Drones for commercial and recreational use have grown rapidly in popularity, despite restrictions on who can operate them and where they can be flown. No-fly zones are enforced around airports, military installations, nuclear plants, certain landmarks including the Statue of Liberty, and sports stadiums during games. Not everybody follows the rules. Sightings at airports have shut down flights in a few instances. Reported sightings of what appear to be drones flying over New Jersey at night in recent weeks have created anxiety among some residents, in part because it is not clear who is operating them or why. Some state and local officials have called for stricter rules to govern drones. After receiving reports of drone activity last month near Morris County, New Jersey, the Federal Aviation Administration issued temporary bans on drone flights over a golf course in Bedminster , New Jersey, that is owned by President-elect Donald Trump, and over Picatinny Arsenal Military Base . The FAA says the bans are in response to requests from “federal security partners.” The FAA is responsible for the regulations governing their use , and Congress has written some requirements into law. With a 2018 law, the Preventing Emerging Threats Act, Congress gave certain agencies in the Homeland Security and Justice departments authority to counter threats from unmanned aircraft to protect the safety of certain facilities. New drones must be outfitted with equipment allowing law enforcement to identify the operator, and Congress gave the agencies the power to detect and take down unmanned aircraft that they consider dangerous. The law spells out where the counter-drone measures can be used, including “national special security events” such as presidential inaugurations and other large gatherings of people. To get a “remote pilot certificate,” you must be at least 16 years old, be proficient in English, pass an aeronautics exam, and not suffer from a ”mental condition that would interfere with the safe operation of a small unmanned aircraft system.” Yes, but the FAA imposes restrictions on nighttime operations. Most drones are not allowed to fly at night unless they are equipped with anti-collision lights that are visible for at least 3 miles (4.8 kilometers). Over the past decade, pilots have reported hundreds of close calls between drones and airplanes including airline jets. In some cases, airplane pilots have had to take evasive action to avoid collisions. Drones buzzing over a runway caused flights to be stopped at London’s Gatwick Airport during the Christmas travel rush in 2018 and again in May 2023 . Police dismissed the idea of shooting down the drones, fearing that stray bullets could kill someone. Advances in drone technology have made it harder for law enforcement to find rogue drone operators — bigger drones in particular have more range and power. Some state and local officials in New Jersey are calling for stronger restrictions because of the recent sightings, and that has the drone industry worried. Scott Shtofman, director of government affairs at the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International, said putting more limits on drones could have a “chilling effect” on “a growing economic engine for the United States.” “We would definitely oppose anything that is blindly pushing for new regulation of what are right now legal drone operations,” he said. AirSight, a company that sells software against “drone threats,” says more than 20 states have enacted laws against privacy invasion by drones, including Peeping Toms. Will Austin, president of Warren County Community College in New Jersey, and founder of its drone program, says it's up to users to reduce public concern about the machines. He said operators must explain why they are flying when confronted by people worried about privacy or safety. “It's a brand new technology that's not really understood real well, so it will raise fear and anxiety in a lot of people,” Austin said. “We want to be good professional aviators and alleviate that.” Associated Press reporter Rebecca Santana in Washington, D.C., contributed.
Is the NORAD Santa tracker safe from a government shutdown?STUART, Fla. , Dec. 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Health In Tech, an Insurtech platform company backed by third-party AI technology, today announced the closing of its initial public offering of 2,300,000 shares of its Class A common stock at a public offering price of $4.00 per share, for gross proceeds of $9,200,000 , before deducting underwriting discounts, commissions, and estimated offering expenses. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.Oregon Tech’s storied athletic history came to life recently when five former standouts were added to the Howard Morris Athletic Hall of Fame. “This is a chance for us to share our history, and we have coaches now who are on the shoulders of what others did before them,” athletic director John VanDyke said before a packed house for the induction ceremonies. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.Alpha & Omega Semiconductor Stock Scores Relative Strength Rating Upgrade
