The woman who captured a critical angle of Alex Pretti's killing on video has spoken out for the first time, further disproving the federal government's account.
As chaos reigns in Minneapolis and in other ICE-infested cities across the country, the Trump administration has also not stopped grinding its repressive gears in its quest to dismantle pretty much every federal LGBTQ+ protection. Anti-LGBTQ+ hate group staffer Darin Smith is on track to become another cog in that machine.
Smith has never tried a case, yet is on track to become the next U.S. Attorney for Wyoming, a role the Department of Justice describes as the state’s “principal litigator.” Despite his dearth of experience, it’s no surprise that Donald Trump nominated Smith, who is already serving as interim U.S. attorney in the state. He does, after all, possess a few qualifications that make him a perfect fit for America’s current commander-in-chief: He’s a diehard MAGA loyalist, he believes the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen (and even rallied outside the Capitol on January 6), and he vehemently opposes LGBTQ+ people’s rights.
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Until recently, Smith served as Director of Planned Giving and Foundations for the Family Research Council (FRC), an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group that declares on its website, “the only appropriate context for sexual relations is within the marriage of a man and a woman” and that “God created us ‘male and female.’”
In his Senate Questions for the Record, Smith confirmed to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) that he agrees with FRC’s opposition to same-sex marriage, as well as its stance that homosexuality is “harmful.” His answer affirming support for the organization’s positions on LGBTQ+ individuals implies he agrees with FRC’s positions that “sexual orientation can change” with conversion therapy, that LGBTQ+ identities “should never be specially protected categories under the law,” and that the Equality Act is “actually unequal, unfair, and unjust.”
Smith’s nomination – which Wyoming’s Republican senators have enthusiastically supported – has remained largely under the radar, but his likely confirmation is significant, a sign that loyalty to Trump is still the most important qualification.
It “certainly strikes me as something that the administration could try to use as precedential,” former federal prosecutor Michael Romano told Bloomberg.
Smith’s “background gives assurance only that he is politically aligned with, and will be loyal to, President Trump,” added Bruce Green, director of Fordham School of Law’s Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics and a former federal prosecutor. “From the president’s perspective, that seems to be the only necessary qualification, and that’s good enough for Republicans in the Senate who will vote to confirm him.”
Sen. DURBIN: Trump’s U.S. Attorney nominee has never litigated a case. His only qualification is his absolute embrace of Trump’s 2020 election conspiracies. Yet, Senate Judiciary Republicans still voted to advance his nomination. pic.twitter.com/I9boQKLz2s
— Senate Judiciary Democrats
Josh Sorbe, a spokesperson for U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), called Darin Smith an “anti-LGBTQ + extremist” with “no business serving as top law enforcement in any state – let alone a state with as much history of queer importance as Wyoming.”
Wyoming is the state where Matthew Shepard was killed at age 21 in a brutal anti-gay hate crime in October 1998. His murder brought attention to hate crime legislation at both the state and federal levels. President Barack Obama signed into federal law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in October 2009.
Smith advocates against the majority of legal protections for LGBTQ+ people.
In fact, he once called a proposed state LGBTQ+ employment discrimination law “a Trojan horse to legislate morality.”
In his responses to Durbin, he stood by those words, explaining that the bill “would have enshrined discrimination into law” by allowing “government officials and entities funded by taxpayers to elevate the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals over the rights of the rest of the population.”
During his mere seven months as a state senator in Wyoming, he sponsored a bill seeking to criminalize drag shows and persecute public and school librarians who “promote obscenity” to minors. The bill – which ultimately died in committee – was reportedly so vague that even Republicans spoke out against it.
He also co-sponsored an anti-trans bill to ban trans kids in public schools from using facilities that match their gender identities rather than their sex assigned at birth. It ultimately became law.
Despite affirmatively telling Durbin that he agrees with FRC’s stances on LGBTQ+ people, he responded more evasively to Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE). Coons asked if Smith agreed with FRC’s stances against trans identities, abortion, and queer families. Smith replied, “I will let the Family Research Council speak for themselves and decide their positions on these matters.”
He was equally evasive regarding questions on LGBTQ+ military service.
“I believe we should follow the law, and all people should be treated equally,” he wrote in response to Durbin’s question on whether LGBTQ+ people should be allowed to serve.
