SoylentNews

United States elections, 2018

Maine's ranked-choice voting will be used in a federal general election for the first time, after previously using it in the primary system.

Live coverage at FiveThirtyEight, CNN, NBC, WSJ, Fox, CBSN (video), and Ballotpedia.

2018 Ballot measures

Update: Democrats have taken the House of Representatives, while Republicans have retained control of the Senate.

takyon writes:

Three Explosive Devices Sent to Clintons, Obama and CNN Offices

Explosive devices were sent to former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as to CNN's offices in New York, sparking an intense investigation on Wednesday into whether a bomber is going after targets that have often been the subject of right-wing ire.

A law enforcement official said the three devices were similar to one found Monday at the home of George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist and liberal donor.

[...] The device sent to CNN was contained in a manila envelope addressed to John Brennan, who was the C.I.A. director in the Obama administration and is a harsh critic of Mr. Trump. The president revoked Mr. Brennan's security clearance in what was seen as an act of retribution. The return address bore the name of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida congresswoman who formerly headed the Democratic National Committee.

In a statement, the White House condemned "the attempted violent attacks."

Update 1: The explosive devices have been described as pipe bombs. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says that a device was also sent to his office.

Update 2:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's spokesman has identified the device sent to his office, originally believed to be suspicious, as a thumb drive containing files on the far right group Proud Boys. It does not appear to be related to the explosive devices.

[...] Another suspicious package has been intercepted at a Congressional mail screening facility in Capitol Heights, Maryland, according to CNN. [...] ABC News reported the package was addressed to Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat.

Live updates at The Guardian.

Original Submission

martyb writes:

I first learned of GitHub having problems from a story on Hacker News. Since SoylentNews hosts its code there, I was curious as to what was going on. If it was indeed down, I wanted to pass the word on to the rest of the SoylentNews community.

The comments on that story suggested that GitHub read access was working okay (and a very quick check on my part of our code there confirmed that), but attempts to make changes are failing.

That's strange.

Then I took a look at GitHub's Status Page, where I found something even stranger... how they phrased their status messages! Take a look:

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

22:42 Eastern Standard Time
We continue to repair a data storage system for GitHub.com. You may see inconsistent results during this process.
22:23 Eastern Standard Time
We are continuing to repair a data storage system for GitHub.com. You may see inconsistent results during this process.
22:01 Eastern Standard Time
We continue work to repair a data storage system for GitHub.com. You may see inconsistent results during this process.
21:41 Eastern Standard Time
We are continuing to work to migrate a data storage system in order to restore access to GitHub.com.
21:22 Eastern Standard Time
We continue to work to migrate a data storage system in order to restore access to GitHub.com.
21:02 Eastern Standard Time
We continue to migrate a data storage system in order to restore full access to GitHub.com.
20:43 Eastern Standard Time
We continue to work on migrating a data storage system in order to restore access to GitHub.com.
20:23 Eastern Standard Time
We're continuing to work on migrating a data storage system in order to restore access to GitHub.com.
20:05 Eastern Standard Time
We're failing over a data storage system in order to restore access to GitHub.com.
19:43 Eastern Standard Time
We're investigating problems accessing GitHub.com.
19:13 Eastern Standard Time
We are investigating reports of service unavailability.
19:09 Eastern Standard Time

Seems to me someone on GitHub once spent a little too much time exploring mazes in Colossal Cave. Will they be able to fix the problem before they run out of permutations?

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Just weeks after hurricane Florence battered the US southeast with historic rains and flooding, another major hurricane is now bearing down on the Florida panhandle with 145 mph (~240 kph) winds and heavy rains forecast. From Ars Technica:

Hurricane Michael continued to intensify during Tuesday night, bringing an unprecedentedly strong storm to the northwest Florida coast on Wednesday. This is a serious situation for the Florida Panhandle and downstream areas in southeastern Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas.

As of the National Hurricane Center's 9am ET update, Michael had 145mph sustained winds, solidly in the range of a Category-4 major hurricane. Winds along the Florida coast were already rising above tropical storm strength at the time, all but closing the window for further evacuations as the storm nears shore and moves inland later today.

