- Read the letter found in Brian Laundrie’s backpack from his mom marked ‘burn after reading’ CNN
- Reaction: Gabby Petito’s family given Roberta Laundrie’s “burn after reading” letter to son WFLA News Channel 8
- Gabby Petito case: Brian Laundrie’s mother promised son shovel, garbage bag, jailhouse cake in love letter Fox News
- Gabby Petito’s parents get copy of ‘burn after reading’ letter that Brian Laundrie’s mom wrote him CNN
- Gabby Petito’s parents get ‘burn after reading’ letter from Brian Laundrie’s parents in civil lawsuit Yahoo News
Tag Archives: backpack
Universal TFT Display Backpack Helps Small Displays Shine
TFT technology might be ancient news for monitors and TVs, but it’s alive and well when it comes to hobbyist electronics and embedded devices. They’ve now become even easier to integrate, thanks to the Universal TFT Display Backpack design by [David Johnson-Davies].
Such displays are affordable and easy to obtain, and [David] noticed that many seemed to have a lot in common when it came to pinouts and hookup info. The result is his breakout board design, a small and easy-to-assemble PCB breakout board that can accommodate the pinouts of a wide variety of TFT displays available from your favorite retailers or overseas sellers.
The board has a few quality-of-life features such as an optional connection for a backlight, and a staggered pin pattern so that different TFT boards can be pushed in to make a solid connection without soldering. That’s very handy for testing and evaluating different displays.
Interested? Head on over to the GitHub repository for the project, and while you’re at it, check out [David]’s Tiny TFT Graphics Library 2 which is a natural complement to the display backpack. [David] sure knows his stuff when it comes to cleverly optimized display work; we loved his solution for writing to OLED displays without needing a RAM buffer.
Gun in 8-year-old’s backpack goes off at school, mom charged
CHICAGO (AP) — A Chicago mother has been charged with child endangerment after a gun in her second grader’s backpack accidentally discharged at school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police said Wednesday.
The 28-year-old woman appeared in court on Wednesday on three misdemeanor child endangerment counts. A judge ordered her release from Cook County Jail on $1,000 bond.
During the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the woman’s 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on the city’s North Side on Tuesday. The mother has a valid firearm owners identification card.
According to police, the backpack was in the boy’s classroom when, just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that prosecutors said during the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the child’s abdomen. The child was taken to a hospital in good condition, police said.
In an email to parents, the school’s principal said the bullet “caused some debris to ricochet in your child’s classroom, which hit a member of our school community and caused minor scrapes.” The school did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
A teacher then grabbed the backpack and gave it to security officers who found a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors said during the hearing.
The woman’s attorney, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and not just placed under the bed. But, he said, “This wasn’t something she planned or something she did on her own volition.”
Cook County Judge Michael Hogan was not impressed by that argument.
“This may not have been an intentional act, but it is a supremely negligent act,” he said.
He continued: “We are inches away, possibly centimeters away, from a very different case and a very different tragedy.”
Disney Magnet School student, 7, injured after gun goes off in backpack in classroom; mother Tatanina Kelly charged
CHICAGO (WLS) — A judge scolded a mother Wednesday after her son allegedly found her gun and brought it to school, where it went off and injured one of his classmates.
Chicago police were called to Disney Magnet School Tuesday when a loaded gun accidentally fired inside an 8-year-old boy’s backpack, injuring another student.
The 8-year-old brought the loaded gun to school after prosecutors say he found it under his mother’s bed.
Tatanina Kelly is now held responsible and charged with three counts of misdemeanor child endangerment.
“I’m not surprised,” said Harold Krent, a professor at Kent College of Law. “You can’t leave prescription medicine near little children, you can’t leave sharp objects and you certainly shouldn’t leave a loaded gun. It’s a recipe for disaster.”
Krent said child endangerment laws exist to protect those who are young and defenseless. Kelly appeared in bond court Wednesday where a judge accused the 28-year-old mother of being “supremely negligent.”
“This isn’t just a matter of parental responsibility, it’s of human responsibility,” Krent said.
Kelly’s defense attorney acknowledged the gun should have been locked up, but he argued the incident was not something his client planned or did to purposefully violate the law.
But Judge Michael Hogan reminded Kelly that the incident could have resulted in something much worse.
“We are inches away, possibly centimeters away from a very different case and a very different tragedy,” Hogan said.
Despite no prior criminal record and legal ownership of the gun, Kelly was held on a $10,000 bond.
“The judge hopes people take this seriously and when they see it in the news they take steps to make sure guns are protected,” Krent said.
The 7-year-old injured Disney student was taken to the hospital in good condition. The bullet grazed the boy’s abdomen.
Copyright © 2022 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.
