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Epic’s win over Apple is actually an Apple victory

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The <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22412725/apple-fortnite-epic-antitrust-court-case">great Apple-Epic Games trial</a> about Apple’s control over its own App Store and whether it was an unfair monopoly now has a decision, and it’s not great for Epic Games.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21060631-apple-epic-judgement">ruled</a> in Apple’s favor on almost every count. Epic Games had hoped to prove that the tech giant’s App Store was a monopoly, causing higher prices for consumers and forcing developers to follow all of its rules in order to be allowed on Apple’s mobile devices.
Gonzalez Rogers ruled that the App Store is not a monopoly and that Apple should not be punished for its success. And while the court is forcing Apple to allow developers to tell app users about alternative ways they can pay for subscriptions and in-app purchases — which may seem like (and in some cases, <a href="https://twitter.com/eriqgardner/status/1436380923059187719">was initially reported</a> as) a win for Epic — Apple will be allowed to continue most of the App Store practices Epic was fighting to get it to stop.
“The Court finds in favor of Apple on all counts except with respect to violation of California’s Unfair Competition law (Count Ten) and only partially with respect to its claim for Declaratory Relief,” the judge wrote.
But you don’t have to take her word for it; Epic’s and Apple’s statements also reflect whose side the verdict favored.
“Today’s ruling isn’t a win for developers or for consumers,” Epic CEO Tim Sweeney <a href="https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1436370670166945792">tweeted</a>. “Epic is fighting for fair competition among in-app payment methods and app stores for a billion consumers.”
“The court has affirmed what we’ve known all along: the App Store is not in violation of antitrust law,” Apple said.
A big factor in the decision was the definition of the “market” Apple allegedly had a monopoly over. This was a sticking point in the trial: Apple argued that the market was all gaming platforms; Epic said the market was just Apple’s App Store. Gonzalez Rogers said <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22452154/apple-epic-fortnite-app-store-trial-final-day">during the trial</a> that she thought the market might be all mobile gaming, which would include other mobile platforms and stores like Google Play. And that’s the definition she went with in her ruling. It’s hard to prove that Apple is a monopoly when the judge’s definition of the market also includes its competitors.
The one victory Epic Games did achieve was a limited one: Though Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Apple had to allow developers to show app users links where they can make purchases outside of the App Store (purchases Apple won’t get a cut of), Epic is still not allowed to insert its own payment method in the app itself, nor can it place its own app store on Apple devices.
“This measured remedy will increase competition, increase transparency, increase consumer choice and information while preserving Apple’s iOS ecosystem which has pro-competitive justifications,” the judge wrote.
But Apple had already decided (or was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-says-japan-fair-trade-commission-closes-app-store-investigation-2021-09-02/">strongly</a> <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/08/apple-us-developers-agree-to-app-store-updates/">pressured</a>) a few weeks ago to end its prohibition on telling users they could purchase subscriptions and in-game items outside of the App Store. So this ruling doesn’t really change anything for Apple now, and companies like Epic and Spotify are already <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/8/27/22644616/apple-app-store-changes-antitrust-spotify-epic-fortnite">on record</a> saying the ability to tell customers about their alternatives isn’t good enough.
As for Epic’s other claims, Gonzalez Rogers said the company “overreached” and couldn’t prove that Apple was a monopolist. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Apple isn’t a monopoly, nor that another plaintiff couldn’t make a better argument that it is. Gonzalez Rogers added: “The trial record was not as fulsome with respect to antitrust conduct in the relevant market as it could have been.” The 30 percent commission Apple takes on most subscriptions and in-app purchases, she said, “appears inflated” and was “potentially anticompetitive.” But, since Epic wasn’t challenging the amount of the commission (only the fact that there was one), she wasn’t able to rule on it.
So this one civil lawsuit won’t be the final word on Apple and antitrust. United States lawmakers and regulators, as well as those in several other countries, are pressuring Apple to change what they see as possible violations of their antitrust laws. Apple is one of several Big Tech companies included in the Biden administration’s big antitrust push, which includes <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/6/15/22398320/federal-trade-commission-lina-khan-chair-big-tech-antitrust-competition-law-amazon">appointing</a> Big Tech critic Lina Khan to the chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The issue is bipartisan, too: Republican and <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/10/6/21505027/congress-big-tech-antitrust-report-facebook-google-amazon-apple-mark-zuckerberg-jeff-bezos-tim-cook">Democratic</a> lawmakers are vocal Big Tech opponents and have <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22529779/antitrust-bills-house-big-tech">started to</a> introduce new antitrust bills targeting it, while state attorneys general <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/12/16/22179085/google-antitrust-monopoly-state-lawsuit-ad-tech-search-facebook">teamed up</a> to <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/7/7/22567656/google-play-store-states-antitrust-suit-letitia-james-utah-new-york-north-carolina">sue Google</a> for antitrust violations multiple times in the last year. Facebook has also been sued for antitrust violations by the FTC and almost every state — though the state attorneys general’s version of the suit was <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/6/28/22554634/ftc-states-antitrust-cases-against-facebook-federal-court-dismissed-for-now">thrown out</a>.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who has made antitrust in Big Tech one of her major issues, said the ruling showed that more antitrust laws were needed.
“App stores raise serious competition concerns,” Klobuchar said in a statement. “While the ruling addresses some of those concerns, much more must be done. We need to pass federal legislation on app store conduct to protect consumers, promote competition, and foster innovation.”
Spotify, which has been a vocal opponent of Apple’s App Store and <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/4/30/22407918/eu-european-commission-apple-spotify-app-store">complained about it</a> to the European Union’s antitrust enforcement commission, said it was pleased with the part of the ruling that said Apple’s conduct was anti-competitive and barred its anti-steering rule, and hoped it would lead to more decisions like this.
“This and other developments around the world show that there is strong need and momentum for legislation to address these and many other unfair practices, which are designed to hurt competition and consumers,” Spotify’s head of global affairs and chief legal officer Horacio Gutierrez said in a statement.
As for <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/8/13/21366340/fortnite-epic-apple-app-store-ios-antitrust">Epic’s stunt</a> that kicked all of this off — putting a direct payment system in Fortnite that was in violation of the App Store rules, which got it booted from iOS and macOS devices — the judge ruled in Apple’s favor. Not only did she declare that Apple’s decision to terminate its agreement with Epic was “valid, lawful, and enforceable,” she also ordered Epic to pay Apple damages: 30 percent of the revenue it collected through the forbidden direct payment system from its August 2020 installation to the present day.
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source <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22666897/apple-epic-trial-verdict">https://www.vox.com/recode/22666897/apple-epic-trial-verdict</a>

