Free Republic

After more than 2,500 Cambridge residents made their voices heard during the participatory budget vote in 2021, more than 70 new street signs in East Cambridge will include translations into the native Massachusett language. Sage Carbone, a Cambridge resident, proposed the participatory budget item to add traditional Native translations to city signs, along with commemorating Native American sites in Cambridge with markers. “Any representation is missing,” she said. Carbone is a member of the Northern Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island with Nipmuc, Massachusett ancestry.

EU plans digital ID wallet for bloc’s post-pandemic life FROM THE AP: The European Digital Identity Wallet proposed by the EU’s executive commission is a smartphone app that would let users store electronic forms of identification and other official documents, such as driver’s licenses, prescriptions and school diplomas. The bloc’s 450 million residents would be able to use the wallet to access public or private services both online and offline while maintaining control of their personal data. Officials envision the wallet allowing a customer renting a car at an airport, for example, to complete the necessary ID checks and documents...

p>The Pentagon’s budget request for fiscal year 2022 totals $715 billion, and among the Defense Department’s stated priorities are fighting the “climate crisis” and “extremism” in America’s armed forces. The funding requested by the Pentagon under Biden continues a trend set under Trump who ballooned the military budget from just $582 billion requested by the Obama administration in 2017. The newest 2022 budget request increases the budget by $11 billion in comparison to 2021. The 2022 budget proposal highlights climate change as a “national security priority,” stating that DoD will “elevate climate as a national security priority” and integrate “climate...

The U.S. Navy SEALs and the Navy Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen (SWCC) recently changed their ethos and creed statements to reflect a gender-neutral presentation of the elite Navy outfits, doing away with gendered terms like “brotherhood.” One change to the SEAL ethos was to alter a sentence in the first paragraph of the ethos to say, “Common citizens with uncommon desire to succeed” instead of the original, “A common man with uncommon desire to succeed.” Naval Special Warfare spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Stroup confirmed the changes to the ethos and creed statements in an emailed statement to American Military News....

It’s 7:20 p.m. when he rolls into Spicy Bite, one of the newest restaurants here in rural northwest New Mexico. Locals in Milan, a town of 3,321, have barely heard of it. The building is small, single-story, built of corrugated metal sheets. There are seats for 20. The only advertising is spray-painted on concrete roadblocks in English and Punjabi. Next door is a diner and gas station; the county jail is across the road. Palwinder Singh orders creamy black lentils, chicken curry and roti, finishing it off with chai and cardamom rice pudding. After 13 hours on and off the...