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Army Col. Robert Lewis Howard was a legend for his service in the Special Forces during the Vietnam War. Having deployed there five times, he’s the most decorated soldier to have served in the conflict and is the only soldier to have been nominated three times for the Medal of Honor.

Howard was born July 11, 1939, in Opelika, Alabama, to Charles and Martha Howard. His father was drafted into World War II when he was very young, and his mother worked in a textile mill to aid in the war effort, so he and his sister were largely raised by their grandmother for the first several years of his life.

Howard’s father and one of his uncles were paratroopers in the famed 101st Airborne Division, so he grew up hearing their stories, which inspired him to serve. On July 20, 1956, the 17-year-old enlisted in the Army a month after graduating high school.

For several years, Howard worked his way up the ranks and even earned an associate degree in business administration from the University of Maryland in 1962.

Howard was sent on his first deployment to Vietnam with the 101st, his father’s former unit, in 1965. After being injured in battle, he was recruited to the Special Forces, which he did missions for until his yearlong deployment was finished, and he returned home for Special Forces training. Howard earned the Ranger tab and eventually become a Green Beret.

Howard returned to Vietnam four more times, mostly doing Special Forces work with the top-secret Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Studies and Observations Group, which ran cross-border operations in Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam.

On Dec. 30, 1968, Howard, then a sergeant first class, was in charge of a platoon made up of Americans and Vietnamese soldiers who were on a mission to rescue another team of soldiers who were missing in enemy-controlled territory in Laos.

Once a helicopter inserted the platoon at its specified landing zone, the team moved out, only to quickly be attacked by a much larger enemy force. During the initial firefight, Howard was wounded and his weapon was destroyed.

“My hands were all blown up and burned,” Howard said in a 2003 Library of Congress Veterans History Project interview. “And I couldn’t stand up.”

Howard couldn’t walk, but when he saw his platoon leader, 1st Lt. James Jerson, lying seriously wounded in an exposed area, he didn’t hesitate to crawl through a hail of gunfire to get him. As he was trying to help Jerson, an enemy bullet hit one of Howard’s pouches, which detonated several magazines of ammunition and blew him several feet away.

After a few minutes, Howard realized he wasn’t too injured, so, with the help of a fellow sergeant, he continued his mission to drag Jerson back toward the platoon, which was in disarray because of the attack. Howard then rallied the remaining men into a more organized defense.

“I said, ‘We’re going to establish a perimeter right here, and we’re going to fight or die,'” Howard said of what he told the men who remained.

He said he had the platoon put out strobe lights to identify where they were and call in air support, which arrived to help suppress the enemy around them so the team could make it through the night.

“There was a tributary running off a creek …. and so [the enemy] had to come across that little tributary to get to our position and fight,” Howard said, explaining that the waterway helped them to better defend their hastily made position.

For the next few hours, Howard ignored his own wounds and crawled from position to position, helping the wounded and encouraging the other members of the platoon to keep fighting. With the help of air support, they successfully repulsed several enemy attacks and were finally in sufficient control enough to allow a quick landing of rescue helicopters before sunrise.

Howard personally made sure all the men, dead and alive, were loaded onto the helicopters before he got into one himself to leave the bullet-swept landing zone. Sadly, Jerson, who Howard fought hard to save, died on the ride to safety.

“That hurt me worse than being shot up, seeing that lieutenant die,” Howard told the Veterans History Project.

According to Army Special Operations Command, only six of the 37 platoon members survived the battle. If it weren’t for Howard’s bravery, it’s likely no one would have come home.

Howard was evacuated to a field hospital for recovery. He said that’s where he learned that he’d been recommended for the Medal of Honor.

“In a way, I felt bad because I didn’t feel that I was worthy of the Medal of Honor for that action because I was not successful in doing what the colonel had directed me to do, and that was to find the team that had been surrounded and captured or killed by the enemy,” Howard told the Veterans History Project. He said he later learned some of those men survived and were taken as prisoners of war.

Howard remained in Vietnam and, in December 1969, commissioned as an officer after receiving a direct appointment from the rank of master sergeant to first lieutenant. He’d reached the rank of captain by February 1971 when he learned he was finally being sent home from Vietnam to receive the Medal of Honor.