Perhaps most concerning, Michael's central pressure continued to fall during the overnight hours, down to 933 millibars by Wednesday morning. This is an indication of the storm's organization, and with Michael's satellite appearance actually improving as the storm approaches land, some slight further intensification is possible today before landfall near Panama City. If Michael's central pressure falls further, to 930 millibars, it would rank among the 10 most intense hurricanes to make landfall in the US on record in terms of central pressure.

Meteorologists are reacting to the rapidly intensifying storm with some measure of alarm. Mike Bettes, a meteorologist with The Weather Channel, noted on Twitter Wednesday morning that his crew was pulling out of Apalachicola, a small coastal community to the right of Michael's projected landfall that will likely bear the brunt of the storm's winds and surge.

If you are in the path of this storm, please take whatever measures necessary to keep yourself safe.

Original Submission

Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The vote was 50-48 in favor of Kavanaugh.

Senators Collins, Flake, and Manchin had already announced their intentions to confirm Kavanaugh before the vote was held. Senator Lisa Murkowski, who was previously ready to vote "no", agreed to vote "present" instead so that Senator Steve Daines could attend his daughter's wedding instead of being present in the Senate to support Kavanaugh.

SCOTUSBlog: Kavanaugh confirmed as 114th justice
Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court

Previously: SCOTUS's Justice Anthony Kennedy to Retire
President Trump Nominates Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court
Trump's Supreme Court Pick: ISPs Have 1st Amendment Right to Block Websites

urza9814 writes:

An estimated 60 to 80 fires, 3 explosions, and numerous gas leaks were reported last night in the towns around Lawrence, MA (north of Boston). The incident has been linked to lines operated by Columbia Gas of Massachusetts. Columbia Gas has not released an official cause yet, but MEMA (The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency) and some of the local firefighters have speculated that the cause was an over-pressurized gas line. Columbia was conducting planned upgrades on the lines at the time of the incident. One person has been killed; 25 more have been injured.

I was listening to the fire radio as it happened and it sounded like complete chaos -- it was just the dispatch, but there was not a single moment of silence as they scrambled to get crews to all of the affected areas and coordinate the response across four separate towns (Lawrence, Andover, North Andover, and Methuen.) The local first responders were initially asking residents to shut off their gas lines; this quickly changed to calls for all Columbia Gas customers to evacuate, which then increased to an order for immediate evacuation of the entire area. Overnight police and fire officials were going door-to-door enforcing the evacuation, and it is not known at this time when residents may be allowed to return. The electric service has been shut down to the entire area to limit possible sources of ignition, and officials have stated there are over 8000 homes which need to be individually inspected before the residents can return.

So far, Columbia Gas has not provided any confirmation or explanation of the exact cause of this disaster...but I'm sure we've got some people here who have some speculation to offer...

The local Eagle Tribune has a number of articles with further information, and there's limited coverage in national sources like CNN.

Original Submission

takyon: Florence is currently expected to make landfall in North Carolina during the early morning or afternoon on Friday. There have been mandatory evacuation orders, but they may be widely ignored.

martyb writes:

A category 2 (formerly category 4) hurricane named "Florence" is heading for the eastern coast of the US. This being around the midpoint of the hurricane season, that's not unusual. This hurricane is, however, expected to make landfall much further north than is usual: near the border between the states of North Carolina and South Carolina. As you may recall, Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston, Texas last year with many areas receiving over 40 inches of rain (peak total was 60 inches) over a four-day period. Florence is similar in that there is a high pressure ridge just north of the point of landfall. It is anticipated that this will keep Florence part way over the ocean (picking up additional moisture) and part way over land (dumping copious amounts of rain).

Hurricanes cause damage in three ways: wind damage, storm surge, and rain (flooding).

Let's start with the wind. Recent readings (according to Wikipedia): sustained winds 110 knots (120 mph; 205 km/h) (1-min mean) gusting to 140 knots (150 mph; 250 km/h). (Aerodynamic drag is proportional to the square of the wind velocity. Stick your arm straight out the window of a vehicle travelling at 60 mph. Now take that force and double it. And then double it again. Now imagine that force being applied against something the size of a building. Widespread structural damage is likely.