Durbin also asked if Smith believes the country is less safe with LGBTQ+ military members. Smith replied, “The focus must be on having the most effective military force possible.” Asked if LGBTQ+ military members generate less respect for the United States abroad, he replied, “I believe that it should be U.S. policy to have the most effective military force possible.”
Smith did say he does not think a business or government should be able to fire someone due to their LGBTQ+ identity. “However,” he clarified, “I do believe that churches and religious organizations have the Constitutional right to make employment decisions consistent with their religious beliefs and doctrines.”
On January 6, Smith joined the thousands of MAGA protestors who rallied to pressure lawmakers to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. While he did not storm the Capitol and claims he tried to stop folks around him from doing so, he has accused Capitol police officers of “massive incompetence,” saying their “impotent response” to the rioters allowed the chaos to take place.
“The people who protected us – he said were guilty of massive incompetence,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) emphasized during a scathing speech against Smith. “I mean, seriously, what are we doing?”
In 2024, he even accused Capitol police and the FBI of baiting protestors into storming the Capitol.
“How can people get in the most secure building in the world?” Smith asked Cowboy State Daily. “It reeks of entrapment.” He also voiced support for pardoning all of the rioters.
Sorbe called Smith “an unqualified insurrectionist” whose “bigotry puts into serious question his commitment to upholding the law for all Americans.”
The Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he said, “will work to defeat his nomination.”
On the Senate questionnaire, Smith confirmed that he’s never argued before a jury, questioned a witness before a grand jury, or drafted a search warrant application. He confirmed he has no direct experience investigating violent crime, gun violence, drug trafficking, organized crime, corruption, or financial crimes. He’s never worked with crime victims, collaborated with law enforcement, or worked on issues related to juvenile justice.
But with a Republican Senate majority, Smith’s confirmation is almost guaranteed.
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Build, survive and thrive with 5 Steam games worth $105 for just $15 total!
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Moto Rush Reborn is a high speed racing game where you weave through retro-futuristic Tokyo highways aboard a demon-possessed motorbike.
In Moto Rush Reborn you lane split through heavy traffic at neck-breaking speeds through 45 fast-paced levels. You pop wheelies to increase speed, slide to avoid decapitation by obstacles, and launch off ramps through congested Neo-Tokyo streets. Adjust speed and maneuverability to navigate rapidly changing … Read More
The post Moto Rush Reborn – Beta Demo first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.This article is crossposted from IEEE Spectrum’s careers newsletter. Sign up now to get insider tips, expert advice, and practical strategies, written in partnership with tech career development company Taro and delivered to your inbox for free!
In this week’s Career Alert, we start with an announcement: Over the past year, our partner Rahul Pandey has shared his insights and advice for how to advance your career. Now, Rahul is passing the torch to a new expert, and this will be his final issue. But don’t worry—we’ll continue bringing the most important news and recommendations straight to your inbox.
In the last issue, we highlighted a few of the most popular pieces of advice from 2025. To see all previous issues, check out our Career Alert archive.
As engineers, continuous learning is a fundamental part of the job. A huge part of learning comes from trying something, getting stuck, and then asking a question to your teammates.
Here’s what is often overlooked in that process: The quality of your question determines the quality of the answer. So it’s worth thinking about how you can level up your question-asking skills.
The guiding principle when it comes to asking a question is simple: Make it easy for others to help you. Let’s break down what that means.
Include the necessary information. In the software engineering world, for instance, asking something like “Can you explain why the app is crashing?” puts an enormous burden on the question recipient to collect more info before they can help you. They’ll need to know:
It’s usually not hard to anticipate what follow-up questions you may receive after you ask a question. Include those details in your question!
Show your work. One of the most common replies to a question is “What have you tried?” This is critical information to include in order to (1) improve the chances that the recipient can help you and (2) prove that you did the necessary homework.
Common details to include are: prior team discussions, code snippets, and relevant data. But be careful not to overdo it. Including too much code in your question will overwhelm anyone who’s trying to help you. You should spend time identifying the snippet that captures the essence of your issue. Remember, the golden rule is to make it easy for others to help you, which requires your judgment on the right level of backstory to include.
Explain your goal. The backstory is deceptively important in any question, especially for technical topics. For example, you may think it’s obvious why you’re trying to add a parameter to a function, but it’s probably not clear to your teammates. An error I’ve seen frequently is that the question is asked at the wrong “altitude”—the asker made some incorrect assumptions that led them to ask the wrong question.