In late February 1971, Howard was flown to Washington, D.C., where his wife, Tina, and two daughters, Melissa and Denicia, joined him. On March 2, President Richard M. Nixon presented him with the nation’s highest honor for valor during a White House ceremony.

“When I received that honor, I felt that I was sharing it with members of my family that had sacrificed their lives in the Second World War,” Howard said, referring to three of his uncles who died in the conflict. “I try to always maintain the dignity and the honor of having it bestowed upon me.”

Howard’s five tours in Vietnam totaled 55 months in combat, which led to him being wounded 14 times. Between 1968 and 1969, during a 13-month period, Howard was recommended for the Medal of Honor two other times. Those recommendations, however, were downgraded. Instead, he received the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Star — the second- and third-highest military awards, respectively. Howard earned eight Purple Hearts during his career, along with numerous other honors. According to Army Special Operations Command, he is the most decorated soldier to have served in Vietnam.

Over the next two decades, Howard continued with his impressive career. He received a bachelor’s degree from Texas Christian University in 1973 before earning two master’s degrees from Central Michigan University in the early 1980s.

His years of airborne expertise were also put to good use when he took part in two John Wayne movies, making a parachute jump in the 1962 film “The Longest Day,” and as an airborne instructor in 1968’s “The Green Berets,” according to his Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs biography.

Howard eventually divorced, got remarried and had two more children, Roslyn and Robert Jr., the latter of whom went on to serve in the Army.

Howard retired on Sept. 30, 1992, after 36 years of service. For 14 years after that, he worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs. He also often spoke with students and troops about the importance of service and the fight for freedom. In the 2000s, he was inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame and the Army Aviation Association of America Hall of Fame.

Howard spent his last few years living in San Antonio. He died on Dec. 23, 2009, at a hospice in Waco, Texas, after suffering from pancreatic cancer. Howard is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Howard’s name is remembered in various ways throughout the Special Forces community. In 2013, the 5th Special Forces Group headquarters building at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was named Howard Hall in his honor, and a plaque dedicating the Special Operations Command Korea campus to him was unveiled at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, in 2021.

An overpass along I-85 near Auburn University in Alabama was also named for Howard. In December 2024, a book about his life, “Beyond the Call of Duty: The Life of Colonel Robert Howard,” was published.  

This article is part of a weekly series called “Medal of Honor Monday” in which we highlight one of the more than 3,500 Medal of Honor recipients who have received the U.S. military’s highest medal for valor.

From his hometown of Laurel, Maryland, to the forefront of space operations, Air Force Master Sgt. Keandrey Freeman is embarking on a new chapter in his military career as he transitions from his role as the senior enlisted leader of the National Space Defense Center’s Command, Control, Communications, and Computers/Cyber Directorate, to becoming a space operations officer. 

Freeman joined the Air Force in 2012, inspired by a shared commitment to service with his sister, who enlisted just four weeks ahead of him. Their journey began together in basic military training, where Freeman quickly found his calling. 

“My introduction to my first unit was, ‘My name is A1C Freeman and I’m going to be an officer one day,'” Freeman reflects.

Career Evolution 

Starting out as a cyber transport systems troop, Freeman’s career path has been anything but linear. 

His extensive experience includes a significant tenure in the combat communications unit in Guam, where he honed his information technology skills, and later, he served five years with the National Reconnaissance Office at Aerospace Data Facility-East located within Fort Belvoir, Virginia. 

Freeman then received his first involvement in a space-oriented mission set by directly supporting the Missile Warning Center at Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station in Colorado Springs, Colo., currently one of five centers under U.S. Space Forces – Space. His role there at the Test Control Flight of the 21st Combat Support Squadron solidified his foundation in the space domain. 

Freeman officially transitioned into the Space Force, Dec. 20, upon graduating from Officer Training School.

A Space Mission 

“I’m wearing the blue patches now, but I will officially be a guardian on the USSF birthday, which just happens to be my graduation date,” Freeman said, reflecting on this new identity prior to graduation. 

“My selection to OTS comes from those who have supported me,” he continued. “My team was able to overcome anything, and I continue to be proud of the great men and women I’ve had the opportunity to serve alongside.”

