The ‘Whimpering’ Terrorist Only Trump Seems to Have Heard

By BY PETER BAKER AND ERIC SCHMITT from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/33eFwsY

As Government Officials Testify Against Trump, Critics Question Why an Author Stays Anonymous

By BY ANNIE KARNI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2WzQKWd

Guantánamo Testimony Details Initial Handling of Prisoners Accused of Plotting 9/11

By BY CAROL ROSENBERG from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/32dFG2s

Facial recognition software has a gender problem

Facial recognition software has a gender problem

A glance at a face doesn't always tell the right story
More at https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=299486&WT.mc_id=USNSF_1

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Galapagos sea life study highlights importance of biodiversity in the face of climate change

Galapagos sea life study highlights importance of biodiversity in the face of climate change

Mobile species and diverse ecological communities may be more resilient to environmental challenges
More at https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=299487&WT.mc_id=USNSF_1

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Study uncovers magnetic memory of European glass eels

Study uncovers magnetic memory of European glass eels

Researchers find first evidence of fish with magnetic memory of water currents
More at https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=299488&WT.mc_id=USNSF_1

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Word + Quiz: unhinged

By BY THE LEARNING NETWORK from NYT The Learning Network https://ift.tt/3377gzk

New top story from Time: Most Americans Don’t Want to Adjust Their Clocks Twice a Year, a Poll Finds

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Most people across the country will see their clocks roll back an hour this weekend as nearly eight months of daylight saving time come to an end. It is part of a twice-a-year ritual that most want to stop.

Seven in 10 Americans prefer not to switch back and forth to mark daylight saving time, a new poll shows. But there’s no agreement on which time clocks ought to follow.

According to the new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 4 in 10 Americans would like to see their clocks stay on standard time year-round, while about 3 in 10 prefer to stay on daylight saving time. About another 3 in 10 prefer what is the status quo in most of the United States, switching back and forth between daylight saving time in the summer and standard time in the winter.

At least seven state legislatures have backed asking Congress to allow year-round daylight saving time in the past few years — and about 60% of California voters supported a ballot proposition last year calling for such a move.

Arguments about whether later sunsets or earlier sunrises are better for business or safety aren’t what matter to some people. Jason Oliver, a 43-year-old retired soldier from Rolla, Missouri, is among those who see the clock changes as just “messing things up” and he doesn’t really care which time gets picked.

“To me, I don’t see the need to keep flip flopping between times,” Oliver said.

The sun-splashed states of Hawaii and Arizona are the only ones where clocks won’t change at 2 a.m. local time Sunday, while most others have done the “spring forward” and “fall back” switches since Congress passed the Uniform Time Act in 1966.

Indiana joined them for more than three decades as a time-change holdout until 2006 when legislators by a single vote approved a business-backed push to have all its counties observe daylight saving time.

Sue Dillon became a campaigner for changes to the state’s time choice after a teenager was fatally struck in 2009 while running to catch a school bus in the early morning darkness near her home in the Indianapolis suburb of Carmel.

Dillon, a former junior high teacher, maintains Indiana’s current sunrise times of 8 a.m. or later during some of the fall and winter are unsafe for children and others walking along roadways. She’s campaigned for Indiana to switch from the Eastern time zone to Central so sunrises will come earlier — and believes year-round adoption of daylight saving time would be awful for people living on the western edges of the U.S. time zones.

“Sunrise at 9 in the morning?” Dillon said. “The problem is that the children are out when it is dangerous. That is absolutely inexcusable.”

That sunlight hours debate is already going on in much of the country.

Florida’s governor in March signed what was dubbed the “Sunshine Protection Act” to keep the Sunshine State on daylight saving time all year long, even though the Florida PTA warned it would endanger students. Supporters argued that winter sunsets about 6:30 p.m., rather than the current 5:30, could give an economic boost with tourists staying later at theme parks and beaches.

Alabama lawmakers have backed a resolution to “forever put an end to the deadly, energy-wasting, productivity-killing, twice-yearly changing of time.” Neighboring Tennessee has taken a similar stance.

Bills to ditch time changes have also passed in Oregon and Washington, so with the support of California’s voters the West Coast is fully on board with permanent daylight saving time.

