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Sen. John Thune (R-SD) is speaking to reporters after being voted Senate Republican leader by secret ballot Wednesday. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Thune defeated Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Rick Scott (R-FL) to succeed outgoing Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who will still serve in the Senate through at […]

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We've been in Mexico City for almost seven weeks, our longest trip yet. I came here with two big items on my to-do list, both book-related: Get the Windows 11 Field Guide updated for Windows 11 version 24H2 and publish at least a preview of the new book I'm writing with my wife, Eternal Spring: Our Guide to Mexico City. And I can't say I've been successful with either, despite literally working on both projects every single day.

You've at least seen the progress I've made on the Field Guide: To date, I've published 28 chapter updates to the book since we got here, which I will admit is rather incredible. But here's what you probably don't know. Every one of those chapters includes new content, and while the amount of new content isn't always profound, some of those updates are quite good from a new material perspective.

Here's one example. I'm particularly happy with the work I've done with local accounts over the past few weeks. This involved resetting several of the PCs I have here, starting over from scratch with local account-only configurations to determine whether doing this will alleviate some of the enshittification in Windows 11, most notably the forced OneDrive Folder backup behavior. Most recently--two days ago, I guess, I reset my Surface Laptop 7, too, and am now using it this way. And ... so far, so good.

But even if this work doesn't "solve" the OneDrive Folder backup problem--and it kind of doesn't, since you could easily screw it up in any number of ways, for example by running a backup with Windows Backup--this was a good experience for me. It helped me dramatically expand the Local accounts and Device encryption chapters in the book, and I now fully understand what it means when Microsoft says that it "enables" device encryption by default in 24H2: This is both a dramatic change from before and no change at all, depending on how you configure the PC. (I'm working on an update to the Windows backup chapter now as a result.)

These book updates remind me of the security rabbit hole I went down at the end of 23H2: Microsoft had added passkey "management" support in Windows 11 version 23H2 and in trying to figure out what that meant, I learned a lot. One, the passkey management capabilities in Windows 11 are a joke. Two, passkey support in the Microsoft account is even more of a joke (is, in fact, half-assed). Three, that both of these things are getting better, though both have a long way to go. Four, that Microsoft had long ago based its support for online account sign-ins and Windows Hello on the FIDO-based foundations of passkeys, and now that passkeys are "real," it is making Windows 11 fully compliant with that as passkeys get portable. And there's more, but whatever. All I wanted to do was write a short new chapter for the book and I ended up learning more than I ever wanted to about online account security. It was worth it.

And that's what this October/November was like. A lot of work. Some output that ...

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Bluesky has now crossed 14.7 million users and added 1 million members since the US presidential elections.

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Stardock today released DesktopGPT 1.0, its new AI app for the Windows desktop. DesktopGPT integrates with multiple LLMs.

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On Wednesday, King County Council Member Claudia Balducci announced her candidacy for King County Executive. Her announcement came the morning after current Executive Dow Constantine announced he would not seek reelection. by Ashley Nerbovig

On Wednesday, King County Council Member Claudia Balducci announced her candidacy for King County Executive. Her announcement came the morning after current Executive Dow Constantine announced he would not seek reelection.

Thirty-ish years ago, Balducci moved from New York into a house in Bellevue’s Lake Hills neighborhood with her then-boyfriend, now husband. She’s stayed right there ever since, not counting a brief return to New York for law school. 

Her political career began at the Bellevue City Council. She served as mayor of that mall town from 2014 to 2016. Voters elected her to the King County Council in 2016. Throughout that time, she advocated for more housing density, defended Sound Transit’s East Link extension, and pushed for improvements to the criminal legal system.

She considers housing, transit, and public safety the pillars of her campaign for King County Executive. Plus, she supports finding progressive revenue streams for the county. When we asked her if, as someone from the Eastside, she felt additional pressure from big business to oppose legislation such as a payroll tax, she responded: “No more so than somebody from Seattle.” Touche, Balducci.

Balducci views herself as a coalition-builder, someone who reaches across the aisle. The biggest difference she sees between herself and her would-be predecessor, Constantine, is her approach: Rather than solely focusing on rallying advocates to push an idea across the finish line, she believes in sitting down with people who disagree with her to reach consensus. 

“You might come out with something that's a little different than what you thought, but hopefully we start to build deeper and more lasting support, not just for that thing, but for all of government,” Balducci said.

If elected as County Executive, Balducci says her first four years in office would focus on addressing the human suffering and disorder in King County’s downtown cores without increasing the jail population. She wants to ensure that people have the services they need to help them address substance abuse, their mental health, and maintain housing. Though she headed up the King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention, she was not a “lock-them-up sort of person,” though she did say she’d like to see crime go down in city centers.

She also wants to focus on delivering light rail expansion projects in a reasonable amount of time. 

A Yimby Year One

Balducci found her YIMBY calling in the early 2000s, when the owners of her neighborhood shopping center, Lake Hills Village, sought to redevelop the mall due to a lack of business and businesses. But as the property owners pushed to change zoning requirements to allow a mixed-use, multistory complex Balducci says many of her neighbors came out to oppose the redevelopment. She readily supported the idea and said so in front of her neighbors. Standing up in those meetings almost two decades ago launched her political career, she says. 

On Tuesday ahead of her campaign launch, she showed The Stranger around the redeveloped lot. Shops now fill the storefronts, and the Village houses a branch of the King County Library along with a community space. The large apartments attached to the complex–many three or four bedrooms–are some of the largest in the area. None are “deeply affordable, but they're not outrageously expensive either.” Balducci’s only regret is that the property couldn’t also connect to the light rail. The complex’s large parking lot in the center makes it clear the Lake Hills community still has a car-centric, commuter mindset.