In his current role at the NSDC, Freeman recognizes the mission’s critical importance. 

“We will fight from above to support our brothers and sisters, and [we] will fight bravely to victory,” he states, highlighting the vital contributions space operations make to the joint fight. “The space and cyberspace domains enable all the rest.”

As Freeman steps into his role as a Space Force officer, he is poised to contribute to the ever-evolving landscape of military space operations. 

Freeman credits his strong bonds with his wife Tiffani, their son and their dog Roxas as motivation in his career.

“She’s supportive of everything that I do, and I owe her the world,” Freeman says of his wife.

Freddy Fender is best known for his 1975 country and pop music crossover hits “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” and “Before the Next Teardrop Falls.”

From 1953 to 1956, Fender served in the Marine Corps as a gunner on an M47 Patton tank. In 1955, he was stationed with the 3rd Marine Division on Okinawa, an island then administered by the United States until 1971 when it was returned to Japan.

Little did Fender know that he would become famous and return to Okinawa as a rock and country star. In December 1982, he returned to the island to perform for the troops.

The Marines were so enamored by the crooner’s performance that his old unit, the 3rd Marine Division, invited him to drive a M60 tank through the hills of the Central Training Area on Okinawa.

“When I was in, the Corps was the finest fighting force on Earth. From what I’ve seen on this tour, it still is,” he told Okinawa Marine newspaper reporter Marine Corps Sgt. Ron Appling, following his M60 tank ride, Dec. 3, 1982.

“It has been a big thrill for me to be back here after all these years. The audiences have been so appreciative too. It’s been a real pleasure,” he told Appling.

Following his Okinawa concert tour, Fender went on to entertain the troops in South Korea, mainland Japan, the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii. 

Freddy Fender, born Baldemar Garza Huerta, June 4, 1937, in San Benito, Texas, died Oct. 14, 2006, at age 69 in Corpus Christi, Texas.

The Army kicked off its 250th birthday celebration at the 136th Tournament of Roses Parade, where its “This We’ll Defend: 250 Years of Service” float highlighting various eras of Army history rolled through Pasadena, California.

The parade’s theme of “Best Day Ever!” provided a fitting backdrop for the float, which featured artistic figures representing Army icons.

Artistic figures on the float included Gen. George Washington; Mary Ludwig Hays, better known by her nickname of Molly Pitcher; Col. Robert Shaw; Maj. Walter Reed; Pfc. Joseph Oklahombi; Charles “Chief” Anderson; and Lt. Col. Harold Moore Jr.

Ushering in the modern era of the Army and riding on the float were Staff Sgt. Joseph Murtaugh and Staff Sgt. Daisy Balbuena as well as several of the Army’s soldier athletes, such as Army Capt. Sammy Sullivan.

Other soldiers walking alongside the float wore historic uniforms, including soldiers assigned to the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known as “The Old Guard.” The Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps played traditional march music, and a custom musical piece, arranged by Sgt. 1st Class Sara Corry (D.M.A.) and recorded by The U.S. Army Band, known as “Pershing’s Own,” accompanied the float during the parade, capturing the spirit of the Army from the Revolutionary War to present day.

The parade also featured troopers assigned to the Horse Cavalry Detachment, 1st Cavalry Division, commemorating the era when horse-mounted soldiers were vital to Army operations through World War II.

Being the oldest horse unit in the United States, the Horse Cavalry Detachment has participated in the Tournament of the Roses almost every year since 1996. Source link

When it comes to buying Microsoft software, doing it through the company itself is always the most cost-effective option.

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from the not-with-bang,-but-with-whining dept

The telecommunications industry (with the help of the new Trump Supreme Court), has been drooling for months at the prospect that the Trump-stocked court will soon deliver a killing blow to the FCC’s net neutrality protections (read: the popular FCC rules designed to prevent. telecommunications monopolies from abusing market power to beat customers and competitors).

As predicted, this week, the Trumplican-heavy Sixth Circuit delivered, with a ruling that blocked Biden’s FCC plan to restore net neutrality rules. All of these decisions seem to be straight out of the telecom lobbyist’s playbook, with many bogus claims about how this basic regulation threatens the open web and constitutes a “burdensome regulatory regime”:

“Today we consider the latest FCC order, issued in 2024, which revives the FCC’s burdensome regulatory regime.”

