Steven Nelson
@stevennelson10
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"Hunter Biden does not concede in his lawsuit that he dropped off the laptop, received an invoice or neglected to pick it up. In response to such claims by Mac Isaac, the filing states, 'Mr. Biden is without knowledge sufficient to admit or deny the allegations.'"
Matt Viser
@mviser
NEW: Hunter Biden sues laptop repair shop owner, citing invasion of privacy. The lawsuit, a counter-move against John Paul Mac Isaac, escalates the battle over how provocative data and images of the president’s son were obtained five years ago. My latest: https://washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/17/hunter-biden-lawsuit-computer-repairman/
9:56 AM · Mar 17, 2023

Andrew Kerr
@AndrewKerrNC
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Hunter has done plenty of media interviews since 2020. It's beyond me why no reporter has shoved a copy of this signed invoice in Hunter's face and asked him if it's legit.
10:50 AM · Mar 17, 2023 //

As to the legal merits, a court will ultimately decide, but having owned a computer repair business at one point, I can say that 90-day pickup periods are common. Usually, after that point, the piece of hardware becomes the property of the shop so they can monetize it for payment. Typically that comes in the form of selling the physical equipment involved. In this case, the shop owner tried to give the incriminating data to the FBI, but the FBI appears to have buried it.

There is a certain point in time when a piece of property is considered abandoned. That looks like what happened here, and Hunter Biden’s flailing will likely fail.

Whenever I open an .epub file in Calibre e-book viewer, the text is full-justified. I want to set left-justification as a permanent preference for all .epub files. How can I do that?

I'm running the latest version of Windows 10 Home Edition 64-bit, and the latest version of Calibre (I think), 5.14.

Thanks for any help.

UPDATE: I submitted my question to the MobileRead forum's thread, Custom CSS Stylesheets for Calibre's Viewer, and received an answer from Kovid Goyal, himself (the creator of Calibre). The solution is to use a style sheet (as suggested by Christian__N, below) with this entry:

* { text-align: left !important; }

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51500

In the Ebook Viewer application, click on the Hammer [gear] icon (Preferences), then put the code in the "User stylesheet" edit box and click OK. Have an ebook open in the viewer for the full effect, before and after.

Giving young babies - between four and six months old - tiny tastes of smooth peanut butter could dramatically cut peanut allergies, say scientists.

Research shows there is a crucial opportunity during weaning to cut allergy cases by 77%.

They say the government's advice on weaning - which says no solids until around six months - needs to change.

Experts warn whole or chopped nuts and peanuts are a choking risk and should not be given to children under five.

The current NHS guidance does say peanut (crushed, ground or butter) can be introduced from around six months old.

A baby is ready for their first solid food if:

• they can stay in a sitting position, holding their head steady
• co-ordinate their eyes, hands and mouth so they can look at their food, pick it up and put it in their mouth
• swallow food, rather than spit it back out //

There had been long-standing advice to avoid foods that can trigger allergies during early childhood. At one point, families were once told to avoid peanut until their child was three years old.

However, evidence over the last 15 years has turned that on its head.

Instead, eating peanut while the immune system is still developing - and learning to recognise friend from foe - can reduce allergic reactions, experts say.

It also means the body's first experience of peanut is in the tummy where it is more likely to be recognised as food rather than on the skin, where it may be more likely to be treated as a threat.

Israel, where peanut snacks are common in early life, has much lower rates of allergy.

Other studies have suggested introducing other foods linked to allergies - such as egg, milk and wheat - early also reduced allergy.

https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(22)01656-6/fulltext

In October, the New York Times did an in-depth investigative story headlined, Using Adoptions, Russia Turns Ukrainian Children Into Spoils of War.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February, Russian authorities have announced with patriotic fanfare the transfer of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia to be adopted and become citizens. On state-run television, officials offer teddy bears to new arrivals, who are portrayed as abandoned children being rescued from war.