Lake Hills was the first stop on Balducci’s Bellevue Accomplishments Tour. As we drove to our next stop, she chatted about the County’s need to build more housing and Eastside developers’ need to build more townhomes on single lots instead of the giant homes she often sees built in her neighborhood. (She acknowledged those townhomes would be expensive.)

A Defender of Transit

From Lake Hills Village, Balducci whisked us off to Wilburton Station, which she reluctantly called her favorite while saying, “It’s like my children, I love them all equally.” Balducci came alive as she talked about the importance of light rail planning, and how building along the freeway can limit how much density can pop up around a station. She pointed out The Spring District, which happened to be at the end of a rainbow that appeared as the rain slowed to a drizzle. The Spring District is a sort of evolved version of what Balducci did for Lake Hill Village. A developer turned an area of Bellevue made up mostly of warehouses and parking lots and turned it into a housing, shopping, and business core, complete with a light rail station right in the center that had support from private investors. Again, Balducci acknowledged the housing in Spring District probably wouldn’t be something anyone could afford, with the cost of a cheap studio hovering around $1,994, but the project brought more housing and more jobs, all made possible because of the light rail.

Balducci explained how unlike in Seattle, many people in Bellevue vehemently opposed light rail. She fought for years to bring the option to the Eastside as a member of the Bellevue City Council, fighting not only against her fellow council members, but also those who challenged it in court. She came from a city where you could survive without a car and saw the benefit and importance of a reliable transportation system. She called building the Eastline a labor of love. 

As King County Executive, she’d have a huge say in how light rail expanded, because not only would she become a member of the Sound Transit Board, but she’d have the ability to appoint another nine members to the 18 member board. Much of her political life has been dedicated to the issue of improving and expanding transit, and as King County Executive, she says, she’d throw herself into delivering the light rail the county promised to voters as quickly and efficiently as she can.

Not Zero Youth Detention, but Less Youth Detention

Balducci has never styled herself as an abolitionist. She’s a reformer, someone who helped to change conditions at the King County Jail after the US Department of Justice found that the facility had violated people’s constitutional rights by failing to adequately protect them from harm. When the issue of the new youth jail came up, Balducci said she saw a need for an improved youth jail, a smaller one, that could be refitted as the county worked to reduce the number of kids in lock up. But she never saw the existence of the building as a problem, it's more about how the county manages the building and treats the people inside. She also stressed she supports diversion programs and upstream investments to help reduce the number of kids who find themselves on the path to prison. She said she believes in community-based diversion programs and has supported increasing funding to them.

Final Stop

Balducci ended the tour at Porchlight, a men’s shelter in Bellevue that she helped establish during her time as Mayor. The whole process involved a lot of planning, funding, and dealing with community pushback, but it resulted in a 100-bed shelter and the first permanent shelter for men in all of East King County. From there, Bellevue wanted to expand the site, eventually purchasing the property from the county and expanding it to create permanent supportive housing as well as 300 units of family housing, Balducci said. She acknowledged that this particular project may not be the best example of the coalition style governance she wants to represent as King County Executive — a lot of neighbors still had issues with the project — but in the end, many came around. 

Balducci sees herself as somebody who fights Nimby-ism wherever it sprouts. With the drop from her colleague King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay Tuesday night, announcing he also planned to “strongly consider” a run for King County Executive, Balducci probably won’t end up the most outwardly progressive candidate in the race. However, given Zahilay’s recent retreat on criminal legal system issues, Balducci may be able to style herself as a more consistent, left voice who delivers on her promises. Plus, she’d be the county’s first woman King County Executive in the position’s 56-year history. Wild we haven’t managed to elect one of those yet.

Turkey, Pumpkin Pie, and More by EverOut Staff It's nearly time once again to partake in the national pastime of gorging ourselves on poultry and cranberry sauce and curling up on the couch for a tryptophan-induced nap. If you're looking to outsource some of your Thanksgiving Day preparations, we've rounded up this list of restaurants offering holiday specials for dine-in and takeout, from full turkey dinners to pie. For more ideas, check out our food and drink guide.

Note: Order deadlines are approaching fast for many of these restaurants, and supplies are limited. Be sure to place your orders ASAP to avert any ruined holiday plans.

Cafe Flora
The plant-filled vegetarian haven Cafe Flora is celebrating its 32nd annual Thanksgiving with a four-course dine-in menu that includes choices like apple parsnip soup, harvest nut roast with spiced heirloom carrot sauce, and heirloom apple cheesecake, as well as a $35 optional menu and a kid's menu. Indoor and outdoor heated patio seating are available. 
Madison Valley

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India's smartphone market is expected to exit 2024 with a low single-digit annual growth, as Apple posted its largest-ever quarterly shipment in India with 4 million units in the third quarter (Q3), according to a new report.

iPhone shipments in the third quarter of 2024 crossed 4 million units for the first time, driven by steep discounts, multiple financing options, and a strong demand for premium handsets during the festive season, said research firm IDC in a report released Wednesday.

The size of the deal is estimated at over Rs 1,300 crore. With the transaction, both Bharti and DMPL will receive shares of ATFL as consideration and will become public shareholders of ATFL post the transaction. Additionally, ATFL (through DMFPL) will acquire an exclusive, perpetual license for the Del Monte brand in India.

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Driven by tier 2 and 3 cities, India's e-commerce sector registered a gross merchandise value (GMV) of approximately $14 billion (more than Rs 1.18 lakh crore) in this year's festive season, marking a 12 per cent growth over last year's festive period, a report said on Wednesday.

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26

Artist Suki Summer is making a splash with her bold new single, "Nothing At All." Blending the rough edge of 70s rock with the lively sounds of 80s synth music,…