NBA Spread and Total Picks for Today, December 25The most interesting pop story of 2024 is undeniably about Charli XCX. Following the release of in June, the British singer-songwriter’s clubby sixth studio album instantly seeped into the cultural groundwater (and at least ). It has now become both an ubiquitous earworm and meme: In our era of famously splintered attention, Charli has captured almost all of it, managing to lay claim to synonymous association with an entire , , , , and regarding the album’s deluxe and remixed progeny. Her ultimate coup de’grace revolved around the track where Charli muses over an uneasy jealousy she harbors for an unnamed pop star, singing, “Yeah, I don’t know if you like me / Sometimes I think you might hate me / Sometimes I think I might hate you.” Then, rather than letting the rumor mill churn for too long after its release, Charli quickly put out a remix of the song featuring the object of envy herself, Lorde, whose own verse acknowledges the pair’s previously strained relationship and professes her own insecurities (“your life seemed so awesome / I never thought for a second / My voice was in your head.”) At Charli’s sold-out in September, the women performed that remix live; footage of the pair strutting down the stage in fur coats sent the fandom into ecstatic overdrive. It was, as the historians say, a highly maximized joint slay. Throughout this year, similar portrayals of now-reconciled female rivals in pop culture have proved compelling. After all, the movie event of the season, , is itself a tale of two roommate witches who eventually get over their differences and join forces; the film’s co-stars, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, are almost while out on the promo circuit. Elsewhere in music, Chappell Roan has constantly credited like Sabrina Carpenter. Brandy and Monica on Grande’s “The Boy Is Mine” remix 26 years after their original. In sports, Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles to Brazilian gymnast Rebecca Andrade on the Olympic podium after Andrade bested them for gold. At the DNC, Hillary Clinton threw enthusiastic support behind the nomination of Kamala Harris, who had endorsed Barack Obama and not Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary. Even J. Lo and Jennifer Garner seemed while the former was married to Ben Affleck. It’s not totally cynical to consider these implied bonds or reconciliations through a PR lens; female solidarity has been a useful marketing gimmick for as long as “girl power” has been around. And in the attention economy, anyone can be a rival just as easily as they can be a collaborator (and no one has an easy time saying no to potentially doubling their audience). But lately I’ve been wondering if we’re witnessing a return to the placable pop feminism of the mid-2010s—the era of “I’m with her,” , the Women’s March, the reign of the —after the knottier gender politics that emerged following Clinton’s defeat and the George Floyd protests in 2020. Compared to the granular work of institutional reform (and faced with the defeat of , as well as across the country, and Donald Trump’s second presidential term), it’s much easier to settle for the performance of visible solidarity in which to approximate the sensation of progress. Online, for example, in the throes of 2023’s —when it became en vogue to cultivate an ironic fantasy about one’s personal regression and lack of agency—there became no greater compliment than being a “ .” The girl’s girl stands in opposition to the off-putting “pick-me girl,” who orients energy and attention toward the male gaze. A girl’s girl does the opposite: She prizes female friendships, refuses to gatekeep neither information nor makeup tips, and always chooses the woman’s side in any conflict. The implication is that women (and often anyone who doesn’t identify as a cis hetero male) owe each other a primary blind allegiance by default based on shared gender. It’s essentially TikTokspeak for the way a new generation has metabolized lessons from recent feminist history (“Believe women.”) and cautionary tales of the , , and of the past. The result is a kind of dogma best embodied by the viral Twitter sentiment: But female solidarity, though empowering, can be confusing, too. If last year was all about communing with our shared girlhood via mainstream culture, this year reminds us that celebrating (and defending) womanhood is always more complicated than the Barbie-pink utopia we so enjoy imagining it to be. Where does this kind of personal politic land us? We saw it manifest in the aftermath of the 2024 election, where women supported Harris by a than they had with Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020. And according to exit polls, a little more than half of voted Trump in. In recent conversations with friends, I’ve found that the girl’s girl ethos, with its presumption of , leaves us ill-prepared and grasping for earnest vocabulary to discuss the inevitable failings and missteps of women in power and in the public eye. Getting Kamala in the White House would have been one thing, for example; having unequivocal support for all of her policies was another. Critique and confrontation are necessary to feminism, even—or especially—when feminism feels threatened by them. But these actions resemble the threading of an infinitely smaller needle, especially now that any passing judgment of a woman’s actions essentially takes place via global livestream. If there’s now a special place in hell for anyone caught not being a girl’s girl, truly productive (and messy) reconciliation must appear seamless; to allude to anything more complicated is not only gauche but unimaginable. Charli—who has mused over the expectation that “If you’re not a girl’s girl then you’re a bad woman” in —and Lorde came close on “Girl, So Confusing.” They point out that the music industry at large pitted them against each other, which they internalized: “It’s you and me on the coin / The industry loves to spend.” It’s much easier to cheer the singers on after they sorted out whatever their deal actually was rather than pressure the music business, and society at large, to stop doing this to women. In fact, this installment hews to the first act of the musical, which ends right when Elphaba’s politics jeopardize Glinda’s ambition, prompting an irrevocable split—so it’s actually hardly the female solidarity story of our dreams. Ultimately, the pop feminism of our current culture runs the risk of leaving us less focused on what society owes women and more fixated on what women owe each other. Having fallen short of meaningful political cohesion once again, we settle for vague moral superiority and likes on the internet. Perhaps in lieu of actual material gains, which apparently only ever take one odious administration to unfurl, that’s all that feels within our agency. We’re just girls, after all.
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