vox Epic’s win over Apple is actually an Apple victory

The great Apple-Epic Games trial about Apple’s control over its own App Store and whether it was an unfair monopoly now has a decision, an...

In defense of the “gentrification building”

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Update, 2:05 pm: The Camden, New Jersey, TikTok video discussed in this article was deleted shortly after the article was originally published the morning of September 10.
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“It’s hard to describe, but you know it when you see it. Gentrification building!”
The audio blared at the end of a since-deleted <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@kahleahnee/video/6922555504199765254">TikTok video</a> depicting a gray, white, and green modern-style building in Camden, New Jersey. The video, captioned “honestly so ugly,” had racked up a million views before it was deleted. The comments railed against gentrification: “It displaces the natives of the community,” the creator wrote, while another commenter said that “the corner store run by a family will be overtaken by Starbucks in no time.”
The video is emblematic of a larger trend, one that looks at boxy, modern, often multifamily homes as the culprits of <a href="https://www.vox.com/22629826/gentrification-definition-housing-racism-segregation-cities">gentrification</a>, displacement, and potentially violent cultural shifts in a neighborhood. The gentrification hashtag on TikTok is full of posts criticizing modern homes for mostly aesthetic reasons. In cities from <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@nychighlife/video/6961395676009729286">New York</a> to <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@avocadolattejuullacroix/video/6972753011110153478">Philadelphia</a> to <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@salinedrops/video/6924755875932409094">Toronto</a> to <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@feministlandwhale/video/6988735485409561861">San Francisco</a>, TikTok users record these properties and then overlay the videos — which have collectively earned millions of views — with audio such as the JoJo song “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggWyUEuGcWY">Leave (Get Out)</a>.” The message is the same warning: If these buildings go up in your neighborhood, displacement is just around the corner.
Displacement, the disappearance of cultural landmarks, inequality in our cities — these are very serious issues that policymakers should be working on day in and day out.
That discussion of gentrification is instead frequently diverted to what the buildings look like is a massive coup on behalf of existing property owners. Those current owners often want to maintain aesthetic control, sometimes as a means of blocking new homes from being built (experts have found that <a href="https://www.sightline.org/2017/12/19/when-historic-preservation-clashes-with-housing-affordability/">historic preservation is often</a> weaponized to prevent new, more affordable housing options).
It is fine to dislike the way a home looks; not all art is for everyone. But the convergence of aesthetic preferences and physical displacement under the same “gentrification” banner only serves to maintain the current system of housing development, one that has made housing prohibitively expensive for many Americans and displaced people under countless different architectural styles.
The problem with this conflation became clear when I looked into the building depicted in the aforementioned Camden TikTok video. Branch Village isn’t a “gentrification building.” It’s actually an affordable housing project funded in part by low-income housing tax credits. According to the Courier-Post, <a href="https://www.courierpostonline.com/story/news/local/south-jersey/2019/10/01/camden-officials-mark-next-phase-branch-village-redevelopment-centerville-affordable-housing-nj/3829860002/">the project’s second phase</a> included the construction of 75 townhomes, all of which “will be considered affordable, accessible to those making less than 80 percent of the area’s median income.” Per an affordable housing <a href="https://affordablehousingonline.com/housing-search/New-Jersey/Camden/Branch-Village-Townhomes/10067689">database</a>, the development now has 245 units.
Despite the primary concern of gentrification usually being the displacement of low-income residents, the top two comments on the Camden video, which collectively received 76,000 “likes,” were stylistic complaints: “why is it ALWAYS h&r block green, and “they really had to pick the worst colors didn’t they?”
This is common in gentrification discourse. People want to use a word that evokes visuals of marginalized communities being displaced, either through evictions, rising prices, or even violent displacement. But, after prodding, the actual concern is artistic. The rhetorical sleight of hand is not always intentional. For many, the concepts of “new, modern buildings” and “displacement” have simply become inextricable. But the confusion around how the word gentrification is being used has real policy consequences: If people believe that new buildings work against housing affordability, they will oppose the very policies necessary to solve the nation’s housing affordability crisis.
Disdain for modern architecture isn’t new. In his book The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn: Gentrification and the Search for Authenticity in Postwar New York, Suleiman Osman traces the recent history of neighborhood change in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. The iconic brownstones and neighborhood design people have fought so hard to preserve, under the philosophy that such older buildings represented something more authentic and removed from the modern and capitalist architecture of Manhattan, were once new and “inauthentic” themselves.
The Brooklyn brownstones (which now <a href="https://www.nestseekers.com/sales/brooklyn/brownstone">sell for millions</a>), “were in original design and intention no more or less authentic than a Levittown Cape Cod,” Osman writes. “Brownstones were an architectural trompe l’oeil designed to give a faux sense of historic grandeur. … While they would later be viewed as authentic, contemporaries dismissed brownstones as modern and artificial.”
