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Trail Mix, the Juneau-based nonprofit is an organization dedicated to stewarding local trails, by bringing together people and resources for trail improvements and activities.
With a dedicated team of 15-20 seasonal workers and 4 year-round employees, they collaborate closely with the Forest Service, City and Borough of Juneau, Alaska State Parks, and indigenous organizations to maintain and enhance Juneau’s extensive trail network.
“I think something people maybe don’t realize, is how many years, and hours that it takes to complete a small section of trail, and oftentimes, like some of the trails that we’re working on this summer, are projects that have been in the works, you know, for maybe three or four years.” Said Trail Mix’s executive director Meghan Tabacek “You kind of just have to play the timing right and wait for the perfect grant, or the perfect crew lead or the perfect conditions in order to actually make the trail work. So we always have a very, very long list of trails that we want to work on.”
The organization recently faced challenges with potential Forest Service funding cuts, which forced them to reduce their trail crews from four to three for the season. In response, they launched a successful community fundraiser, raising nearly $55,000.
“it was really, really cool to see the community come together and support.” Said Tabacek, “Since February, it’s really just been touch and go. We have been working to kind of, diversify our project streams, so like working more with the city, more with state parks, and just trying to make sure we have other work guaranteed outside of the Forest Service.”
As of right now Trail Mix’s agreements with the Forest Service still stand and they are able to continue work as normal, but Tabacek said with increasing levels of uncertainty, they just dont know if – or when the cap is going to stop on those projects.
Volunteers play a critical role in Trail Mix’s operations, with the organization currently tracking over 700 volunteer hours this summer.
“Volunteers are huge to trail mix. I mean, the heart of trail mix is volunteerism.” said Tabacek “Trail Mix was started in 1993 by a group of volunteers and in our first years, Trail Mix was actually all volunteer run.”
This community involvement is essential, as only 30-35 people are responsible for maintaining Juneau’s 250 trails. Volunteers help meet grant requirements, supplement staff efforts, and support additional organizational work not covered by standard agency agreements.
“A lot of what we do is build the trails, but, also a lot of what we do is work with people who build the trails. And I think that’s the cooler part about Trail Mix.” Said Tabacek.
Volunteer waivers are available on the Trail Mix website, as well as their schedule of upcoming events.
By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon
On July 1, Alaska’s new sick-leave and minimum wage increase law took effect.
Approved by voters in November, it states that someone working at a business with 15 or more employees will earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, up to a maximum of 56 per year, unless the employer voluntarily increases that limit.
Someone working at a business with fewer than 15 employees earns sick leave at the same rate, but the maximum per year is 40 hours.
The law also raised the state’s minimum wage to $13 per hour. The minimum wage rises to $14 per hour next year and $15 per hour in 2027. It will rise with the rate of inflation for each year after that.
The law also forbids bosses from forcing their employees to attend meetings about religious or political issues, including whether or not to join a labor union, political group or church.
There are exemptions for religious organizations.
Under the law, sick leave can be used for an employee’s illness or to take care of a family member who needs care. It can also be used in cases of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking.
While workers can access the benefits now, it will be a few weeks before the state formalizes some of the details of how employers must implement the law. On June 25, the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development proposed new regulations. Those won’t take effect until August at the earliest, but they would add some new rules to the sick leave law.
In the meantime, the department has published an informal Q&A about how the law works.
Under those regulations, all of the state’s employers “shall notify each employee in writing” about its sick leave policy.
Those policies may include the amount of advance notice required when using sick leave for a prescheduled medical appointment or “other forseeable absence.”
An employer can’t require more than 10 days’ notice in that case.
If someone is unexpectedly sick, the proposed regulations would require the sick employee to “notify the employer before the start of the employee’s shift or as soon as is possible.”
If someone uses sick leave for more than three consecutive days, their boss may require them to show proof of their need for sick leave, if that requirement is included in the written policy.
Someone who needs to take sick leave because of domestic violence, sexual assault, harassment or stalking, cannot be required to verify that explanation.