In fact, this mass transfer of children is a potential war crime, regardless of whether they were orphans. And while many of the children did come from orphanages and group homes, the authorities also took children whose relatives or guardians want them back, according to interviews with children and families on both sides of the border. //

The material impact of this indictment will be limited, at least insofar as Putin is concerned. The ICC has no police force. It cannot compel nations to execute the arrest warrant. So, like fellow ICC-indicted war criminal and head of state, Sudan’s Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Putin will be free to travel to any place that doesn’t mind the stench.

More significant will be the political fallout. Putin’s status as an indicted war criminal will affect his ability to deal with other heads of state. Making it worse, he’s not indicted for run-of-the-mill atrocities. Instead, by charging him with kidnapping kids, he’s basically been labeled a pedophile masquerading as a head of state.

Any claim Putin could ever lay to a world leadership role is effectively finished. It is also tough to imagine anyone trying to broker a peace deal with someone indicted by the ICC. If the ICC is following the model of the UN report, we can expect more indictments to follow.

In our series of letters from African writers, retiring journalist Jonathan Paye-Layleh reflects on his 30-year career covering the tumultuous events in his home country, Liberia.
Short presentational grey line

I am glad I managed to stay alive to pen these words.

Over the last three decades, colleagues have died while doing their job and I have found my life threatened, especially when covering Liberia's conflicts.

But I survived.

Three decades ago, during the first of Liberia's two civil wars that overwhelmed the country for 14 years, I wanted to tell the story of the people trapped behind rebel lines.

I was in Gbarnga - the stronghold of then-rebel leader Charles Taylor, whose forces controlled most of Liberia except the capital, Monrovia.

Where better to tell those stories than on the BBC World Service's Focus on Africa radio programme?

Liberians had become addicted to the broadcast following Taylor's interviews with its editor at the time, Robin White. It was required listening wherever you were.

And it was almost an obligation for people in Gbarnga - where a local station had taken to relaying the programme. //

But there have been happier milestones which I have witnessed, not least the election of one of the continent's few female presidents - Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - who stepped down in 2018 after 12 years in office.

Even though in terms of infrastructure development, Liberia has not attained much, I am pleased that the peace we fought so hard to achieve holds.

Monrovia traffic jams are nothing to celebrate but at least this suggests a city that is alive, where the people want to get on. It's not the ghost town yearning for the presence of people like it was during the civil war. //

How come other countries have emerged from the ashes and made massive progress but my country has not?"
-- Jonathan Paye-Layleh, BBC Liberia reporter 1993-2023

Jonathan is leaving the BBC in order to stand as a candidate for the House of Representatives in the 10 October elections

The Storage Spaces feature built into Windows allows you to combine multiple hard drives into a single virtual drive. It can mirror data across multiple drives for redundancy, or combine multiple physical drives into a single pool of storage. Storage Spaces is similar to RAID or LVM on Linux.

This feature was added in Windows 8, and was improved in Windows 10. It’s available on all editions of Windows 8 and 10, including Home editions.