To be clear, the FCC’s net neutrality rules are ridiculous by international standards. They have many loopholes for ISPs to stumble upon. They have never been consistently enforced by the FCC which is uncommon and arresting. And he sees great popularity among America’s bipartisan majority. Right out of the gate calling the rules “heavy-handed” informs.

As a refresher, the “net neutrality debate” is more than just “net neutrality.” It’s about whether we want consumer protection officials to protect broadband consumers from a monopolized and corrupt industry filled with unpopular predatory companies that routinely raise poor service standards, price gouging, and bad behavior.

The more specific legal debate here is whether ISPs should be classified as “information services” under Title II of the Communications Act, which would reduce the FCC’s authority over telecommunications. Or as “telecommunications services,” which would expand the FCC’s role in protecting consumers from fraud, improving 911 reliability, fighting consolidation, and encouraging cybersecurity standards.

But contrary to public and press pretenses, the telecommunications industry’s policy position in this regard is not consistent; giants like AT&T and Verizon have waffled on whether or not they support one classification or another depending on whether they are trying to dodge FTC fines for lying to customers or trying to gobble up billions in taxpayer subsidies. Repeat, because it’s important. The same telecom companies are very happy to have broadband classified as a telecom service when it means they get extra subsidies.

Real Purpose No Consumer Protection Oversight of Any US Company

It usually gets lost in the weeds of press and policy coverage, but “net neutrality” is a bit troubling.

The telcos (and the various think tanks, lawyers, lobbyists, and consultants paid to love them) not only oppose net neutrality, but indeed any federal broadband consumer protection. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about basic price transparency requirements or accurate broadband maps; the telecom industry is desperate to rip you off without pesky federal interference.

They are ready to get what they want, and more. As expected, the Sixth Circuit’s dismantling of net neutrality (and the FCC’s authority more generally) hinges heavily on the recent Trump Supreme Court Loper Bright decision, which has dealt with the last vestiges of regulatory independence:

“Today we consider the latest FCC order, issued in 2024, which revives the FCC’s heavy regulatory regime. According to the Safeguarding and Securing the Open Internet Order, Broadband Internet Service Providers are again considered to offer “telecommunications services” under Title II and therefore must comply net neutrality principle. But unlike the past challenges the DC Circuit considered in Chevron, we cannot respect the FCC’s reading of the statute. Rather, our task is to determine the “best reading of the statute” in the first place.

The company claims that it wants to kill Chevron Deference (which provides regulators with subject matter expertise to create and interpret rules within the limits of Congressional law) because “regulators have run amok.” But the idea that the FCC (which struggled to stand up for AT&T and Comcast in the good old days) has “run amok” is definitely misinformation.

The truth is, with Congress in their back pockets and unable to reform, companies want to deliver the final killing blow to regulators who might get bright ideas about trying to rein in their power or punish them for fraud. This has been dressed up in the press as some sort of noble, good rebalancing institutions (I recommend Law Professor Blake Reid’s dissection of this kerfuffle).

The court did not go quite as far as can have used the recent Loper Bright decision to dismantle all of the FCC’s authority over every last aspect of telecommunications, but the goal here is not subtle: federal consumer protections over your broadband line are dead.

I’m not going to spend too much time dissecting the finer legalese here, because it’s all bullshit. The administration parrots the position of AT&T and Comcast lawyers, insisting on ignoring logic, precedent, and history, and it’s not subtle about it. The better argument, the better legal merits of this debate at this point is like trying to have a meaningful conversation with a damp walnut.

They want journalists and the public to treat this pseudo-legal, pseudo-logical circus with respect and seriousness. I will not. It is corrupt with a lazy coat of paint.

Lose Lose

If the Sixth Circuit doesn’t rule in favor of the big telcos, incoming FCC chairman Brendan Carr (R, AT&T) is poised to dismantle the rules. You may remember Brendan from the first Trump FCC dismantling of net neutrality, which involved creating DDOS attacks to eliminate public anger, and turning a blind eye to the industry using dead and fake people to fill the FCC comment section.

