Good headline from NBC from last week:
The [Washington state] sheriff’s spokesman ... said his office “won’t comment on how we conduct surveillance, when we do it or when we will attempt to make an arrest after that person is in custody.”
...
“By printing this story all the news agencies are basically telling the woman to continue avoiding us and tipping her off that we conducted surveillance on her,” he said.
(I think she's now in custody.)
Curbed interviewed an expert:
They’ve been left unchecked for decades and then you’re adding more vehicles, which weigh a lot more than they used to. Additionally, these buildings are under a significant amount of use. They’re largely open to the elements. They’re often damaged.
...
You warn that cars in the U.K. are getting heavier due to the increased weight of EVs. But here in the U.S. we have much heavier SUVs already that are also going electric: In the U.S. over the last 20 years, vehicle weight has increased 22 percent to an average of 4,156 pounds. In this instance, we have a building that went up in 1925, then was converted in 1957 to a parking garage. It was clearly not engineered for today’s cars. What are those heavier vehicles doing to a building over time?
It’s putting an increased amount of vertical load on these buildings, without any doubt. But the other thing to be aware of is the increase in block parking. So the car park will have been laid out for traditional parking: cars being parked in bays with an access aisle. If the cars are block parked, not only is the car on average heavier than the original design load, but there’s more of them in the areas not designed for it.
(Sounds like there were also some possible problems with adequate inspection and follow-up at the particular structure in New York.)
Really long article at the LAT about how criminal defense can become a big business even in a state that offers free representation at trial, appeal, and other proceedings:
He became a celebrity inside prisons, his name passed around in exercise yards from Folsom to Calipatria, and in Facebook support groups for wives and children. Families of limited means borrowed against their homes, took out high-interest loans, dipped into 401(k)s, worked double shifts, ran public fundraisers and amassed credit card debt to pay [the attorney] fees that could run north of $40,000.
A Times investigation found that [the attorney] built a booming enterprise by fanning false hopes in some families desperate to get their loved ones home. He encouraged people to spring for pricey legal services that he knew or should have known had little or no chance of success, the newspaper found.
He told families of men incarcerated for murder and other violent crimes that progressive L.A. Dist. Atty. George Gascón could move to free them in less than a year under one new resentencing law. None of [the attorney]’s attempts, for which families paid about $10,000 each, appear to have been successful, and Gascón’s office told The Times it generally does not consider such offenders to be good candidates for resentencing.
...
In another example, [the attorney] presented a commutation from the governor, which experts say is a long shot for even the most rehabilitated of candidates, as “a very real possibility for all types of inmates.” Hundreds paid up to $14,000 for him to submit applications. None has been granted, The Times found
...
The Times found that [the attorney]’s firm relied on the work of some low-paid contract lawyers who were not licensed in California and had little or no experience in criminal appeals. Among those helping draft legal memos and court filings were lawyers from the Philippines and other developing countries making about $10 an hour.
...
The new laws are designed so that prisoners who qualify get free legal representation.
This extraordinary collection celebrates the dazzling worldbuilding of Iain M. Banks, one of the most important and influential writers in modern science fiction. Banks created many original drawings detailing the universe of his bestselling Culture novels. Now these illustrations are being published for the very first time in a book that celebrates Banks' grand vision.Faithfully reproduced from notebooks kept in the 1970s and 80s, these annotated original illustrations depict the ships, habitats, geography, weapons and language of Banks’ Culture series of novels in incredible detail.
Generational liar https://t.co/WVmkvl82Pc
— Gifdsports (@gifdsports) April 20, 2023
Just to be clear, because as of 10 minutes ago this is now an immense source of shame, that I didn't pay for Twitter Blue, and Bellingcat got the official organisation status for free.
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) April 20, 2023
I briefly paid for Blue earlier this year to check something out I needed to confirm. I immediately canceled. The subscription expired on Feb. 18, 2023. Yet Twitter would like you to believe that I am a continued Blue subscriber. That's not true. pic.twitter.com/N6eXQRY3Pr
— Sarah Perez - please use Signal not DMs (@sarahintampa) April 20, 2023
I keep thinking Elon is gonna run out of ways to take Ls on this platform, and I keep being wrong https://t.co/5sllM7f8oJ
— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) April 20, 2023