBS News in an email that while a full Santa Ynez would
have had benefits, it's not clear how much impact it would have had.
"The
reservoirs above Pacific Palisades were not designed to support
fire-fighting at the scale of [this] fire," he wrote. "Water supply
reservoirs are typically designed to cope with house fires, not
wildfires."
He added that the situation has made it clear that larger-scale solutions are necessary.
axios | As devastating wildfires raged across Los Angeles County this week, firefighters battling the blazes encountered fire hydrants that had no water.
Why it matters: The dry fire hydrants sparked political outrage
and illustrated just how unprepared municipal water systems are to
combat the sorts of large-scale urban wildfires that have become more
frequent with climate change.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday ordered an independent investigation
into the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP), the nation's
largest municipal utility, over hydrants and water supply issues. DWP
provides water for more than four million L.A. residents and serves
Pacific Palisades, a wealthy area of Los Angeles where much of the
destruction took place.
"While water supplies from local fire
hydrants are not designed to extinguish wildfires over large areas,
losing supplies from fire hydrants likely impaired the effort to protect
some homes and evacuation corridors," Newsom said. "We need answers to
how that happened."
President-elect Trump has suggested Newsom
was to blame for the dry hydrants — claiming without evidence that he
blocked water supply to the south of the state with the state's fish
conservation efforts. The governor and other experts have sharply
rejected the claims.
"We are looking at a situation that is
just completely not part of any domestic water system design," Marty
Adams, a former DWP general manager and engineer, told The New York Times.
The big picture: Fire
hydrants running out of water isn't unheard of during severe wildfires,
said Faith Kearns, a water and wildfire expert with the Global Futures
Laboratory at Arizona State University. Similar instances were reported
during wildfires in Maui, Colorado and Oregon,
"It's
something that we have definitely started to see as, essentially, these
wildland fires move into urban areas and become urban conflagrations,"
Kearns said.
"Our urban water supply is meant to deal more with things like a single house being on fire," she added.
Why did the fire hydrants run dry?
Firefighters battling the Palisades Fire
earlier this week encountered swaths of fire hydrants with no water
after the three water tanks supplying the Pacific Palisades ran dry by 3
a.m. Wednesday, Janisse Quiñones, chief engineer of the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power, said at a press briefing later that day.
The
area's water system had been pushed "to the extreme," she said. "Four
times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered
our water pressure."
The problem persisted for hours while wildfires ravaged the area, the New York Times reported.
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