Even President Donald Trump has weighed in, tweeting in March that making daylight saving time permanent is “O.K. with me!”

Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Vern Buchanan, both of Florida, have introduced measures in Congress to make daylight saving time permanent nationwide but no action has been taken on them.

The AP-NORC poll found about 4 in 10 Americans ages 45 and over prefer permanent daylight saving, compared with about 2 in 10 of those younger. The younger group is more likely than the older to prefer either standard time year round (44% to 36 or switching back and forth (33% to 24%).

The twice-a-year clock changes don’t bother Chantelle Breaux, a 34-year-old stay-at-home mom from Lafayette, Louisiana.

Breaux said people know what to expect and that the common complaint about being tired after losing an hour’s sleep when time “springs forward” are exaggerated. She said she focuses on proper bedtimes for her 9- and 12-year-old children regardless of the sunrise and sunset times.

“Mother nature is not on human time so it’s going to be lighter if it wants to be lighter,” Breaux said. “You are not really losing anything.”

New top story from Time: The Pentagon Is Awaiting a Possible Challenge from Amazon over a $10 Billion Cloud Deal

Amazon must decide soon if it will protest the Pentagon’s awarding of a $10 billion cloud computing contract to rival Microsoft, with one possible grievance being the unusual attention given the project by President Donald Trump.

Amazon was long thought to be the front-runner in the competition for the huge military contract. Its Amazon Web Services division is far ahead of second-place Microsoft as the market leader for cloud computing and has experience handling highly classified government data. It survived earlier legal challenges after the Defense Department eliminated rival bidders Oracle and IBM and whittled the competition down to the two Seattle area tech giants before choosing Microsoft last week.

And what else distinguishes the losing bidder? Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post, have been frequent targets of Trump’s criticism.

The Pentagon was preparing to make its final decision when Trump publicly waded into the fray in July, saying he had heard complaints about the process and that the administration would “take a very long look.” He said other companies told him that the contract “wasn’t competitively bid.” Oracle, in particular, had argued that Pentagon officials unfairly favored Amazon for the winner-take-all contract.

The comments from Trump were “inappropriate and improvident,” though it would be a challenge for Amazon to prove the White House applied undue pressure in a way that made a difference, said Steven Schooner, a professor of government procurement law at George Washington University.

Then again, given Trump’s known antipathy toward the company, Schooner said Amazon may not have much to lose in picking a fight.

Amazon didn’t return requests for comment about its next steps.

The clock is now ticking. Amazon has the right to ask the Pentagon to debrief the company on what led it to pick Microsoft instead.

The Pentagon declined to comment this week on the specifics of the debriefing process and whether it has already started. It has previously said that the competition for the 10-year contract was fair and followed procurement guidelines.

Dana Deasy, the Pentagon’s acting chief information officer, reiterated that position in a Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday after Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent, asked Deasy if he could “categorically assure us” that Trump didn’t influence the contract’s ultimate disposition.

Deasy said the procurement team was compartmentalized and he was confident that team members “that actually took the source selection” were not influenced by the White House. The White House declined comment this week.

If Amazon is not satisfied with the government’s explanation, it can file a formal protest with the Government Accountability Office, which then has 100 days to review the case. Amazon could also separately take its dispute to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

“If you’re Amazon, you want to get into some sort of discovery phase to evaluate if there was political influence or not,” said Mike Hettinger, a tech industry lobbyist focused on federal contracting who doesn’t work for Amazon or its rival bidders.

Hettinger expects the company to file some form of protest.

“Most people in industry believed it was Amazon’s to lose because of its technical superiority,” he said. “Everyone’s paid outsized attention to this, but it’s obviously an important award.”

The project, known as Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, will store and process vast amounts of classified data, allowing the U.S. military to use artificial intelligence to speed up its war planning and fighting capabilities.

Microsoft said it brought its “best efforts” to the Pentagon’s rigorous evaluations and appreciates that it was chosen. It is still in the final stages of getting the accreditation required to handle the government’s most sensitive classified data — something Amazon had already achieved.

“We are committed to meeting all the requirements of JEDI,” said Toni Townes-Whitley, a Microsoft executive, in a statement Thursday.

What’s on TV Friday: ‘Dickinson’ and ‘American Son’

By BY GABE COHN from NYT Arts https://ift.tt/335wUEP