Brendan views consumer protection as a sinister government overreach, but the media and bullying tech companies do not. There is no real logic here. People and journalists should not get lost in the weeds: this is the power of corporations that use their influence on corrupt US courts and regulators to undermine them. entire corporate consumer protection authority, not just some piddly net neutrality rule.

This is not to say that net neutrality is not important. The big ISPs have long shown that they are willing to abuse market power. Ideally, you would need Congress to enact net neutrality legislation to end regulatory ping pong at the FCC, but if Congress does too damaged to functionwho is always a non starter. There are many people who like to make this point in the press (including AT&T). understand it is a non-starter.

The decision of the Sixth Circuit comes ironically (?) on the heels of the revelation that the telecommunications industry has just suffered one of the worst hacking disruptions in American history, thanks (in part) to broad and mindless deregulation and the corrupt refusal to hold telecommunications accountable for. lax security standards. Or pass even the most basic of modern privacy or cybersecurity protection.

The basic argument by telecoms, “free market” Libertarians, and many Republicans has long been that if you eliminate federal oversight of unscrupulous US telecommunications, magic and innovation are off the streets. That’s for sure never has been the case. Without considering removing federal corporate oversight of regional monopolies like Comcast and AT&T and these entities just doubled down on their worst behavior.

Mostly because the same people pushing for mindless deregulation also support AT&T and Comcast’s efforts to ensure there is no meaningful broadband competition.

As a result, the big telcos don’t innovate or compete. These are regional monopolies that effectively buy comfortable positions from corrupt state and federal bureaucrats, who work hard to ensure that there is no competition or serious government oversight. One hopes the end of the net neutrality battle directs attention to the real problem: the combined monopoly power.

The Sixth Circuit’s ruling isn’t all good news for big ISPs like Comcast and AT&T. Courts and legal precedent (for whatever that’s worth) have repeatedly stated that if the federal government were to override federal consumer protection authority, states would have the legal right to enforce their own net neutrality rules.

That said, while many states have net neutrality laws (such as California, Washington, Maine, and Oregon), many others do not. And among those exerciseI highly suspect that implementing net neutrality is not going to be a top priority given all the bottomless immigration, environment, labor, and life and death legal fights that are headed in the cash-strapped countries’ direction during Trump 2.0.

It’s important to understand this is more than just “net neutrality.” This is about corporate power using corruption to take the ax for coherent federal consumer protection finished– according to the pretensions of those who carry out such actions with due care and caution regarding the law.

And of course about far more than telecommunications; post Loper Bright every industry across America is busy making the same arguments about every worker, consumer, public safety, and environmental rules they don’t like, have a massive impact on every industry and privacy that touches every last part of life. The company has achieved (another) generational victory in dismantling consumer protection.

The net neutrality fight may be different and wonky, but if you think about the wider existential, legal, and operational chaos caused by this Trump 2.0 attack on the federal government it has been defeated or will be defeated either way. good for you (unless you’re a racist, idiotic billionaire who doesn’t care about mass suffering), you’re grossly misreading the situation.

Filed Under: 6th circuit , broadband , consumer protection , consumers , corruption , fcc , high speed internet , net neutrality , telecommunications , title ii

Companies: at&t, comcast, verizon

from the arrest-rage-for-‘insulting-the-police’ dept

It has long been recognized by federal courts that giving a one-finger salute to a law enforcement officer is not enough not crime, but speech is protected. It means that “birds” can’t be seen alone be the basis for a stop or arrest. And it certainly doesn’t justify the deployment of troops, especially of the “excess” variety.

If you’re not sure how the federal government feels about giving police the finger, documents fill the DOJ [PDF] briefly stated:

As Victim EB drove past defendant BENZA, defendant BENZA saw Victim EB extend his middle finger to defendant BENZA. The gesture of extending the middle finger in, called “flipping off” or “flip off,” a law enforcement officer is an activity protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

“Defendant BENZA” is Joseph Benza III, a deputy working for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD). The LASD has been notorious for years, for incidents such as “gangs” of house deputies who celebrate the excessive deployment of troops with a new tattoo or the occasional disability of one of its members. It is also the subject of a DOJ investigation, thanks to the massive amount of internal corruption that extends to its illegal prison informant program.

