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How France learned to love Big Brother

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:00 GMT

PARIS — Liberté. Egalité. But mostly: sécurité. It all started with Napoléon Bonaparte. Over two centuries, France cobbled together a surveillance apparatus capable of intercepting private communications; keeping traffic and localization data for up to a year; storing people’s fingerprints; and monitoring most of the territory with cameras.This system, which has faced pushback from digital rights organizations and United Nations experts, will get its spotlight moment at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. In July next year, France will deploy large-scale, real-time, algorithm-supported video surveillance cameras — a first in Europe. (Not included in the plan: facial recognition.) Just in the past month, the French parliament approved a controversial government plan to allow investigators to track suspected criminals in real-time via access to their devices’ geolocation, camera and microphone. Paris also lobbied in Brussels to be allowed to spy on reporters in the name of natio...

Leahy: Patent Office proposals hurt small innovators

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:00 GMT

Representing Vermont in the Senate for nearly 50 years will teach you how to fight like hell for the little guy. As the second smallest state by population, I worked hard to ensure that Vermont’s voice wasn’t drowned out by the larger states or the louder voices. That’s the same mentality I brought to the Judiciary Committee, where one of my top priorities was leveling the playing field in the world of intellectual property, especially for America’s small businesses and entrepreneurs.That’s why I find the new proposed rules from the U.S. Patent and Trademark (USPTO) so concerning: they could wipe out much of the progress we made on behalf of the small innovators in our patent system.Intellectual property is the backbone of our economy. Since our founding, our patent system has allowed the U.S. to grow into the greatest economic power in the world. At its best, our patent system incentivizes innovation, drives economic growth, fosters competition, and pr...

Top tips to make your resume more ATS-friendly

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:00 GMT

Job searches are often described as akin to looking for a needle in a haystack. That could be even more so in the digital age, an era when online job boards feature hundreds, if not thousands, of listings. Sifting through those listings can be time-consuming and force job seekers to wonder if their resume will even be seen.Conventional wisdom regarding resumes may no longer apply. A resume can still be a useful asset, but job seekers must recognize the game has changed, specifically in regard to how resume submissions are received and reviewed. Many companies now use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to sift through resume submissions before they ever land in the inbox or on the desk of an actual human being.Because ATS is so popular, job seekers would be wise to embrace strategies to make their resume more ATS-friendly to increase the chances the document finds its way to a hiring manager.The right keywords can help get a resume seen. Though a resume was once viewed as a tool that a...

Lowell Folk Festival boasts diverse, delightful lineup

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:00 GMT

Folk is Joan Baez in Harvard Square in 1960. And Robert Johnson at the crossroads in 1932. And Portuguese fado singer Sara Correia at the Lowell Folk Festival next week.Folk is the biggest, strangest and most diverse genre in the world. Probably because it isn’t a single genre but a million crisscrossing styles, inventions and reinventions. The Lowell Folk Festival brings a couple dozen of these styles to Mill City July 28-30 (for free!).Don’t know where to start? Start here or here or here or…Fred ThomasFunk is folk. And Fred Thomas is funk. The bassist cut his teeth, grew more, and cut them again holding down the low end for James Brown for over three decades. That’s Thomas on “The Payback” and “Make It Funky” and a score more ’70s staples. Now leading his own seven-piece band, Thomas will make you feel good, so good, so good.Hot Club of CowtownSomewhere between Django Reinhardt’s gypsy swing and Bob Wills’ Texas swing, this trio thrives. Come for Whit Smith’s hot licks, sta...

Editorial: Bidenomics is just tired liberalism on steroids

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:00 GMT

The White House wallowed in a bit of good news recently when the Labor Department revealed that inflation in June had cooled to its lowest pace — 3% — in more than two years. Still, Fed officials have signaled that another rate hike is coming because they don’t want to overreact to a single month’s improvement.President Joe Biden took the news as a validation of his economic policies, which is like the arsonist offering a bow after the massive blaze he started has been 50% contained. Despite recent progress, inflation remains higher than the Fed target rate of 2% and more than double what it was when Biden entered the White House. Administration officials would prefer not to talk about how the rate ever climbed beyond 9% in the first place, the highest in four decades.“Prices are going up at a slower rate overall, the good news is that things are not getting worse for American consumers,” Leo Feler, chief economist at the research firm Numerator, told The Wall Street Journal. “But t...