To get the best answers, include a brief explanation of your goals at the beginning of your question to set the context.
Address the right audience: A personal pet peeve of mine from when I worked at Facebook was when an engineer would ping me individually with a generic question that others could have benefited from. Instead of messaging me directly, I wish they had posted in a group forum. By posting to a broader audience, others could have learned from the answer, and there may have been fruitful follow-up discussions. Moreover, asking the group will lead to faster resolution; it removes a single person (me) as the bottleneck.
The question of the 1:1 vs. group forum is just one element to consider. Is your question best handled verbally or in writing? Could your question be answered by a junior colleague, or do you need feedback from your team lead or manager?
By considering the above criteria, the quality of your questions will improve significantly, leading to more effective interactions and learning.
—Rahul
If you work in academia, you’ve probably heard the phrase “publish or perish” used to describe the pressure researchers face to have their names appear in journals. AI tools make scientific research more efficient, boosting individual careers—but there’s a catch. A new analysis of more than 40 million academic papers found that, while AI tools help researchers publish faster, they also narrow the scope of questions scientists investigate. Instead, AI-heavy research clusters around data-rich problems, leading some to worry about declining originality and innovation.
Sergey Antonovich is an engineer with an unusual hobby: building digital accordions. In his day job, Antonovich develops embedded systems for self-driving cars. But when he rediscovered a childhood passion for music, he found surprising similarities in the skills needed to make his own musical instruments. Read about his career and watch Antonovich show off his accordions, including one he calls the “Partymaker.”
AI is reshaping expectations for entry-level workers in every industry, including engineer and tech roles. What does that mean for recent grads and other job seekers? Now, employers are seeking graduates who can work at a higher level from their first day on the job and use AI tools effectively. Practical experience, critical thinking, and AI proficiency could help you stay ahead in an evolving job market.
Republican lawmakers in Kansas are trying to ram through an anti-trans bathroom ban by including it in a bill that previously only related to whether trans people could change their gender markers on their driver’s licenses.
As the Kansas Reflector reports, Republicans on the state’s House Judiciary Committee voted earlier this week to approve an amendment to House Bill 2426 introduced by Rep. Bob Lewis (R).
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In its original form, H.B. 2426 would have required Kansas driver’s licenses and birth certificates to indicate a person’s sex assigned at birth, regardless of their gender identity. That version of the bill was opposed by more than 200 people who showed up to a House Judiciary Committee meeting earlier this month, even though the bill only appeared on the committee’s agenda 24 hours before.
But prior to Monday night’s hearing, the committee gave no public notice that it would be taking action on the bill or that it would consider the bathroom ban, according to the Reflector.
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Lewis’s amendment requires government buildings in the state to segregate spaces like bathrooms and locker rooms by sex and requires people to use only those facilities that align with their sex assigned at birth. It includes exceptions for unisex single occupancy restrooms and family changing rooms, and for situations in which medical attention is needed, for law enforcement, and for coaching — presumably allowing male coaches to enter women’s and girls’ locker rooms. Penalties for violations include a written notice for a first violation, up to a $1,000 fine for a second, and a misdemeanor criminal charge for a third. The amendment also allows individuals to bring private legal action against violators.
Democratic state Reps. John Carmichael, Lindsay Vaughn, and Dan Osman objected to the introduction of the amendment, with Vaughn questioning whether it was even germane to the original bill. But the bill’s sponsor and committee chair, state Rep. Susan Humphries (R), determined that it was germane to license and birth certificate requirements. When pushed to explain her reasoning, Humphries refused “to go into detail,” adding only that “it’s about sex, the definition of gender and sex.”
The committee’s Republican majority having voted in favor of the amendment, Humphries moved to place the contents of H.B. 2426 into an unrelated bill, S.B. 244, that had already been passed by the Senate. A legislative staffer explained during the hearing that this means the state Senate will not have a hearing on the anti-trans bill, according to the Reflector.
“This is an attempt to obfuscate what we’re doing here,” Carmichael told his fellow committee members. “If you’re in favor of a lack of transparency, if you’re in favor of taking bill numbers and playing them like a shell game, this is the amendment for you.”
As the Reflector notes, the full state House and Senate still have to vote on S.B. 244 — which now contains the anti-trans provisions — and Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) can still veto the bill.