NASA’s New “Lunar Backpack” Can Generate a Real-Time 3D Terrain Map To Aid Moon Explorers
Michael Zanetti, a NASA planetary scientist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, hikes the Cinder cone in Potrillo volcanic field in New Mexico in late 2021, testing the backpack-sized prototype for NASA’s Kinematic Navigational and Cartography Knapsack (KNaCK), a mobile lidar scanner now in development to support lunar exploration and science missions. Credit: NASA/Michael Zanetti
Consider a mountaineering expedition in a completely uncharted environment, where the hikers had the ability to generate a real-time 3D map of the terrain. 
This video of a UAV drone landing in the dusty New Mexico desert demonstrates how the KNaCK technology – leveraging 4D FMCW-lidar data from NASA vendor Aeva Inc. of Mountain View, California – combines live, real-time high-definition video imaging, as seen at upper left panel; lidar ranging data, at upper right; and lidar Doppler velocity data. The latter tracks the speed and direction of dust particles kicked up by the descending drone, with red indicating particles moving away from the scanner and blue indicating those moving toward it. Such capabilities, now in development by researchers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, could benefit future science missions on other worlds in addition to enabling real-time topographical mapping by explorers. Credit: NASA/Michael Zanetti
Initiated in 2020 with funding by NASA’s Early Career Initiative, the KNaCK project has partnered with Torch Technologies Inc. of Huntsville to develop the backpack prototype and associated navigation algorithms that permit accurate mapping without GPS. The project’s commercial vendor, Aeva Inc. of Mountain View, California, is supplying FMCW-lidar sensors and support, working with NASA to enhance the backpack’s lidar sensing system for use on the Moon and other extraplanetary human excursions.
Using KNaCK during rover excursions and when traveling on foot, explorers could precisely map the topography of the landscape, including deep ravines, mountains, and caves. Lidar even works in pitch blackness, relieving astronauts of the need to haul cumbersome lighting rigs everywhere they go.
“As human beings, we tend to orient ourselves based on landmarks – a specific building, a grove of trees,” Zanetti said. “Those things don’t exist on the Moon. KNaCK will continuously enable explorers traversing the surface to determine their movement, direction, and orientation to distant peaks or to their base of operations. They can even mark specific sites where they found some unique mineral or rock formation, so others can easily return for further study.”
That’s vital for astronauts on a clock, their excursions limited by the oxygen supply in their suits. KNaCK’s ultra-high-resolution precision – an order of magnitude greater than conventional lunar topography maps and elevation models – makes it a vital resource for conducting science and mission operations 238,900 miles away from mission control, Zanetti said.
The hardware will get another major field test in late April at NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) in Kilbourne Hole, New Mexico. The team previously put the KNaCK system through its paces at that ancient volcanic crater – estimated to be 25,000-80,000 years old – in November 2021. They also used it recently to conduct a 3D reconstruction of the 6-mile-long sea barrier dunes at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which protect its primary rocket launch pads. Kennedy and Marshall engineers will continue to use KNaCK to assess the impact of storms on dune erosion, ensuring the safety of future flight missions as they further refine the system.
Next, the KNaCK team will work to miniaturize the hardware – the backpack prototype weighs about 40 pounds – and harden the sensitive electronics against the punishing effects of microgravity and solar radiation.
“Taking advantage of the latest advancements in lidar technology from Aeva, our next-generation space-hardened unit with support from Torch Technologies will be about the size of a soda can and could enable lunar surface operations like never before,” Zanetti said. He envisions mounting it on a rover or on the side of an astronaut’s helmet – which should leave plenty of room in future lunar mountaineers’ all-purpose backpacks.
NASA’s ‘Lunar Backpack’ Could Prevent Astronauts From Getting Lost on the Moon
The Moon is not the kind of place where you want to get lost, but it can get a little tricky trying to retrace your dusty footsteps without a GPS system in place. Thankfully, space engineers may have found a way around this limitation, designing a portable backpack meant to generate a real-time, 3D map of the Moon’s terrain.
The Kinematic Navigation and Cartography Knapsack (KNaCK) is a collaborative effort between NASA and its private industry partners to help future explorers find their way around the less-explored south polar regions of the Moon. KNaCK allows for an on-demand, real-time navigation system, and it works by using a pulsed laser that measures distances to nearby objects and surface features. On the Moon, the system could provide backpack-wearing astronauts with a 3D, high-resolution map of their surrounding area, according to NASA.
The technology is referred to as frequency modulated continuous wave lidar, and it’s capable of providing velocity and range for millions of measurement points per second, including the speed of and distance to disturbed dust particles. That is, in a word, impressive.
“Basically, the sensor is a surveying tool for both navigation and science mapping, able to create ultra-high-resolution 3D maps at centimeter-level precision and give them a rich scientific context,” Michael Zanetti, who leads the KNaCK project at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, said in a statement. “It also will help ensure the safety of astronauts and rover vehicles in a GPS-denied environment such as the Moon, identifying actual distances to far-off landmarks and showing explorers in real time how far they’ve come and how far is left to go to reach their destination.”