Many of the comments around the architectural style of new multifamily buildings castigate them for looking like ugly Lego-brick structures, mass produced and phony. These are the very same things people said about what we consider today to be timeless, individualistic, and sturdy infrastructure. In fact, brownstones were “products of the mechanical age,” Osman recounts in his book. “The stone exteriors were poorly built and subject to quick decay ... critics in the nineteenth century decried the mechanical, dehumanizing monotony of brownstone rows. ‘When one has seen one house he has seen them all’ wrote one writer.”
Today, we have the “5 over 1” building — which you will recognize as the quintessential “gentrification building.” In 2018, Curbed <a href="https://archive.curbed.com/2018/12/4/18125536/real-estate-modern-apartment-architecture">detailed</a> how the seemingly ubiquitous design is itself “a symbol of today’s housing problems: a lack of developable land; <a href="https://www.curbed.com/2018/6/19/17476360/housing-market-rebound-inequality-harvard-state-of-nations-housing">rising land, material, and labor costs</a>; and an acute need to find more affordable places for people to live.”
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The buildings themselves are an effort to fit within the small niches made available by local building and zoning codes. According to [Richard Mohler, an associate professor of architecture at the University of Washington], due to height limits and safety/fire requirements, most of these structures are what’s known as “5 over 1” or “one-plus-five”: wood-framed construction, which contain apartments and is known as Type 5 in the <a href="https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IBC2015/chapter-6-types-of-construction">International Building Code</a>, over a concrete base, which usually contains retail or commercial space, or parking structures, known as Type 1. Some codes also mandate a modulated facade, or varying exteriors across adjacent buildings to avoid repetition.
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It’s also just “the cheapest way to build an apartment”:
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In this case, that’s light-frame wood construction, which often uses flat windows that are easy to install; a process called rainscreen cladding to create the skin of the building; as well as Hardie panels, a facade covering made from fiber cement. ...
“Since we’re facing a housing affordability crisis, it makes a certain amount of sense to build a building as affordably as we can,” says Mohler.
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And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with America’s housing: There simply aren’t enough homes where people want or need to live. The only way to get more affordable housing is to build more, of all kinds.
It is easy to defend a 100 percent affordable housing development like Branch Village in Camden, New Jersey. But even new buildings that service higher-income people are an anti-displacement tool. When higher-income residents look for housing, they have two options: Either new housing will be built for them or they’ll bid up the price of existing housing, pricing out current residents.
It can feel counterintuitive: People begin to see new entrants and fearing the neighborhood will become too expensive for them to afford, they oppose new buildings, hoping that will stop the changes, but it doesn’t work.
Economist Evan Mast <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094119021000656">identified</a> “52,000 residents of new multifamily buildings in large cities, their previous address, the current residents of those addresses, and so on for six rounds” in an effort to show “how new market-rate construction loosens the market for lower-quality housing.” He found that such construction projects free up homes in below-median-income neighborhoods, providing for more affordable housing and reducing competition for lower-income residents. The implication is also that many higher-income residents are pricing out lower-income residents because there is an undersupply of market-rate housing.
If you don’t build enough of something, the only people who will get anything are rich people. Reflexively opposing new buildings doesn’t protect neighborhoods from gentrification but actually increases a neighborhood’s exclusivity.
Moreover, that discourse can be co-opted by people who actually oppose more affordable housing. While many who conflate modern buildings with gentrification operate in good faith, the fusion of the progressive desire to stop displacement and new buildings allows regressive anti-housing activists to use the same message to fight important pro-housing legislation. One clear example of this is Livable California, a group that has <a href="https://www.livablecalifornia.org/california-state-legislation-bills-2021-livable-california/">repeatedly</a> <a href="https://www.livablecalifornia.org/special-report-california-yimby-scott-wiener-and-big-techs-troubling-housing-push/">used</a> the language of anti-gentrification to fight sensible and modest housing-production bills in the state.
“It’s very hard to distinguish in any given situation what is a legitimate opposition to urban development on gentrification grounds,” Jake Anbinder, a PhD candidate in American history at Harvard, told Vox.
Artists, architects, and regular people alike should feel free to continue having aesthetic debates, but couching these concerns in the language of gentrification and displacement is misguided and harmful to the low-income tenants who need protection.
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source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22650806/gentrification-affordable-housing-low-income-housing">https://www.vox.com/22650806/gentrification-affordable-housing-low-income-housing</a>