“EB’s victim” is Emmett Brock, a transgender man who sidestepped Deputy Benza while driving an officer’s cruiser. The one-and-done led to a far more concentrated effort by the deputy to punish Brock for daring to disrespect people, but for a moment.

In response to seeing the gesture of Victim EB, accused BENZA leave the phone for the confirmed service and even started closely following Victim EB In pursuit of Victim EB, defendant BENZA drove through the neighborhood, at a certain point reaching a speed of over 50 miles per hour. Defendant BENZA followed Victim EB for approximately 1.8 miles without attempting to stop or pull Victim EB over.

While defendant BENZA was chasing Victim EB, defendant BENZA called Deputy A. During the call, defendant BENZA told Deputy A that someone was threatening him and that defendant BENZA was going to conduct a traffic stop on the person. Because defendant BENZA intended to use violence against Victim EB, defendant BENZA further asked Deputy A to start driving to defendant BENZA’s location.

Correct: Deputy Benza did not respond to a domestic violence call with the sole purpose of intentionally causing physical harm to someone who had abused him. Benza never officially pulled Brock. Instead, he waited until Brock had parked in front of the store before pulling up behind Brock and turning on his lights.

Which causes this:

Defendant BENZA approached Victim EB, who got out of Victim EB’s car. Defendant BENZA told Victim EB that defendant BENZA had stopped Victim EB Victim EB denied that defendant BENZA had stopped Victim EB.

Without giving Victim EB an order, defendant BENZA grabbed Victim EB Victim EB pulled away from defendant BENZA and said, “Don’t touch me.” Accused BENZA then pushed Victim EB to the ground. After Victim EB was on the ground, defendant BENZA mounted Victim EB, punched Victim EB several times in the head and face, and slammed Victim EB’s face into the sidewalk. The EB victim repeatedly screamed for help and yelled, “You’re going to kill me!”; “I can’t breathe!”; and “Please stop!”

[Personal note: I have experienced this same thing, minus the beating. I had a cop trail me for more than a mile and when I stopped at a convenience store, he claimed he had pulled me over. I called bullshit and more cops arrived, shined their flashlights into the cab of my truck and claimed someone had reported my “exhibition” driving nearly 10 miles away from the point I was “pulled over.” I again called bullshit and gradually the officers all wandered away to apparently find someone more easily exploitable to exploit. That I was white definitely altered the contours of the stop. It could have been worse. Sure, this is just anecdata, but it’s something cops do everywhere they think they can get away with it.]

All this was captured by the store’s camera, which is the only recording taken. Nothing was captured by the deputy’s dash cam. In addition, Deputy Benza and his colleagues (although none of the unnamed deputies were criminally charged) created a narrative that hides the fact that this “stop” was initiated only for revenge, deleted text messages between those involved. officials who showed another, and buried the fact that Benza searched the victim’s phone to make sure the victim’s device did not contain a recording of this stop.

Meanwhile, Brock suffers more pain than physical harm from the fake “stop”. This is from the Los Angeles Times report on the latest developments in this case that have been going on since it was first reported by Brock.

In the report, Benza said that Brock “was going to throw a punch,” so he grabbed his arm and hit him first, hitting him repeatedly. During the struggle, the deputy’s report states, Brock “tried to rip the skin off my hand” by repeatedly biting him.

But the paramedic report from the scene did not mention any bite marks. And when Benza went to the hospital later, the doctor’s assistant wrote that “there are no bite marks now.”

Still, Brock was taken to the Norwalk sheriff’s station and booked on three felonies and one misdemeanor. He suffered a concussion, along with scratches and bruises.

Brock’s family rescued him that evening. He lost his job four days after state authorities notified the school of pending charges, ie dropped a few weeks after The Times the first video published of the incident.

Fortunately, this attack was caught on tape. Otherwise, the DOJ may be forced to label the investigation inconclusive. But since then – and there are many other criminal charges the DOJ could choose to bring against the deputy – Benza has pleaded guilty to excessive force.

Nearly two years after he was caught on camera beating a transgender man in a 7-Eleven parking lot, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy has agreed to plead guilty in federal court to violating his civil rights for using excessive force, prosecutors said Wednesday.

