French Lawmakers Will Rewrite a Proposed Bill on Filming Police After Major Protests

PARIS (AP) — Lawmakers from French President Emmanuel Macron’s party will rewrite the most criticized article of a proposed security law, involving a measure aimed at banning the publication of images of police officers with intent to cause them harm.

The move comes after tens of thousands of protesters marched Saturday in Paris and across the country to reject the draft law.

In an apparent effort to quell criticism, the head of Macron’s party at the National Assembly, Christophe Castaner, said Monday “there is a need to clarify the measure.”

“We are going to propose a new, complete rewrite of the article 24,” he added.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin refused to simply withdraw the controversial Article 24, saying that events haven’t changed his position.

“I don’t have a fetish for numbers … but I do have a fetish for protecting police and gendarmes,” Darmanin said Monday before a parliamentary commission. Police on special operations “are not protected enough … We must absolutely keep it.”

For him, the controversial article isn’t a hindrance to the media.

“Protecting the police and protecting the press are not in competition,” said the interior minister, who is responsible for the measure. “There is no victory of one without the other.”

In its current version, the article of the proposed law criminalizes the publishing of images of police officers with the intent of harming their “physical or psychological integrity.” Anyone found guilty could be sentenced to up to a year in jail and fined 45,000 euros ($53,000).

The bill, championed by Macron’s party, was first voted on at the National Assembly last week. It is expected to be debated in the Senate early next year.

The government said the measure is needed to better protect police officers from online calls from violence.

Critics fear that if enacted, the law would impinge on freedom of information and media rights. They also say that it could restrict the public from filming police in cases that could be considered abuse or police brutality.

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Source:: Time – World

      

Zoom has picked Amazon Web Services as its preferred cloud provider, months after forming a partnership with Oracle (ZM, AMZN)

eric yuan zoom ceo

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The videoconferencing company Zoom has picked Amazon Web Services as its preferred cloud provider, just months after forging a major partnership with Oracle cloud to handle a “sudden spike” in video calls.

Zoom has used AWS since 2011 to power its very popular service, but under this new multi-year agreement, the two companies will work more closely together. The Zoom Rooms product, for example, will get new AI features provided by the Alexa for Business assistant, building on the forthcoming integration between Zoom and Amazon devices like the Echo Show smart speaker. 

“Faced with unprecedented global demand this past year, we’ve been able to handle it in significant part by running the substantial majority of our cloud-based workloads on our preferred cloud provider, AWS, and relying on AWS’s performance and scalability,” Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in a statement. “Looking forward, we will continue to innovate alongside AWS to reinvent virtual collaboration and deliver secure and exciting experiences for our customers.”

Zoom largely hosts its meetings on its own data centers worldwide, as Protocol’s Tom Krazit recently reported. However, AWS CEO Andy Jassy has said that Zoom primarily relies on Amazon’s cloud infrastructure to power much of the rest of its business.

Notably, however, AWS isn’t the only cloud that Zoom regularly uses. In April, Oracle and Zoom announced a major cloud partnership to handle traffic for “millions” of meeting participants, as usage spiked sharply in the pandemic.

The deal was called a turning point for Oracle, which has seen its cloud ambitions dwarfed by AWS, Microsoft, and Google. Oracle also has a pending deal to potentially take a stake in TikTok, which would also see the viral video app move much or all of its cloud infrastructure to the database giant’s platform. Zoom also uses Microsoft Azure for certain “limited” customer services, the company has said. 

With AWS now selected as Zoom’s “preferred cloud provider,” it doesn’t necessarily mean that the company will back away from those other clouds. It is a signal, however, that Zoom is focused on its partnership with AWS in a way that it’s not with any others.

Zoom quickly became a success story during the coronavirus pandemic, growing from 10 million daily meeting participants in December 2019 to 300 million a day since April 2020. It’s also widely used in schools, government organizations, and other types of organizations.

With that growth has come an …read more

Source:: Business Insider

      

The Challenge Star Undergoes Surgery for ‘Devastating Injury’

The Challenge: Total Madness finalist Kaycee Clark, who is also set to appear on Double Agents, took to social media on November 29 to reveal that she’d recently undergone surgery after getting a serious injury. The Big Brother winner did not provide additional details about how she received the injury, which she described in her Instagram hashtags as a ruptured patellar tendon.

In her post, she shared a photo of herself in a post-operation knee brace and wrote:

When life throws you challenges all you can do is accept it, smile, and move forward. No time for a pity party over here! It’s inevitable that we will all go through ups an downs there is no way of escaping them. Learn to embrace the journey.

Where I’m at now is all apart of my life story and I’ve learned to have the right attitude even if it was something I wasn’t expecting. I know there is nothing but growth coming from this devastating injury. Getting through this takes a lot of mind strength and I’m here for it.

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A post shared by Kaycee Clark (@kcsince1987)

In a story posted to her Instagram on November 30 showing her at physiotherapy, Clark explained that she had reached 19 days since her surgery.

Clark Will Be Appearing on ‘Double Agents’ After Making It to the Final on Her Rookie Season

Clark’s first season on The Challenge was the 35th season, Total Madness, which aired in the spring of 2020. She entered the house as a real threat due to her athleticism, connections to other Big Brother contestants and her good social game. Clark performed well on the season, earning her red skull against Kailah Casillas in the ninth episode and getting three wins in daily challenges.

Clark made it to the final challenge, where she came in second place to Jenny West out of the female competitors and was the only other female competitor to finish the final challenge. Clark will be returning to action on Double Agents, which began filming in Iceland at the end of the summer and premieres on December 9. Without the reigning female champion West competing this season, Clark will be looking to come out of her sophomore season with her first win on The Challenge.

Prior to ‘The Challenge’, Clark Played Professional Football & Won ‘Big Brother 20’

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Source:: Heavy.com

      

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