{"id":12903,"date":"2023-12-24T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-24T07:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=12903"},"modified":"2023-12-24T16:24:05","modified_gmt":"2023-12-24T22:24:05","slug":"12-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=12903","title":{"rendered":"12.24"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aruna Viswanatha and Nancy A. Youssef:<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Navy Capt. David Lausman, once the commanding officer of an aircraft carrier in the Pacific, stood front and center in a trial that capped one of the biggest military corruption<\/a> cases in U.S. history.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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He and his alleged co-conspirators enjoyed \u201c36 hours of straight drinking, prostitutes<\/a> and hotel rooms,\u201d a prosecutor told the jury. Debauchery was among the rewards Lausman and four senior officers allegedly received for helping Malaysian businessman Leonard Francis<\/a> carry out a scheme that cost the U.S. tens of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Francis, who carried 350 pounds on a 6-foot-2 frame and was known as \u201cFat Leonard,\u201d acknowledged paying bribes and overcharging the U.S. to service Navy ships at ports around the Pacific. He struck a deal with federal prosecutors to provide evidence against the high-ranking Navy personnel who helped him.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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A federal investigation had swept the ranks of dozens of Navy personnel deemed unfit to serve because of ties to Francis. The probe also sank the careers of officers tainted by unfounded allegations, including those who had been on track to command the Seventh Fleet. The 2022 trial in San Diego marked its unraveling. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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U.S. assistant attorney Mark Pletcher told jurors that what set Lausman apart was \u201cthe bedazzling array of bribes this guy received from Leonard Francis from 2007 to 2011.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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One of Lausman\u2019s lawyers, Robert Boyce, belittled the bribery allegations, which included free golf balls. Lausman, a 6-foot-6 Michigander known as \u201cToo Tall,\u201d was quiet, boring and not much of a drinker, according to one of Francis\u2019 hired escorts, a woman in the Philippines. Lausman had declined her advances, she had told the defense team.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The news<\/a> comes from Autocar<\/em>, which quotes Watola as saying the ID.2All concept and its buttons “showed a new approach for all models.” Like Sch\u00e4fer, he referenced the public’s feedback. There are still touchscreens, to be sure\u2014the infotainment display is large and in charge, and there’s also a digital gauge cluster. But instead of all the controls being hidden behind menus in these displays, they’re toggled via switches on the center stack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecutors told the jury that Lausman had slept with an escort hired by Francis, which Lausman denied. The government didn\u2019t disclose to the defense until later that investigators had communicated with the woman after the trial began and she, too, said they didn\u2019t have sex. Prosecutors are obligated to turn over evidence favorable to the defense as they receive it<\/a>. Defense attorneys asked for a dismissal. The judge declined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The potential payoff, though, is astronomical<\/a>: a world with Pixie everywhere means a world where Google makes real money from selling hardware, in addition to services for enterprises and schools, and cloud services that leverage Google\u2019s infrastructure to provide the same capabilities to businesses. Moreover, it\u2019s a world where Google is truly integrated: the company already makes the chips, in both its phones and its data centers, it makes the models, and it does it all with the largest collection of data in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A list of unheralded improvements<\/a> to ordinary quality-of-life since the 1990s going beyond computers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the globe, billions are being invested<\/a> in the electrification of the car industry. Governments have put future bans on the sale of internal combustion engines, but recently we\u2019ve seen politicians backtracking a little on the issue. Also, there are still huge infrastructure and cost challenges ahead for EVs. So, are reports about the death of the internal combustion engine a little premature?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201chow\u201d is the \u201ccraft\u201d in statecraft<\/a>. Most of what the U.S. government does is distribute money and set rules. Relatively few parts of it mount policy operations, especially diplomatic ones. Doing so requires complex teamwork. Officials must master international choreographies, intricacies of law and practice, and a bewildering variety of instruments, cultures, and institutions spanning societies. The ability to do all that is a fading art in the United States and the rest of the free world. As it fades, handwringing and platitudes take its place. Officials paper over the gaps with meetings and pronouncements. The limited supply of effective U.S. policymaking was demonstrated tragically during the COVID-19<\/a> outbreak, when the world failed to create a global alliance to fight a global pandemic. It can be seen today in Ukraine, where the free world is struggling to sustain a country fighting a war of attrition. And it is surfacing in the Gaza Strip, where well-meaning countries try to help with Gaza\u2019s future sustenance and governance. There will doubtless be new demands in the coming months and years, and one can debate which of them Washington and its allies must answer. But no one wants to take on a problem and then fail. Success has to be defined concretely and practically. Governments have to more effectively pool their capabilities and know-how. Only then can they convert blue-sky hopes into blueprints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

bustimes.org<\/a><\/strong> is the unofficial home of bus, coach, tram and ferry transport information<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to share a little provocation<\/a> about AI language models. You can skip ahead to that, if you like. Before I get to it myself, I\u2019m going to review several items that might be interesting to those of you subscribed to this occasional lab newsletter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First identified<\/a> in 1886 by Theodore Lewis during the multi-year Northwestern Archaeological Survey, what is referred to as the Ghost Eagle has a 1,240-foot wingspan and a 700-foot-long body. The imprint of the mound is more than twice the size of the bird mound on the grounds of the Mendota Mental Health Institute in Madison<\/a>, long considered to be the largest bird mound in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) confirmed that they’ve allowed illegal immigrants to use their arrest warrants as a valid proof of ID<\/a> to board flights in the United States for more than a year. Americans should be appalled by President Biden’s decision to reward criminal behavior but given his promises to provide free healthcare to illegals, tear down the wall, and make our heroic Border Agents his personal enemy, it’s hardly a surprise. Despite record illegal border crossings in 2021, the Biden Administration has yet to take any deliberate action to defend the sovereignty of our republic and secure the southern border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thieves<\/a> took a cash register with $250 and forced the restaurant to close for three days, leading to $10,000 in losses related to food waste and employee compensation. Insurance only covered $750, said Ryan Zin.<\/p>\n\n\n

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I'm pretty sure this is an accurate reflection of how state elected officials and political appointees view themselves. https:\/\/t.co\/MBJiARJLHk<\/a><\/p>\n

— Chris Rickert (@RickertWisSJ) December 21, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n