Under the law, someone can carry over unused sick leave from one year to the next, but they can’t exceed the maximum, unless their employer voluntarily allows them to do so.
Employers are forbidden from retaliating against employees who use their sick leave, and nothing prevents an employer from “front-loading” sick leave by giving them the hours in advance instead of accruing them over time.
The Department of Labor’s new regulations are subject to public comment through July 31. Anyone with questions may email dol.lss.regulations@alaska.gov.
By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon
Officials with the National Park Service are asking for the public’s help as they try to figure out how a humpback whale was injured by a boat in June.
Pictures published by the park on July 1 show a humpback whale with a large gash behind its dorsal fin. The whale was photographed uninjured on June 16, and the injury took place sometime between then and June 27, when a photo of the injury was taken by a biologist near Willoughby Island.
“They swim around all over the place. We don’t know exactly where it would have been. We do know that it had been spotted in a similar area to where it was seen only seven days before that. So we’re quite sure it’s been feeding in this area and then it had that fresh injury on the 27th, so we are expecting that someone quite close was in this area and interacted with that whale and ran into it,” said Matthew Cahill, public information officer for Glacier Bay National Park.
Two cruise ships and 25 private vessels are allowed per day into Glacier Bay.
Last year, several whales were struck by boats and ships in nearby waters, and at least two whales died as a result.
“We do know that whales are getting hit by boats in the area. I can’t tell you how many, though,” Cahill said, explaining that not all injuries are seen or reported, and data is anecdotal.
From his perspective, “we have a couple of identified photos of individual (whales) with fresh prop marks this year.”
Whale injuries are notable because humpbacks, gray whales and other species are protected by federal law. All vessels in the park are prohibited from coming within one quarter of a nautical mile of a humpback, and if they come inside that radius by accident, they must immediately reduce speed to 10 knots.
Cahill said that the Glacier Bay area is one of the more protected parts of Southeast Alaska for humpback whales, and staff at the park want to protect the marine environment while still providing a good visitor experience.
Anyone with information about the stricken whale has been asked to contact the park at 907-697-2230.
Every design choice that social media platforms make nudges users toward certain actions, values and emotional states.
It is a design choice to offer a news feed that combines verified news sources with conspiracy blogs – interspersed with photos of a family picnic – with no distinction between these very different types of information. It is a design choice to use algorithms that find the most emotional or outrageous content to show users, hoping it keeps them online. And it is a design choice to send bright red notifications, keeping people in a state of expectation for the next photo or juicy piece of gossip.
Platform design is a silent pilot steering human behavior.
Social media platforms are bringing massive changes to how people get their news and how they communicate and behave. For example, the “endless scroll” is a design feature that aims to keep users scrolling and never reaching the bottom of a page where they might decide to pause.
I’m a political scientist who researches aspects of technology that support democracy and social cohesion, and I’ve observed how the design of social media platforms affects them.
Democracy is in crisis globally, and technology is playing a role. Most large platforms optimize their designs for profit, not community or democracy. Increasingly, Big Tech is siding with autocrats, and the platforms’ designs help keep society under control.
There are alternatives, however. Some companies design online platforms to defend democratic values.
Optimized for profit
A handful of tech billionaires dominate the global information ecosystem. Without public accountability or oversight, they determine what news shows up on your feed and what data they collect and share.
Social media companies say they are in the business of connecting people, but they make most of their money as data brokers and advertising firms. Time spent on platforms translates to profit. The more time you spend online, the more ads you see and the more data they can collect from you.
This ad-based business model demands designs that encourage endless scrolling, social comparison and emotional engagement. Platforms routinely claim they merely reflect user behavior, yet internal documents and whistleblower accounts have shown that toxic content often gets a boost because it captures people’s attention.
Tech companies design platforms based on extensive psychological research. Examples include flashing notifications that make your phone jump and squeak, colorful rewards when others like your posts, and algorithms that push out the most emotional content to stimulate your most base emotions of anger, shame or glee.
Optimizing designs for user engagement undermines mental health and society. Social media sites favor hype and scandal over factual accuracy, and public manipulation over designing for safety, privacy and user agency. The resulting prevalence of polarizing false and deceptive information is corrosive to democracy.
