Number 4. RedState. Los Angeles County settled with its CEO for “hurt feelings”.
Los Angeles County, California, is a pace setter in societal evolution. Home to some 9.7 million souls in the County proper, but nestled among that many again as part of the greater metropolitan area, Los Angeles County cannot afford to be seen as anything less than a progressive, growing community.
As far as that goes, Los Angeles County cannot afford anything else, either, because it is nearing bankruptcy.
A mere shortage of dollars, however, has not kept this vibrant metro area from focusing on things that are truly important. Key priorities of the County Board of Supervisors include developing an environment of sustainability and poverty alleviation, while addressing homelessness and supporting anti-racism, diversity and inclusion.
To accomplish those admirable goals, in 2021 the County hired a Ms. Fesia Davenport to be their Chief Executive Officer. She was up to the task and threw herself into the work.
By 2024, LA County voters were so impressed with her work that they decided to show their support by calling for a county-wide vote of confidence in her. This can be a little confusing, so please try to keep up.
Measure G was placed on the ballot last year. Measure G called for a change in how the County CEO is hired. In the past, the CEO has been retained by the Board of Supervisors (like a County Commission for those of us out here in flyover country); Measure G would instead make the CEO stand for election by The People.
The measure passed with 51% of the vote; of maybe 5 million voters, the margin of victory was around 84,000 ballots.
CEO Davenport was displeased. Her resignation letter, rendered a few months ago, cited the “unprecedented impact” of Measure G “on my professional reputation, health, career, income, and retirement.”
In the communication to county counsel Dawyn Harrison, Ms. Davenport asked that the monetary settlement she was requesting — as compensation for the aforementioned damages — be ignored in order to zero in on the real issues, to wit: “Measure G has irrevocably changed my life, my professional career, economic outlook, and plans for the future.”
In other words, she might lose her job if she has to stand for an election. My heart bleeds.
In the face of all that anguish, I’m not sure that a $2 million separation package is enough money.
Besides the emotional turmoil — read, “hurt feelings” — there is a small matter of the other provision of Measure G… the one about additional ethical oversight and accountability being brought to bear on the County Executive. On Fesia Davenport’s watch, it appears that 6,800 LA County children were sexually abused while in County custody, resulting in a $4 billion — yes, $4 BILLION — settlement, which LA will be paying on until 2051.
So really, what’s a $2 million payoff in the great scheme of things? Her feelings got seriously hurt, and it’s least the Californios could do for her.
Number 3. AP News. Amazon Web Services crashes the internet.
Back when we first heard about something called The Internet, the smart people knew it was an effort launched by DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, to ensure communications survivability in unpredictable battlefield communications. There were other priorities also, but the surprise launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union in 1957 was a wakeup call to American national defense thought leaders.
The idea was a distributed network of networks, ensuring interoperability — everyone could talk seamlessly to everyone else — and reliability — even if part of the network is lost, the rest remains unaffected.
That was all well and good and sent us firmly and profitably into The Information Age.
But that profitability thing… that’ll get you. Profits depend on a combination of expanding income and shrinking expenses. The more performance you can get from an existing network, for relatively small additional investment, the more the owners like it.
And so, Amazon Web Services has spread its influence all over the globe. Smaller businesses — and almost EVERYONE is smaller than Amazon — have seen the financial and operational benefits of outsourcing their computer infrastructure to The Cloud (whatever that is) and thus off-loading expense.
It all works fine, until it doesn’t.
This week, part of it quit working.
And it was not really a big part. The computers processed everything fine, but a relatively tiny cog in that big machine suddenly found itself unable to route traffic. The Domain Name Servers (DNS) lost the ability to identify where output was to be routed.
This is sort of like driving across an unfamiliar city in your car with a hardcopy map; everything works fine, except all the street signs have been removed.
But not to worry… it’s all fine now. Amazon got it fixed within hours of the outage and as of this writing there is no indication of sabotage or cyber hacking. Probably just human error.
I would have said the same thing if I were them.
And this sort of thing doesn’t happen all that often, at least not to Amazon. Rest assured their outages in 2017, 2020, 2021 and 2023 will probably not happen again. Nor will the unrelated and massive Crowdstrike event that took down Windows users in 2024. Or the air traffic control problems at Newark earlier this year.
Quit worrying about it. Nothing to see here.
Number 2. Reuters. Waymo robotaxis probed over school bus safety.
Speaking of things that usually don’t go wrong, Waymo, that Google sponsored service of self-driving vehicles now cruising U.S cities, has come under government scrutiny. The NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) announced an investigation into Waymo robot taxis because of an incident involving a school bus.
We all know school buses in traffic are sacred, and for good reason, because of the cargo they carry. Although we hate to find ourselves behind one when the red lights come on and flag goes out, we all understand the potentially deadly outcome of a car-against-child contest. We DO NOT simply drive around the red-lighted school bus.
Unless of course we operate a network of 1,500 driverless taxis in major metropolitan areas.
An incident this week in Georgia saw a Waymo car, without a human safety operator on board, stop for a red-lit school bus, then proceed to pull out and maneuver around the yellow bus to continue on its route.
A company spokesperson insisted that “driving safely around children has always been one of Waymo’s highest priorities.” Whether that focus includes driving safely around stopped school buses discharging children was left unaddressed.
Furthermore, this digital event has already been fixed. Waymo has improved the software, and it will be updated in the next release. Let’s just move on.
Feel better?
And finally, this.
To add to your comfort level while flying commercial, know that the loudspeaker announcements made over the public address systems are there for your safety and convenience. Where would we be without “Delta Flight 1355 now boarding in Terminal 26 at Gate 493,” anyway?
But last week, in yet another occurrence of Things That Will Probably Never Happen Again, it seems that four different North American airports found their public address systems had been hacked.
Pro-Palestinian messages were broadcast to travelers. Audio messages praising Hamas were played, and some flight status boards were hijacked to display text that was anti-Trump and anti-Netanyahu. Some of the language was… inappropriate. Naughty words were shared in public.
The event was not widespread, although my interest was piqued because I have transited through the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, airport, one of the targets, a number of times. Somebody there, and at the other affected locations in Canada, found the right extension cord and unplugged everything to stop the illicit messaging.
Now I wonder how many interested would-be computer pranksters have suddenly realized, Hey, I wonder if I could hack the PA system at my local airport? If we do it right, it could go viral on TikTok!
And thanks for joining The Alligator News Roundup for Friday, October 24, 2025. Take some time to review your passwords and make sure your password vault app is protected. And please don’t take a call from a number you do not recognize. Almost no legitimate commercial organization will actually call you when your account is in jeopardy; they will send an email or a snail mail letter.
On that note, I am afraid I really offended a lady on the phone a few weeks ago. I took the call because the caller ID (a notoriously unreliable and easily corruptible feature) showed it was from my local pharmacy. She asked my name; I declined to provide it and asked who she was.
The lady indicated she represented the pharmacy and wanted to let me know of a new service they were offering but could not continue unless I provided my birthdate. I didn’t give her that either. Turns out she was selling flu shots, and I probably ruined her day.
But I was polite about it.
Have a good weekend!