vox In defense of the “gentrification building”

Update, 2:05 pm: The Camden, New Jersey, TikTok video discussed in this article was deleted shortly after the article was originally publi...

Republicans are priming their voters to believe the California recall was stolen

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With polling ahead of California’s gubernatorial recall election showing Democratic Gov. <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/2/22/22291140/gavin-newsom-california-governor-recall-campaign-covid-19-vaccination-school-closure-caitlyn-jenner">Gavin Newsom</a> <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/california-recall-polls/">more likely to survive</a> the Republican effort, GOP elites — including Donald Trump himself — are pivoting to baseless claims about the result being tainted by fraud.
“Well, it’s probably rigged,” the former president claimed on Newsmax on Tuesday in response to a question about strong polling for Newsom. “They’re sending out all ballots. The ballots are mail-out, mail-in ballots.”
“The one thing they’re good at is rigging elections,” Trump continued. “So I predict it’s a rigged election. Let’s see how it turns out.”
Trump’s comments on Newsmax came hours after Tomi Lahren made similar claims on Fox News. Notably, on neither network did this evidence-free conspiracy theory meet any pushback.
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With Gavin Newsom currently up double digits in recall polls, Fox News' Tomi Lahren declares that "the only thing that will save Gavin Newsom is voter fraud."
The rest of the Fox panel just smiles and nods along with her. <a href="https://t.co/k6eoNfsr7b">pic.twitter.com/k6eoNfsr7b</a>
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) <a href="https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1435280701746778122?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 7, 2021</a></blockquote>
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There’s a reason the Trumps and Lahrens of the world aren’t citing any evidence. Ballots are mailed to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/us/the-ease-of-mail-in-voting-may-increase-turnout-in-californias-recall-election.html">every registered active voter</a>, and the system has <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-09/skelton-election-integrity-gop-false-claims-mail-ballots">a number of security measures</a>, including signature verification and barcodes matched to specific voters — making California one of a number of states that have demonstrated that mail voting is safe and secure.
But a lack of evidence hasn’t stopped the apparent frontrunner among the Republican candidates, talk show host Larry Elder, from making an appearance on Fox News and suggesting Democrats are engaging in “<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/elder-urges-supporters-to-report-anything-suspicious-in-california-recall-election">shenanigans</a>” aimed at stealing the election for Newsom.
“The 2020 election, in my opinion, was full of shenanigans. And my fear is they’re going to try that in this election right here and recall,” Elder said on Fox News last Sunday, before urging people to go to his website to report “anything suspicious.”
Elder echoed those comments during a campaign event on Wednesday, teasing a Trump-style effort to use the courts to overturn the election results in the event he loses.
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Larry Elder tonight sounds like he’s going unleash his own kraken after the CA recall: “We have lawyers all set up, all ready to go to file lawsuits. They’re gonna cheat, we know that.”<a href="https://t.co/VQxgMnIt3b">pic.twitter.com/VQxgMnIt3b</a>
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) <a href="https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1435759482466938883?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 9, 2021</a></blockquote>
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It might seem odd that Republicans are getting so worked up about a race against California Democrats, who enjoy a nearly 2-to-1 registration advantage, hold every statewide office, and haven’t lost a statewide election in 15 years. And Newsom, who won 61.9 percent of the vote in 2018, would almost certainly beat Elder in a head-to-head matchup.
But because of <a href="https://www.vox.com/22617048/california-recall-gavin-newsom-larry-elder">the strange design of California’s recall system</a>, Republican control of the governorship is within the realm of possibility. As Shawn Hubler recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/california-recall-election-gavin-newsom.html">explained</a> for the New York Times, Elder could unseat Newsom as governor even if he wins just a fraction of Newsom’s support:
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The ballot asks voters two questions: Should the governor be recalled? And if so, who should be the new governor? If the majority of voters say no to the first question, the second is moot. But if more than 50 percent vote yes, the challenger with the most votes becomes the next governor. Critics of the recall contend this is a major flaw because 49.9 percent of the voters could theoretically vote to keep Mr. Newsom, and he could still lose and be replaced by a challenger whose plurality makes up a far smaller sliver of voters. A legal challenge to this effect is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
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A Suffolk University <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/571328-california-recall-poll-newsom-backed-by-58-percent-of-voters?rl=1">poll</a> released Wednesday found that about 58 percent of registered voters in California say they want Newsom to continue as governor. But questions remain about how many California voters will return ballots for the unusual off-year election, and in a sign of how seriously Democrats are taking the recall, President Joe Biden plans to travel to California to campaign for Newsom the day before the election.
Elder’s campaign has been largely negative. He’s criticized Newsom’s pandemic-related restrictions on businesses and support for vaccine mandates, even though <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/larry-elder-california-recall/2021/09/07/42ea677c-0cdb-11ec-aea1-42a8138f132a_story.html">polling</a> shows Californians support Newsom’s mandate policy by a 2-to-1 majority. Centering his campaign on such an unpopular stance would be a big problem for Elder in a traditional election, but is perhaps less so in a contest where the main order of business is making sure that a majority of those who cast ballots vote to recall the governor.
And if that fails, Republicans and the right-wing media outlets that amplify them have an insurance policy — riling their base with claims about Democratic cheating.
Beyond the idiosyncrasies of California and its unique recall system, the broader importance of Republicans trotting out the same baseless election fraud conspiracy theories as last year is what it says about the existential threat the Trumpified GOP represents to free and fair elections.
It was just over a year ago that <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/11/21358960/trump-mail-voting-sabotage-explained">I first wrote about Trump’s attacks on mail voting</a>. I asked readers to imagine an election night scenario where Trump prematurely <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/trump-fraudulently-declares-victory/">declared victory</a>, citing <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-55009950">purported irregularities</a> with mail-in votes — a scenario that in fact played out months later and, after Trump’s legal options were exhausted, culminated in the January 6 insurrection. Then and now, the problem for Republicans isn’t that mail voting is ripe for fraud — <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/fact-checking-mail-in-voting.html">it isn’t</a> — but that by making it easier for people to vote, they believe (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/us/politics/vote-by-mail.html">perhaps wrongly</a>) that it makes it harder for them to win elections. Instead of trying to broaden their base, Republicans are changing the rules of the game to make it harder for people to vote.
The violence and chaos of the insurrection prompted leading Republicans like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to briefly put <a href="https://www.vox.com/22588475/kevin-mccarthy-january-6-committee-banks-jordan">some daylight</a> between themselves and Trump, but the former president remained popular with the Republican base and is currently the <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/what-polls-say-about-gop-support-trump-amid-2024-presidential-run-rumors-1626047">frontrunner</a> for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
Instead of distancing themselves from his lies about the election, Republicans in a number of states, including Texas and Georgia, have in the months since January passed <a href="https://www.vox.com/22463490/voting-rights-democracy-texas-georgia-suppression-jim-crow-supreme-court-sb7">laws inspired by those lies</a> to restrict voting. Meanwhile, Republicans in Arizona opened a new front on the GOP war on free and fair elections with a partisan “<a href="https://www.vox.com/22609910/maricopa-county-2020-election-audit-final-report-preview">audit</a>” of the 2020 election results that’s likely to soon culminate in a blizzard of misinformation aimed at feeding Trump’s falsehoods.
Unlike Texas, Georgia, and Arizona, California is a blue state where Trump stands next to no chance of winning in 2024. And yet even here, sowing doubt about America’s elections has become part of GOP orthodoxy. That’s bad news for US democracy.
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source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/9/10/22664955/california-recall-election-larry-elder-donald-trump-election-lies-fox-news-newsmax">https://www.vox.com/2021/9/10/22664955/california-recall-election-larry-elder-donald-trump-election-lies-fox-news-newsmax</a>