Many analysts identified these problems nearly a decade ago. But now there is a new threat: Some tech executives are looking to capture political power to advance a new era of techno-autocracy.
Optimized for political power
A techno-autocracy is a political system where an authoritarian government uses technology to control its population. Techno-autocrats spread disinformation and propaganda, using fear tactics to demonize others and distract from corruption. They leverage massive amounts of data, artificial intelligence and surveillance to censor opponents.
For example, China uses technology to monitor and surveil its population with public cameras. Chinese platforms like WeChat and Weibo automatically scan, block or delete messages and posts for sensitive words like “freedom of speech.” Russia promotes domestic platforms like VK that are closely monitored and partly owned by state-linked entities that use it to promote political propaganda.
Over a decade ago, tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, and now Vice President JD Vance, began aligning with far-right political philosophers like Curtis Yarvin. They argue that democracy impedes innovation, favoring concentrated decision-making in corporate-controlled mini-states governed through surveillance. Embracing this philosophy of techno-autocracy, they moved from funding and designing the internet to reshaping government.
Techno-autocrats weaponize social media platforms as part of their plan to dismantle democratic institutions.
The political capture of both X and Meta also have consequences for global security. At Meta, Mark Zuckerberg removed barriers to right-wing propaganda and openly endorsed President Donald Trump’s agenda. Musk changed X’s algorithm to highlight right-wing content, including Russian propaganda.
Designing tech for democracy
Recognizing the power that platform design has on society, some companies are designing new civic participation platforms that support rather than undermine society’s access to verified information and places for public deliberation. These platforms offer design features that big tech companies could adopt for improving democratic engagement that can help counter techno-autocracy.
In 2014, a group of technologists founded Pol.is, an open-source technology for hosting public deliberation that leverages data science. Pol.is enables participants to propose and vote on policy ideas using what they call “computational democracy.” The Pol.is design avoids personal attacks by having no “reply” button. It offers no flashy newsfeed, and it uses algorithms that identify areas of agreement and disagreement to help people make sense of a diversity of opinions. A prompt question asks for people to offer ideas and vote up or down on other ideas. People participate anonymously, helping to keep the focus on the issues and not the people.
Taiwan used the Pol.is platform to enable mass civic engagement in the 2014 democracy movement. The U.K. government’s Collective Intelligence Lab used the platform to generate public discussion and generate new policy proposals on climate and health care policies. In Finland, a public foundation called Sitra uses Pol.is in its “What do you think, Finland?” public dialogues.
Barcelona, Spain, designed a new participatory democracy platform called Decidim in 2017. Now used throughout Spain and Europe, Decidim enables citizens to collaboratively propose, debate and decide on public policies and budgets through transparent digital processes.
Nobel Peace Laureate Maria Ressa founded Rappler Communities in 2023, a social network in the Philippines that combines journalism, community and technology. It aims to restore trust in institutions by providing safe spaces for exchanging ideas and connecting with neighbors, journalists and civil society groups. Rappler Communities offers the public data privacy and portability, meaning you can take your information – like photos, contacts or messages – from one app or platform and transfer it to another. These design features are not available on the major social media platforms.
Screenshot of Rappler Communities
Tech designed for improving public dialogue is possible – and can even work in the middle of a war zone. In 2024, the Alliance for Middle East Peace began using Remesh.ai, an AI-based platform, to find areas of common ground between Israelis and Palestinians in order to advance the idea of a public peace process and identify elements of a ceasefire agreement.
Platform designs are a form of social engineering to achieve some sort of goal – because they shape how people behave, think and interact – often invisibly. Designing more and better platforms to support democracy can be an antidote to the wave of global autocracy that is increasingly bolstered by tech platforms that tighten public control.
Lisa Schirch receives funding from the Ford Foundation. I know the founder of Pol.is and Remesh platforms, mentioned in this article, as well as Maria Ressa of Rappler Communities.
I will not benefit in any way from describing their work.
Politics + Society – The Conversation
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Elon Musk kicked off his Monday morning by reigniting his feud with the Trump administration.