[…]

In a plea agreement filed the same day, Benza said he would plead guilty to a single felony charge, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.

That means Benza will only pay the price for a single criminal charge, rather than several illegal acts detailed in the DOJ’s charging document. Whether or not he will spend time in prison remains to be seen. However, for now, Vice Benza is off the job and will be in jail, but it may be a little. For his former employer, it’s no better than usual: a welcome home for repeat offenders.

Previously, an internal investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department cleared the deputy of the wrongdoing. This week, the department said in a statement that its previous determination was based on statements and reports provided at the time.

That bastard. This is the LASD showing that in regards to the internal investigation, the officer said… there is none. It will not look for anything to contradict the officer’s sworn statement, even if there is a record of the alleged act. After all, there probably isn’t a single store in the Los Angeles area that isn’t crawling with CCTV cameras. All it will take is one request to destroy the deputy regent’s nonsense statement. However, LASD couldn’t be bothered to revisit this case until then next The LA Times posted the footage. It’s just painful.

Filed under: emmett brock, excessive force, joseph benza, lasd, dept. los angeles sheriff, police misconduct

Apple is kicking off the new year with a fun limited-edition pair of AirPods, but you might find yourself in trouble. As spotted by MacRumors on Friday, Apple is selling the Snake 4 Special Edition AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation in celebration of the Chinese New Year (or Spring Festival) on January 29, 2025.

Currently, the AirPods 4 theme is only available in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, so you can’t buy them directly from Apple anywhere in North America or Europe.

In the area where these AirPods are available, they cost the same as the standard model. They also offer all the same features – the only difference is the snake engraving on the AirPods 4 wireless charging case (and the red snake on the packaging).

Plus, these are the same AirPods 4 that were awarded 4.5 stars in last year’s review. As I said at the time, there’s a lot of competition in this price range when it comes to wireless headphones, but the AirPods 4 are “a worthwhile upgrade over the base AirPods 4, considering the addition of wireless charging and ANC.”

MacRumors explains that releasing special edition AirPods is a tradition for Apple. The company has previously released AirPods to celebrate the Year of the Dragon, the Year of the Ox, the Year of the Tiger, and the Year of the Rabbit, but all of them are AirPods Pro.

Apple’s Year of the Snake AirPods 4 are now on sale and start shipping on January 8.

from the why-we-can’t-be-good dept

For the past few years, I’ve been using Cronometer as my nutrition app. It’s pretty good for tracking food, exercise, and more. I appreciate that it has very detailed nutritional data, and even if it is not, I can upload the nutrition label just a quick photo on my phone. It’s a nice app.

So I was very surprised last month to receive an email from a company saying that they no longer have a contract with their former data provider, a company called Trustwell, and because of that, the company has to delete previously recorded data from past meals that I have entered.

We are writing to let you know that our former food data provider, Trustwell (Formerly ESHA), requires us to remove food from our database. We believe his position is inappropriate and in violation of US law. However, we are in the process of removing Trustwell food from our database.

Such deletion will occur no later than February 15, 2025, and may be required to occur earlier based on Trustwell’s actions.

It then informs me that I need to delete data from two meals I have entered, both of them from last April. The company recommends: “If this old data is important to you, we recommend finding the item in your diary, and replacing it with an alternative from the database before removing it.”

It doesn’t matter much to me anymore since I don’t really care what I used back in April, but the whole thing seems preposterous. There are no intellectual property rights in nutrition data. In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Feist, I don’t see how anyone can claim copyright in that data. In Feist, it is about phone numbers in the phone book, purely factual data (in this case, phone numbers) cannot be subject to copyright, even if someone collects them in a single database. The same principle applies to nutritional data – these are hard-to-get facts, not creative expressions.

It is possible, as some have suggested to me at Bluesky, that there is a contractual agreement between Cronometer and ESHA to delete any data once the contract ends. If such consent exists, it should be limited to the database itself, not the person recording the data into a private journal. Because it’s not a “database” that’s copied into people’s tracking journals, it’s just factual data about certain foods. In addition, the user is not bound by any terms contained in Cronometer’s contract with others.