vox Republicans are priming their voters to believe the California recall was stolen

With polling ahead of California’s gubernatorial recall election showing Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom more likely to survive the Republic...

Jurassic-Era 'Winged Lizard' Unearthed In Chile

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Jurassic-Era 'Winged Lizard' Unearthed In Chile" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-09/qi46ool_pterosaur-fossilafp650_625x300_11_September_21.jpg" title="Jurassic-Era 'Winged Lizard' Unearthed In Chile" /></div>
Dinosaur: The fossils have now been confirmed to be of a rhamphorhynchine pterosaur.
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Santiago:
Chilean scientists have announced the discovery of the first-ever southern hemisphere remains of a type of Jurassic-era "winged lizard" known as a pterosaur.
Fossils of the dinosaur which lived some 160 million years ago in what is today the Atacama desert, were unearthed in 2009.
They have now been confirmed to be of a rhamphorhynchine pterosaur -- the first such creature to be found in Gondwana, the prehistoric supercontinent that later formed the southern hemisphere landmasses.
Researcher Jhonatan Alarcon of the University of Chile said the creatures had a wingspan of up to two meters, a long tail, and pointed snout.
"We show that the distribution of animals in this group was wider than known to date," he added.
The discovery was also "the oldest known pterosaur found in Chile," the scientists reported in the scientific journal Acta Paleontologica Polonic. 
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/dinosaur-fossil-jurassic-era-winged-lizard-unearthed-in-chile-2537086">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/dinosaur-fossil-jurassic-era-winged-lizard-unearthed-in-chile-2537086</a>

news world Jurassic-Era 'Winged Lizard' Unearthed In Chile

Dinosaur: The fossils have now been confirmed to be of a rhamphorhynchine pterosaur. Santiago: Chilean scientists have announced the di...