During Monday’s hearing, Carmichael also noted that Kansas’s anti-LGBTQ+ Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach previously tried to use a 2023 state law that defined women by their sex assigned at birth to prevent trans people in the state from being allowed to correct the gender listed on their driver’s licenses and birth certificates. Kobach filed a lawsuit after Kelly continued to allow Kansans to update their documents. Last year, the state Court of Appeals overturned a lower court’s decision in favor of Kobach, ruling that he had not shown that allowing trans people to change their documents causes any harm.
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If you’re an old-schooler, you might still go to the local bar and pay for a beer with cash. You could even try and pay with a cheque, though the pen-and-paper method has mostly fallen out of favor these days. But if you’re a little more modern, you might use a tap-to-pay feature on a credit or debit card.
In Taiwan, though, there’s another unique way to pay. The island nation has a whole ecosystem of bespoke payment cards, and you can even get one that looks like a floppy disk!
Like so many other countries with highly-developed public transport systems, Taiwan implemented a smartcard ticketing system many years ago. Back in December 2007, it launched iPASS (一卡通), initially for use by riders on the Kaohsiung Metro system which opened in March 2008. The cards were launched using MIFARE technology, as seen in a wide range of contactless smart card systems in other public transport networks around the world.
The system was only ever supposed to be used to pay fares on public transport using the pre-paid balance on the card. Come 2014, however, management of the cards was passed to the iPASS Corporation. The new organization quickly established the card’s use as a widespread form of payment at a huge variety of stores across Taiwan. The earliest adopters were OK MART, SUNFAR 3C, and a handful of malls and department stores. Soon enough, partnerships with FamilyMart and Hi-Life convenience stores followed, and the use of the card quickly spread from there.
As iPASS cards continued to gain in popularity, companies started lining up to produce co-branded cards. Many came with special deals at select retailers. For example, NPC issued an iPASS card that offered cheaper prices on gasoline at affiliated gas stations. Furthermore, no longer did your iPASS have to be a rigid, rectangular plastic card. You can buy a normal one if you like, but you can also get an iPASS built into prayer beads, laced into a leather bracelet, or even baked into a faux floppy disk. The latter specifically notes that it’s not a real disk, of course; it only has iPASS functionality and will not work if you put it in a floppy drive. It is, however, a startlingly good recreation, with the proper holes cut out for write protect and density and a real metal sheath. On the translucent yellow version, you can even see what appears to be the fabric inside that would be used to protect the spinning magnetic platter.
Other novelty iPASS “cards” include a keychain-sized Taiwan Railways train and a Japanese shinkansen. Where a regular iPASS card costs NT$100 or so, a novelty version like the floppy disk or train costs more like NT$500-$600. That might sound like a lot, but in the latter case, you’re only talking about $15 USD or so. If so desired, though, you don’t need to carry a card or keychain, or floppy disk at all. It’s possible to use an iPASS with contactless smartphone and smartwatch wallets like Google Wallet and Garmin Pay.
iPASS Cards are typically sold empty with no value, and must have money transferred to the card prior to use. Notably, the money stored on the cards is backed by the Union Bank of Taiwan. This provides a certain level of peace of mind. Even if it wasn’t there, though, there isn’t so much to lose if things do go wrong—as any individual card is limited to storing a maximum of NT$10,000 (~$320 USD).
Similar Taiwanese pre-paid payment cards exist, too. EasyCard has been around since 2002, initially established by the Taipei Smart Card Corporation for use on the Taipei Metro. It similarly offers novelty versions of its cards, and these days, it can be used on most public transport in Taiwan and at a range of convenience stores. Like the iPASS, it’s limited to storing up to NT$10,000, with balances backed by the Cathay United Bank. 7-Eleven has also joined the fray with its iCash cards, which are available in some very cute novelty styles. However, where there are tens of millions of users across EasyCard and iPASS, iCash has not had the same level of market penetration.
Generally, most of us get by using payment cards linked directly to our main banking accounts. However, if you happen to find yourself in Taiwan, you might find the iPASS to be a very useful tool indeed. You can load it once with a bunch of money, and then run around on buses and trains while buying yourself snacks and beverages all over town. Plus, if you buy the floppy disk one, you’ll have an awesome souvenir to bring back with you, and you can entertain all your payment-card-obsessed friends with tales of your adventures. All in all, the banking heavyweights of the world would do well to learn from the whimsical example of the iPASS Corporation.