Dear Abby: Attraction simmers on pickleball court

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:00 GMT

Dear Abby: I play pickleball with a nice group of people. Partners normally split after each game. One day, however, a woman told me I was her favorite partner. From that day on, she played with me as often as possible, even though she could have chosen partners who were better players than me, and won more games.Abby, she is the most attractive woman I have ever met, and not just physically — she’s smart, friendly, athletic, caring, supportive and really fun to play with. I’m not used to having women like her pay attention to me, and it feels great. She’s married, but I can’t help having a crush on her, a feeling I’m pretty sure is not mutual — and therefore not appropriate — yet I think about her all the time.How can I get over this feeling? Should I tell her I have a crush on her, which would probably drive her away? Should I quit being her partner? Or should I just keep everything the same and hope the attraction gradually fades? I...

Voice of popular Pokémon character gives shoutout to San Diego

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:00 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- "Pikachu, I choose you" is a popular line among Pokémon fans around the world.Well, that Pokémon nostalgia was brought back to life from Veronica Taylor, who voiced Ash Ketchum on the popular television series.Taylor signed autographs at the DCDcollects booth during Comic-Con at the San Diego Convention Center, which featured thousands of fans throughout the week. Comic-Con 2023 comes to a close While in San Diego, Taylor decided to visit Ash Street by Waterfront Park, where she filmed herself getting into character."Look, they named a street after me, probably because I'm a Pokémon master," Taylor said in her Ash Ketchum voice. "Thanks, San Diego, and thank you, San Diego Comic-Con, I choose you!" Taylor also thanked all the Pokémon fans who came to visit her on her social media."We had a blast and can’t wait for next year," she said.

They’re the names you don’t know. Hollywood’s ‘journeyman’ actors explain why they are striking

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Jason Kravits gets a lot of this: People recognize him – they’re just not sure how. “I’m that guy who looks like the guy you went to high school with,” says Kravits. “People think they’ve just seen me somewhere.”Actually, they have — on TV, usually as a lawyer, or a doctor. “I’ve had enough roles that I’ve been in your living room on any given night,” the veteran actor says. “But mostly people don’t know my name.”Kravits is one of those actors union leaders refer to as “journeymen” — who tend to work for scale pay, and spend at least as much time lining up work as working. They can have a great year, then a bad one, without much rhyme or reason. “We’re always on the verge of struggling,” says Kravits.And they, not the big Hollywood names joining the picket lines, are the heart of the actors’ strike. Many say they fear the general public thinks all actors get paid handsomely and are doing it for love of the craft, almost as a hobby. Yet in most cases it’s their ...

Jesuits confirm expulsion of priest artist, and lament Vatican norms preclude further sanction

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:00 GMT

ROME (AP) — The Jesuits said Monday that a famous artist priest is definitively expelled from the religious order for sexually, spiritually and psychologically abusing women, and lamented they couldn’t prosecute him more vigorously under the Vatican’s internal procedures.The Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik remains a Catholic priest but is no longer a Jesuit priest, after he didn’t appeal his June expulsion decree, said Rupnik’s former superior, the Rev. Johan Verschueren.Rupnik, a Slovenian priest, is one of the most celebrated religious artists in the Catholic Church. His mosaics decorate churches and basilicas around the world, including at the Vatican.Late last year, the Jesuits acknowledged Rupnik had been accused by several women of sexual, spiritual and psychological abuse over a 30-year period. He had largely escaped punishment until then, apparently thanks in part to his exalted status in the church and at the Vatican, where even Pope Francis’ role in the case came into q...

Fukushima plant water release within weeks raises worries about setbacks to businesses, livelihoods

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:00 GMT

IWAKI, Japan (AP) — Beach season has started across Japan, which means seafood for holiday makers and good times for business owners. But in Fukushima, that may end soon.Within weeks, the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is expected to start releasing treated radioactive wastewater into the sea, a highly contested plan still facing fierce protests in and outside Japan.The residents worry that the water discharge 12 years after the nuclear disaster could deal another setback to Fukushima’s image and hurt their businesses and livelihoods.“Without a healthy ocean, I cannot make a living.” said Yukinaga Suzuki, a 70-year-old innkeeper at Usuiso beach in Iwaki about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the plant. And the government has yet to announce when the water release will begin. It’s not yet clear whether, or how, damaging the release will be. But residents say they feel “shikataganai” — meaning helpless. Suzuki has requested officials to hold the p...