US prohibits airlines from flying to Haiti after planes were shot by gangs PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The Federal Aviation Administration prohibited U.S. airlines from flying to Haiti for 30 days after gangs shot three planes and the United Nations also Tuesday temporarily suspended flights to…

By Sara Truuvert

Sweaty palms, shaking limbs, and the distinct possibility of puking. Am I describing riding a rollercoaster or having a crush in middle school? These two thrill rides collide in Jake Maia Arlow's MG debut Almost Flying.

The novel follows thirteen-year-old Dalia, who has planned the perfect summer: finally ride a rollercoaster and make a new best friend. But when Dalia's dad announces he is engaged and expects Dalia to bond with her soon-to-be stepsister, Alexa, Dalia thinks her summer plans are shot. Luckily, Alexa agrees to take Dalia and Rani, a new girl from Dalia's swim team, on an amusement park road trip. What should be a smooth week takes a turn when Dalia realizes she might have more-than-friend feelings for Rani. Almost Flying launched on June 8th, 2021 with Dial Books and is widely available to order.

Jake Maia Arlow is a writer, podcast producer (listen to her work on shows like NPR's Invisibilia), bagel connoisseur, and co-writer of a musical about a gay demon competing in a reality TV show. You can find out more about Jake on her website, Twitter, and YouTube channel. Watch for her YA debut, How To Excavate A Heart launching from HarperTeen in 2022.

Q. A huge congratulations on your MG debut! Your protagonist Dalia is thirteen, which is such a weird, wild, sometimes(?) wonderful age. Did that time in your own life influence this story?

A. Thank you so much! That time in my own life absolutely influenced this story—mostly in that I was a complete weirdo in middle school. And while I wasn’t brave enough or self-aware enough to understand my own early queer feelings, I was so deeply idiosyncratic that I could write 1,000 middle grade novels and never touch on all of my bizarre behavior. For example: I wore mismatched toe socks to school every. Single. Day. 

Q. I love how unique Dalia is—for starters, she absolutely loves watching rollercoaster POVs (but would rather keep this hobby to herself!). Would you speak a bit about developing Dalia’s character?

A. Developing her character was one of the most exciting parts of the writing process, because it involved watching a ton of rollercoaster POV videos! Part of my process included taking notes on different POV videos in Dalia’s voice—some of those early free-writes even made it into the novel in various forms. It’s hard for me to start writing before I know a character’s voice, but Dalia’s came very naturally to me. She’s an anxious queer Jew from Long Island … just like me haha!

Q. Dalia has to navigate some complicated feelings she develops for her friend Rani. Did you map out the trajectory of their relationship before you began writing? Or was it more a matter of seeing where your writing took you?

A. I knew that Dalia had a crush on Rani from the very beginning, but it took me a few rounds of edits to realize that Rani also had a crush on Dalia from the start. Dalia overthinks everything, and even though Rani gives her some pretty clear signals, she doesn’t pick up on them. It was really more of a discovery writing process than I thought it would be!

Q. Do you have any writing routines or rituals that help you get into a good workflow?

A. Oooh, I love this question! I always have rain sounds playing in the background, regardless of whether or not it’s actually raining outside. Other than that, I do the pomodoro method (25 minutes of writing with a five minute break) and I try to have a friend around so I can bounce ideas off of them! 

Q. You have a helpful (and funny) post on your website about the process of getting your agent, which, understandably, involved a fair amount of nerves and panic. What would you say to an author who feels daunted by the idea of starting this process?

A. I’m thrilled that someone has read that! My advice is always to be over prepared. I am almost chronically over prepared because of my anxiety, but in this case it served me well. Listen to podcasts, read sample query letters, read the acknowledgements of your favorite books. There are so many incredible resources that you never have to go through this alone. 

Q. Do you have any advice for young writers?

A. YES! So many people like to say “read,” which is awesome advice, and you should absolutely do that, but my other piece of advice is to WRITE! Write in a journal, write your earth-shattering novel idea on a Google Doc and share it with friends, write recipes, write spells. Write anything and everything. At the very least, you’ll have something to look back on. 

Q. Finally, I understand that both you and Dalia are bagel connoisseurs. I must know, what separates a great bagel from a good bagel?

A. This is the greatest question I’ve ever been asked. First of all, if a bagel isn’t boiled, it’s not a real bagel— it’s just a piece of bread with a hole in the center. But other than that, a great bagel is freshly made, a little warm on the inside; it’s chewy on the outside and soft on the inside. And, most importantly, a great bagel is one that you eat with friends and family. 

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Sara Truuvert completed her MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of St Andrews. She also holds a Certificate in Creative Writing from the Humber School for Writers and a BA in English, Drama, and the History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Toronto. Her work has appeared in the Literary Review of Canada among other publications.

For more interviews, see the Inkygirl Interview Archive. Also see Advice For Young Writers and Illustrators, a compilation of tips generously offered by children's book creators Inkygirl.com has interviewed over the years.