"Honour And Memoralize": US Pays Tribute To 9/11 Victims On 20th Anniversary Of Attacks

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September 11 attacks: At Ground Zero, some 2,753 people were killed in the initial explosions
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New York:
America marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11 Saturday with solemn ceremonies given added poignancy by the recent chaotic withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and return to power of the Taliban.
Heart-wrenching commemorations will unfold at each of the three sites where 19 Al-Qaeda hijackers -- mostly from Saudi Arabia -- crashed packed airliners, striking the cultural, financial and political hearts of the United States and changing the world forever.
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(Visitors stand before a reflecting pool at the 9/11 memorial commemorating the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York) 
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The memorials come with US troops finally gone from Afghanistan, but national discord -- and for President Joe Biden, political peril -- are overshadowing any sense of closure.
In a video posted on the eve of the anniversary, Biden urged Americans to show unity, "our greatest strength."
"To me, that's the central lesson of September 11th. It's that at our most vulnerable, in the push and pull of all that makes us human, in the battle for the soul of America, unity is our greatest strength," Biden said in a six- minute message from the White House.
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(A general view of the city skyline and the 'Tribute in Light' installation commemorating the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in New York) 
At New York's Ground Zero, where two pools of water now stand where the Twin Towers used to, relatives will read out the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed, in a four-hour-long service starting at 8:30 am (1230 GMT).
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Six moments of silence will be observed, corresponding with the times the two World Trade Center towers were struck, and fell, and the moments the Pentagon was attacked and Flight 93 crashed.
Monica Iken-Murphy, who lost her 37-year-old husband Michael Iken in the World Trade Center, says this will be a "heightened" anniversary for many Americans.
But for her, as for many other survivors, the pain has never wavered.
"I feel like it just happened," she told AFP.
A whole generation has grown up since the morning of September 11, 2001.
In the interim, Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden has been hunted down and killed. A towering new sky scraper has risen over Manhattan, replacing the Twin Towers. And less than two weeks ago, the last US soldiers flew from Kabul airport, ending the so-called "forever war."
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(US flags are displayed before a reflecting pool at the 9/11 memorial commemorating the 2001 terrorist attacks, in New York) 
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But the Taliban who once sheltered bin Laden are back ruling Afghanistan, the mighty US military humiliated. In Guantanamo Bay, accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men continue to await trial, nine years after charges were filed.
Even the full story of how the attack came to happen remains secret. Only last week did Biden order the release of classified documents from the FBI investigation over the next six months.
- 'Honor and memorialize' -
At Ground Zero, 2,753 people, from all over the world, were killed in the initial explosions, jumped to their deaths, or simply vanished in the inferno of the collapsing towers.
At the Pentagon, an airliner tore a fiery hole in the side of the superpower's military nerve center, killing 184 people in the plane and on the ground.
And in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the third wave of hijackers crashed into a field after passengers fought back, sending United 93 down before reaching its intended target -- likely the US Capitol building in Washington.
<a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/9-11-attacks-anniversary-in-video-message-on-eve-of-9-11-anniversary-joe-biden-calls-for-unity-2537040" target="_self">Biden</a> and First Lady Jill Biden will stop at each of these places on Saturday to "honor and memorialize the lives lost," the White House said.
In his video address Friday night, Biden urged Americans to come together as they reflect on the tragedy.
"Unity doesn't mean we have to believe the same thing, but we must have a fundamental respect and faith in each other and in this nation," Biden said.
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(A worker cleans a display showing names of lives lost in the 9/11 terrorist attacks before a reflecting pool at the 9/11 memorial in New York) 
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The president had planned for this to be a pivotal day in his nearly eight-month-old presidency.
However, instead of presiding over a moment of unity, Biden will traverse a country angry about the messy Kabul evacuation, which included 13 US soldiers killed by a suicide bomber, and stung by the broader realization of failure and defeat.
For the relatives of victims, the anniversary, as always, is about keeping the memory of their loved ones alive.
"It's like Pearl Harbor," said Frank Siller, whose firefighter brother Stephen died at the World Trade Center.
"People who weren't alive don't have the same feeling about it as those who were alive. But America has never forgotten about Pearl Harbour and America will never forget about 9/11."
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-pays-tribute-to-9-11-dead-on-20th-anniversary-of-attacks-2537081">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-pays-tribute-to-9-11-dead-on-20th-anniversary-of-attacks-2537081</a>

news world "Honour And Memoralize": US Pays Tribute To 9/11 Victims On 20th Anniversary Of Attacks

September 11 attacks: At Ground Zero, some 2,753 people were killed in the initial explosions New York: America marks the 20th annivers...