However, after digging into this story, some more details emerged, including ESHA suing Cronometer in September over this. The lawsuit alleges that the agreement between the two companies was that Cronometer would only use ESHA data for “its own internal analysis” and not make the data into a product. Chronometer’s answer to the lawsuit says it’s all nonsense. Note that the company immediately helped Cronometer implement the database into publicly available software, that the two companies are in regular contact about it, that ESHA employees told Cronometer how excited they were to review the app, and how ESHA even asked Cronometer if they could release it press about integration.

Even more to say:

The ESHA co-founder then downloaded a publicly available copy of Cronometer
software and praise Cronometer for using the ESHA database in the software,
thanks Cronometer for “playing by the rules.”

Either way, it’s another unfortunate example of the world we live in where digital services mean everything you care about can be taken away from you.

The reality is that this seems to be another thing that private equity is destroying. The email states that Cronometer had a previous deal with ESHA, which is now Trustwell. It appears that the new name is the result of a merger between ESHA and FoodLogiq, which was carried out with a combination of investment from private equity firm The Riverside Company. It seems entirely possible that after the merger, Trustwell has made it more difficult/expensive for an app like Cronometer to use its nutrition data, and now either demands more cash or removes the food already logged in from the user.

Indeed, Cronometer said in a legal filing that the private equity thugs who put together Trustwell really just wanted to break their deal with Cronometer so they could build a competing app:

What actually underlies this lawsuit is not a “secret” “scheme” by Cronometer,
who use the database is always open and publicly recognized by ESHA.
However, this lawsuit is part of a scheme designed by Trustwell and its investors to create a
monopoly for one other product: Food Processor®, their diet tracking app
competing with Cronometer products. This claim is supported by private infusion
equity money that bought ESHA and formed Trustwell. That is a private equity investor
seeks to monetize investments by illegally supporting Food Processor®
market through the pursuit of baseless litigations against small companies like
Cronometer to scare them out of the market with the threat of substantial legal
expenditure.

Once again, this is why we can’t have nice things.

Filed Under: copyright, data, fair use, food tracking, nutrition tracking, private equity

Companies: chronometer, riverside company, trustwell

I’ve been looking for a projector on and off for a few years. I’m not really committed, but I’m still tempted. I don’t want anything fancy but rather a tool that will do well in a dark-enough environment, maybe something I can easily do from one place to another. The projector will never be the center of my streaming world, just an option.

With that in mind, I’m excited to see LG’s “breakthrough” PF600U device launched ahead of CES 2025. The product name alone won’t do this device justice, but it’s clear now that we’re talking about a floor lamp. which is also a projector and three are Bluetooth speakers.

LG’s light projector may have two projects aplenty, but I still think it’s an interesting concept, at least in theory.

LG said in a press release that the PF600U is a CES Innovation Award winner.

The device looks like a floor lamp, using LED lights to illuminate the room. LG also mentions mood lighting, saying that you can adjust it to the ambiance of the room and the user’s preferences. The lamp supports nine colors and five levels of brightness.

Regarding the projector’s capabilities, the LG lamp supports Full HD (1920 x 1080) projection, a brightness of 300 ANSI lumens, and OTT streaming through LG’s webOS system. The lamp head can turn 110 degrees, and the projector supports automatic screen adjustment feature.

Finally, the LG light projector can also be used as a Bluetooth stereo speaker.

Unfortunately, LG did not provide a price and release date. I will also say that I don’t have high expectations for a projector that can also be used as a lamp. But the affordable price point could be just what my home gym needs: a bigger screen to keep track of training sessions.

The lamp will project an image that is 30 by 120 inches in size.

LG also announced a more advanced projector in the same press release. The CineBeam S is a compact 4K UST short-throw projector that might be better suited for Netflix streaming duties.

The device supports 4K resolution, 500 ANSI lumens brightness, and coverage of 154 percent of the DCI-P3 color spectrum. More importantly, the CineBeam S only needs a few inches of space to project images that can be anywhere between 40 inches and 100 inches large.

CineBeam S measures only 160 x 160 x 110mm and weighs 2.5kg (5.51 pounds).

Like LG’s light projectors, the CineBeam S doesn’t have a price or a release date yet.