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The Federal Aviation Administration announced Tuesday that it will prohibit U.S. airlines from flying to Haiti for 30 days after gangs shot a Spirit Airlines flight. The United Nations also said it will suspend flights, "obviously limiting the flow of humanitarian aid and humanitarian personnel into the country."  The bullets hit the plane when it was about to land Monday in the country's capital, Port-au-Prince, injuring a flight attendant. It was part of a wave of violence that erupted in Haiti as the country swore in its new prime minister after a politically tumultuous process.  Life in much of Haiti's capital was frozen after the wave of violence, which came to a head when gangs shot the Spirit Airlines airplane Monday, forcing the airport to shut down. Photos and videos obtained by The Associated Press show bullet holes dotting the interior of a plane. A number of airlines suspended flights to Haiti through Thursday, but it was unclear how long closures could drag on.  Neither the former interim prime minister, Garry Conille, nor the newly inaugurated Alix Didier Fils-Aime commented on the violence.  But Luis Abinader, who as president of the neighboring Dominican Republic has cracked down on Haitian migration, called firing on the airplane terrorism.  "This was a terrorist act; the countries that are following and helping Haiti should declare these armed gangs as terrorist groups," Abinader said in a news conference.  On Tuesday, heavily armed police in armored cars outside the airport checked trucks used for public transportation passing by.  Schools were closed, as were banks and government offices. The streets, where just a day before gangs and police were locked in a fierce firefight, were eerily empty.  The sound of heavy gunfire was heard in the streets in the afternoon — a reminder that despite political maneuvering by Haiti's elites and a strong push by the international community to restore peace, the country's toxic slate of gangs kept its firm hold on much of the Caribbean nation.  The United Nations estimates that gangs control 85% of the capital. A U.N.-backed mission led by Kenyan police to quell gang violence struggles with a lack of funding and personnel, prompting calls for a U.N. peacekeeping mission.

A 10-year analysis of air accidents reveals good news for most passengers but worrying trends in training and drones.

Where’s your flying car? I’m sorry to say that I have no idea. But here’s something that is somewhat similar, in that it flies, transports things, and has “car” in the name: it’s a flying cart, called the Palletrone (pallet+drone), designed for human-robot interaction-based aerial cargo transportation.

The way this thing works is fairly straightforward. The Palletrone will try to keep its roll and pitch at zero, to make sure that there’s a flat and stable platform for your preciouses, even if you don’t load those preciouses onto the drone evenly. Once loaded up, the drone relies on you to tell it where to go and what to do, using its IMU to respond to the slightest touch and translating those forces into control over the Palletrone’s horizontal, vertical, and yaw trajectories. This is particularly tricky to do, because the system has to be able to differentiate between the force exerted by cargo, and the force exerted by a human, since if the IMU senses a force moving the drone downward, it could be either. But professor Seung Jae Lee tells us that they developed “a simple but effective method to distinguish between them.”

Since the drone has to do all of this sensing and movement without pitching or rolling (since that would dump its cargo directly onto the floor) it’s equipped with internal propeller arms that can be rotated to vector thrust in any direction. We were curious about how having a bunch of unpredictable stuff sitting right above those rotors might affect the performance of the drone. But Seung Jae Lee says that the drone’s porous side structures allow for sufficient airflow and that even when the entire top of the drone is covered, thrust is only decreased by about 5 percent.

The current incarnation of the Palletrone is not particularly smart, and you need to remain in control of it, although if you let it go it will do its best to remain stationary (until it runs out of batteries). The researchers describe the experience of using this thing as “akin to maneuvering a shopping cart,” although I would guess that it’s somewhat noisier. In the video, the Palletrone is loaded down with just under 3 kilograms of cargo, which is respectable enough for testing. The drone is obviously not powerful enough to haul your typical grocery bag up the stairs to your apartment. But, it’s a couple of steps in the right direction, at least.

We also asked Seung Jae Lee about how he envisions the Palletrone being used, besides as just a logistics platform for either commercial or industrial use. “By attaching a camera to the platform, it could serve as a flying tripod or even act as a dolly, allowing for flexible camera movements and angles,” he says. “This would be particularly useful in environments where specialized filming equipment is difficult to procure.”

And for those of you about to comment something along the lines of, “this can’t possibly have enough battery life to be real-world useful,” they’re already working to solve that, with a docking system that allows one Palletrone to change the battery of another in-flight:

One Palletrone swaps out the battery of a second Palletrone.Seoul Tech

“The Palletrone Cart: Human-Robot Interaction-Based Aerial Cargo Transportation,” by Geonwoo Park, Hyungeun Park, Wooyong Park, Dongjae Lee, Murim Kim, and Seung Jae Lee from Seoul National University of Science and Technology in Korea, is published in IEEE Robotics And Automation Letters.

HoYoverse’s Honkai Star Rail (Free) version 2.5 update titled “Flying Aureus Shot to Lupine Rue" was just showcased during a …

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