Welcome to Along the Edge! Become a witch, a priestess, a math teacher, or the director of the local school.
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Two federal agents who shot and killed Alex Pretti, a VA ICU nurse, during an immigration enforcement encounter in Minneapolis over the weekend have been placed on administrative leave, according to MS NOW, as the Trump administration faces intensifying scrutiny over its handling of the fatal shooting and its initial claims about what happened.One political conversation with a gay friend that I’ll never forget occurred the night before Election Day in 2016, where my friend told me that he hoped Donald Trump would win so that “The Revolution” would finally happen. The idea, I suppose, was that Trump would make things so bad that it would finally wake up the proletariat of the world, and it would unite in the ultimate class war to overthrow the messed-up liberal world order, some ugliness would happen, and then we’d be living in a communist utopia.
Trump won the next day and, needless to say, the Revolution still hasn’t happened.
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This kind of cynicism — that the “system” is so bad that it’s beyond repair — is self-perpetuating and impervious to reality. One can point out that the U.S. government does a lot of things that are beneficial to a lot of people: like redistributing wealth through taxes and social spending, ensuring some income to the elderly and disabled, paying for millions of people’s (though not everyone’s) health care access, sending needed medications to impoverished people in other countries, funding public education. And the cheap and easy response is that there’s something morally wrong with pointing to the good things the system does, that celebrating the good means that one doesn’t care about the bad.
This is a way of disciplining people into a worldview. “You don’t care about the downtrodden if you point out that there are many people who are helped by collective action.”
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Another way this cynicism spreads is that it seems intellectual and smart, even when it’s the exact opposite, because it’s used as an excuse for incuriosity: Oh, you think that a good thing might happen because you actually understand how Congress works? Have you read into the details of the supposedly “good” bill they’re working on, and do you understand the bargains that had to be made to ultimately get it passed? You fool! I, an intellectual, assume axiomatically that people with any amount of power only support the interests of the wealthy elite, and therefore, I don’t need to read about the topic at all since all of Congress’ actions are by definition bad.
Cynicism is lazy and stupid, and it enables lazy and stupid people to think that they’re deep and smart.
I’m thinking about that now after reading a bit more about Alex Pretti, the ICU nurse who was gunned down by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis this past weekend while he was standing up for a woman getting assaulted by those agents. I never knew him, but just from the few details that have made it to the media so far, it’s pretty clear that this dude seemed honestly committed to his ideals.
A week before the government killed him, he was tackled to the ground while he was observing ICE agents, part of a larger network of Minneapolis residents who are looking out for their neighbors as they get terrorized by ICE (often just for the crime of being a person of color in public). These observers shout, blow whistles, share information online, and take any number of actions to document what could in the disappearing of a person without explanation or legal recourse.
For Pretti’s service, one week before he died, he had one of his ribs broken as he was tackled to the ground by five agents. One of the agents pushed his knee down on Pretti’s back.
“That day, he thought he was going to die,” an unnamed person told CNN.
In a week, he was back out there, helping people where he could.
It’s hard to imagine a less cynical stance. If someone doesn’t have hope for the future of humanity, why would they put themselves in harm’s way to help people they have never even met?
There are a lot of reasons why the populist, anti-establishment right is on the rise in liberal democracies, and one is that “liberalism” itself has won out as the dominant ideology in these countries. The rule of law, the promise of human rights, the democratic process… these ideals that people fought for centuries for are the baseline from which other political ideologies are measured.
And that not only makes classical liberal ideals a target for anyone cynical about the system, but it’s also why the “naive” people who support those ideals are the ones out there blowing whistles to protect their neighbors.
There are definitely reasons to be critical of the U.S. government. It’s a government with a history of enabling slavery, enacting genocide, denying the vast majority of its population equal rights, instituting religious oppression, and expanding material inequality.
But the response isn’t to throw away those ideals and say that they don’t matter. We’ve seen this past year what it looks like when powerful people don’t even have to pretend that they care about making America fulfill its promises — it’s ugly.
There’s something very satisfying about smashing the system — metaphorically throwing the birthday cake on the ground and expressing uncontrolled anger in the face of injustice. It’s a quick way to feel powerful while maintaining one’s own comfort.
But what ultimately creates positive change is placing a demand on the system to expand its protections and being willing to put one’s own privilege on the line to help others.
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