"Dictatorship": Republican Backlash Over Joe Biden's Vaccine Mandate

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="'Dictatorship': Republican Backlash Over Joe Biden's Vaccine Mandate" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2019-10/5cntnn1g_joe-biden-reuters_625x300_11_October_19.jpg" title="'Dictatorship': Republican Backlash Over Joe Biden's Vaccine Mandate" /></div>
Biden's plan mandates vaccination for all federal employees and businesses with over 100 employees (File)
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Washington:
US President Joe Biden's sweeping new Covid vaccination mandates are sparking a backlash from some Republicans in the land of individual freedom, setting up potential court battles.
"Have at it," a defiant Biden told reporters on Friday when asked about legal challenges to the strict vaccination rules that would affect tens of millions of American workers.
After months of seeking to boost vaccination rates through gentle persuasion and incentives, the Democratic president made it clear on Thursday that he was fed up as the Delta variant sends Covid cases surging across the country.
Biden directly addressed the estimated 80 million eligible Americans who have not yet gotten the shot against a disease that has left 650,000 people dead in the United States.
"We've been patient, but our patience is wearing thin," the 78-year-old president said. "And your refusal has cost all of us. So, please, do the right thing."
Biden's plan mandates vaccinations for all federal employees and contractors and businesses with more than 100 employees. Companies could face fines if they do not comply.
Most of the Americans who have not yet been vaccinated tend to be younger, less educated, and more likely to be Republican, according to studies.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said Friday that while he supports the vaccine, getting the shot should be the individual choice of every American.
"The federal government has no authority to force businesses in Texas and across the country to mandate their employees get vaccinated," Cruz said. "It is cruel and burdensome to impose this authoritarian mandate.
"While I support the vaccine and have received it, Americans have the right to exercise personal choice when it comes to their health."
'See You In Court'
Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, the second-most populous state in the country, accused Biden of staging a "power grab."
"Biden's vaccine mandate is an assault on private businesses," Abbott said, noting that he had issued an executive order "protecting Texans' right to choose whether they get the Covid vaccine."
"Sounds a lot like a dictatorship," said the Twitter account of Republicans in the US House of Representatives. "America is all about FREEDOM!!"
The Republican National Committee, governors of a number of Republican-ruled states and conservative private legal groups announced plans to mount legal challenges to the vaccination mandates.
"See you in court," said Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota. "South Dakota will stand up to defend freedom."
Republican Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia said he will "pursue every legal option available" to "stop this blatantly unlawful overreach by the Biden administration."
Mark Meadows, who served as chief of staff to former president Donald Trump and is on the board of the conservative group America First Legal, called Biden's move "executive overreach."
Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said she is "pro-vaccine" but "anti-mandate."
"Many small businesses and workers do not have the money or legal resources to fight Biden's unconstitutional actions and authoritarian decrees, but when his decree goes into effect, the RNC will sue the administration to protect Americans and their liberties," McDaniel said.
Supreme Court Precedent
Defenders of Biden's mandates note that vaccinations against a number of other diseases are already compulsory for schoolchildren in all 50 US states and there is a Supreme Court precedent in the administration's favor.
In a 7-2 decision in a landmark 1905 case, Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the Supreme Court upheld a requirement by the city of Cambridge that people be vaccinated against smallpox to protect public health.
More recently, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a lower court ruling that upheld a Covid vaccination mandate imposed by Indiana University.
Lawrence Gostin, a professor of medicine at Georgetown University and professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University, said the president has the "full legal power" to set safety rules in workplaces.
"Covid vaccines do protect against a health hazard," Gostin tweeted. "And the evidence is clear. A potentially deadly infectious disease is just as hazardous as a workplace injury."
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/coronavirus-republican-backlash-over-joe-bidens-vaccine-mandate-2537064">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/coronavirus-republican-backlash-over-joe-bidens-vaccine-mandate-2537064</a>

news world "Dictatorship": Republican Backlash Over Joe Biden's Vaccine Mandate

Biden's plan mandates vaccination for all federal employees and businesses with over 100 employees (File) Washington: US President ...