This time, his focus is less on the spending bill that caused his initial rift with Trump and more on the FBI and the Department of Justice’s conclusion that there are no “Epstein files,” and the notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was not murdered.
The finding came as a surprise to many, as the Trump administration made a show of distributing classified Epstein documents to a group of far-right influencers back in February.
Now, Musk has added his voice to the chorus of those criticizing the FBI and the DOJ for their conclusions.
Elon Musk lashes out in response to FBI, DOJ memo
Musk began by tweeting a photo of what he called “The Official Jeffrey Epstein Pedophile Arrest Counter,” which was, of course, set to “0000.”
“What’s the time? Oh look, it’s no-one-has-been-arrested-o’clock again …,” he captioned the image, according to The Hill.
“So … umm … then what is Ghislaine Maxwell in prison for?” Musk later tweeted, referring to Epstein’s infamous associate.
“Stuff like this does not improve people’s faith in government,” he added.
“This is the final straw,” Musk later replied to one of his own tweets.
Musk continues to criticize Trump administration
Musk’s latest criticism comes just two days after he announced his intention to form a political party following weeks of dissatisfaction with the GOP.
As he often does, Musk conducted an informal poll and received the exact response that he was hoping for from his followers.
“By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!” Musk wrote in response, adding, “Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”
“I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks,” Trump responded in a post on his Truth Social platform, according to NBC News.
“The one thing Third Parties are good for is the creation of complete and total disruption and chaos.”
This, of course, is not the first time that Trump and Musk have locked horns. In fact, it’s not even the first time that they’ve clashed over Epstein.
Just last month, Musk tweeted that Trump’s name is “in the Epstein files,” thus further escalating tensions with his former ally.
It’s anyone’s guess as to where the conflict is headed from here — but something tells us that neither party is currently eager to bury the hatchet.
Elon Musk Blasts Epstein Files Memo: ‘What Is Ghislaine Maxwell In Prison … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.
The Hollywood Gossip
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Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom are making co-parenting a priority.
In the wake of the former couple’s recent split, some wondered what this will mean for their daughter.
4-year-old Daisy’s parents seem to be putting her first.
The exes reunited alongside their little girl over the weekend, meeting up on Jeff Bezos’ yacht.
Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom reunited (but are still broken up)
Page Six got a look at Katy Perry with Orlando Bloom and 4-year-old Daisy onboard Jeff Bezos’ $500 million yacht.
The trio gathered on Saturday, July 5. Perry wore a black bikini. Bloom wore black swim trunks.
Bezos’ yacht was off of the coast of Italy, apparently not too far from Sorrento.
During the get-together on the yacht, Bloom lifted Daisy into the air and gave her a kiss on her cute little cheek.
The family moments were not limited to the gauche yacht.
The former couple took their precious daughter for some ice cream on perhaps the most beautiful island on the planet — Capri.
Peaceful co-parenting or not, 2025 is NOT her year
Between not handling the Blue Origin backlash with grace and fumbling Bloom, Perry is clearly in her plastic bag era.
To be clear, the reports of the breakup came weeks ago.
It was only just ahead of the Independence Day holiday weekend that their reps confirmed the split.
As many are aware, holiday weekends are a popular time for celebrities to share unpleasant news.
One interesting detail about the split announcement was that their conscious uncoupling had been ongoing for “many months.”
So the breakup news that broke late this spring came months after the fact.
One has to wonder when Bloom and Perry might have shared their split if the news had not leaked.
Would they have attended the Bezos wedding together, just to keep things under wraps?
At least they’re putting Daisy first
This is a tough time, one must assume. Maybe for both of them. Especially for the singer.
Perry has been synonymous with desperation for years now, and losing Bloom is making her the butt of even more jokes than usual.
What matters most, however, is that they’re doing what they can to create stability for Daisy.
That doesn’t mean staying together in a loveless relationship. It does mean peaceful co-parenting for their daughter’s sake.
Katy Perry & Orlando Bloom Reunite After Confirming Split was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.
The Hollywood Gossip