• Chuck Norris once walked away from a fight with two broken ribs and a dislocated arm. He hasn't given them back yet.
• Chuck Norris' calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd. No one fools Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris can hear faster than the speed of sound.
• Chuck Norris can find the end of a circle.
• Chuck Norris is the only person on the planet that can kick you in the back of the face.
• Chuck Norris can divide by zero.
• Chuck Norris once climbed Mt. Everest in 15 minutes, 14 of which he was building a snowman at the bottom.
• Jack was nimble, Jack was quick, but Jack still couldn't dodge Chuck Norris' roundhouse kick.
• Fear of spiders is called arachnophobia, fear of tight spaces is called claustrophobia, and fear of Chuck Norris is just plain logic.
• Chuck Norris used to beat the up his shadow because it was following to close. It now stands a safe 30 feet behind him.
• Chuck Norris can strangle you with a cordless phone.
• Chuck Norris can kill your imaginary friends.
• Chuck Norris can hear sign language.
• Chuck Norris knows Victoria's secret.
• Chuck Norris makes onions cry.
• Chuck Norris is the only person that can punch a cyclops between the eye.
• Chuck Norris is the reason Waldo is hiding.
• It is considered a great accomplishment to go down Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel. Chuck Norris can go up Niagara Falls in a cardboard box.
• When Chuck Norris enters a room, he doesn't turn the lights on, he turns the dark off.
• Chuck Norris wins russian roulette with a fully loaded revolver.
• Chuck Norris can speak braille.
• Chuck Norris doesn't cheat death. He wins fair and square.
• Chuck Norris can do a wheelie on a unicycle.
• Chuck Norris found the last digit of pi.
• Chuck Norris doesn't have good aim. His bullets just know better than to miss.
• Chuck Norris can pick oranges from an apple tree and make the best lemonade youve ever tasted.
• Chuck Norris once went to mars. Thats why there are no signs of life.
• The only time Chuck Norris was wrong was when he thought he had made a mistake.
• Chuck Norris was once charged with three attempted murders in Boulder County, but the Judge quickly dropped the charges because Chuck Norris does not "attempt" murder.
• Chuck Norris was once on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune and was the first to spin. The next 29 minutes of the show consisted of everyone standing around awkwardly, waiting for the wheel to stop.
• Chuck Norris puts the "laughter" in "manslaughter".
• Bulletproof vests wear Chuck Norris for protection.
• Chuck Norris can unscramble an egg.
• Chuck Norris is the only person on the planet that can kick you in the back of the face.
• When Chuck Norris was born he drove his mom home from the hospital.

Officials are monitoring the clean-up of a leak of 400,000 gallons (1.5m litres) of radioactive water from a local nuclear power plant in Minnesota.

Xcel Energy, the utility company that runs the plant, said the spillage was "fully contained on-site and has not been detected beyond the facility".

State officials said there was no immediate public health risk.

The leak was first discovered in late November, but state officials did not notify the public until Thursday.

The water contains tritium, a common by-product of nuclear plant operations.

A naturally occurring radioactive isotope of hydrogen, tritium emits a weak form of beta radiation that does not travel very far in air and cannot penetrate human skin, according to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

The facts of Shurtleff were simple enough: Boston city officials barred the display of a flag bearing a Christian message in a square that for decades had welcomed the flags of a wide spectrum of causes, movements, and organizations. They did so because the application submitted by the sponsoring group referred to it as a “Christian flag.”

But it was not just the justices affirming that the First Amendment protects religious expression that makes Shurtleff a landmark decision of immense significance. The justices also laid the groundwork for reversing the “Lemon Test” the Court had established way back in 1971 in Lemon v. Kurtzman.

As Anne Howe on Scotus Blog explained following the Court’s Kennedy v. Bremerton School District decision, the Lemon test was used for decades by the Court “to decide that a law or practice will pass constitutional muster if it has a secular purpose, its principal effect does not advance or inhibit religion, and it does not create an ‘excessive entanglement with religion.’”

The Bremerton decision affirmed that high school football coach Joseph Kennedy had the right to pray in public at the 50-yard line after games in which his players competed, representing a public school.

In a statement earlier this week, Liberty Counsel described the significance of Bremerton and the connection to Shurtleff:

In addition, the High Court also finally buried the “Lemon Test,” citing Liberty Counsel’s 9-0 decision in Shurtleff v. City of Boston involving the Christian flag. The Justices wrote: “In fact, just this term, the Court unanimously rejected a city’s attempt to censor religious speech based on Lemon and the endorsement test (See Shurtleff, 596 U. S.).”

There are multiple positive consequences of these developments that ought to put huge smiles on the faces of First Amendment/civil liberties/religious freedom advocates across the political spectrum. Here are four, as described by Liberty Counsel:

• Government shall not discriminate against religious viewpoints whether expressed in speech, symbols, displays, or performances.
• Public schools must permit after school religious student clubs the same access they allow similar secular clubs.
• Churches can rent public schools for worship services.
• Since the “Lemon Test” is dead and the Establishment Clause must be interpreted according to its historical intent, all the cases that relied on the Lemon test are no longer good law, including cases that struck down prayer, Ten Commandments, Nativity displays or other religious symbols, religious performances, religious speech and expression, rental of public school facilities for church services when other secular use is permitted, student aid programs, and much more.