NASA is planning to return humans to the Moon no earlier than 2025 as part of the Artemis program. But this time, the astronauts will be landing near the Moon’s south pole. This area is of special interest to scientists, with evidence suggesting that it may contain subsurface water ice that can be used as a precious resource for lunar exploration.
However, much of the Moon’s south pole is covered in shadows, which could make it difficult for future astronauts to estimate distances to their lunar pit stops. As time spent on the Moon’s surface is precious, KNaCK will make it easier to measure the exact amount of oxygen needed for extra-vehicular excursions.
“As human beings, we tend to orient ourselves based on landmarks—a specific building, a grove of trees,” Zanetti said. “Those things don’t exist on the Moon. KNaCK will continuously enable explorers traversing the surface to determine their movement, direction, and orientation to distant peaks or to their base of operations. They can even mark specific sites where they found some unique mineral or rock formation, so others can easily return for further study.”
KNaCK underwent testing in November 2021 at an ancient volcanic crater in Potrillo, New Mexico, and is scheduled for another test in late April at NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) in Kilbourne Hole, New Mexico. The team behind the navigation system is working to reduce the weight of the backpack, which currently stands at about 40 pounds, and to shield the electronics against the harsh solar radiation and microgravity experienced on the Moon.
More: NASA Chose a Really Sweet Spot to Land Its Upcoming Lunar Rover.
Shoe, backpack shortages could be possible for back-to-school shopping
COVID-19 shortages: 3 things that might be hard to find this summer
Shortages may make these three products hard to find over the summer.
Staff Video, USA TODAY
In a year where there have been shortages on everything from Grape-Nuts cereal to chicken wings, another is looming that could affect students’ return to school.
Experts say it’s possible some school supplies could be harder to find and may sell out. Plus, prices may be on the rise.
Neil Saunders, managing director of consultancy GlobalData Retail, told USA TODAY he expects demand will be high on products like backpacks, sneakers, some gadgets and stationery.
“While we are unlikely to see apocalyptic shortages, the continued pressure on supply chains means that not all retailers will get an optimal amount of supply,” Saunders said. “What this means is consumers will have less choice, and some may not be able to get exactly what they want, especially towards the end of the back-to-school season.”
►Save better, spend better: Money tips and advice delivered right to your inbox. Sign up here
►Back-to-school season: 15 must-have school supplies your kids need, by grade
Last year as more students started the school year virtually amid the pandemic, parents struggled to find desks and chairs.
According to the National Retail Federation’s annual survey, consumers plan to spend record amounts for both school and college supplies with more students planning to return to in-person classrooms this fall.
Families with children in elementary through high school plan to spend an average of $848.90 on school items, which is $59 more than last year. Total back-to-school spending is expected to reach a record $37.1 billion, up from $33.9 billion last year, the survey of more than 7,700 consumers showed.
USA TODAY found that Target and Walmart stores in Florida and California had well-stocked school supply sections.
Will school supplies cost more?
Keith Jelinek, managing director of the retail practice at Berkeley Research Group, urges consumers to start planning their back-to-school shopping sooner rather than later to avoid shortages and possible price increases.
“We are seeing instances where demand is outpacing supply of goods, especially in apparel,” Jelinek told USA TODAY. “Consumers might see the apparel or sneakers item they want but may not be able to get it in the size or color they need.”
With 6% inflation in apparel, he said consumers should anticipate paying anywhere from 10% to 15% more compared to last year. Also, he expects retailers will reduce discounts.
Nikki Baird, vice president of retail innovation at Aptos, a technology solutions provider that works with brands and retailers including Dick’s Sporting Goods, Tilly’s, Carter’s, Skechers and New Balance, agrees that there may be fewer promotions this year.
Baird said stores have also narrowed their assortments to minimize their risk of products not selling.
Early school shopping
More than half of back-to-school shoppers from the the retail federation’s survey said they already started shopping for the school year as of early July, but 76% were still waiting on school supply lists.
“I think there’s a lot of pressure for consumers to shop sooner than later,” Baird said. “There’s a lot of concern out there about inflation, and whether prices are going to go up, there’s lots of disruption around the supply chain.”
Upcoming sales tax holidays are expected to drive shoppers in some states to get a handle on their shopping. According to the International Council of Shopping Centers survey, 38% plan their back-to-school shopping around specific promotional events and dates such as sales-tax holidays and sales.
Saunders said shortages will be patchy and consumers will need to search more than usual to find what they want.
“Consumers seem to be aware of some of these challenges, which is why more are getting their back-to-school shopping out of the way earlier than usual.”
►Free school supplies: Cashback app Ibotta giving away free school supplies for back to school at Walmart, Target and more
►Carrot recall: Grimmway Farms recalls O Organics, Bunny-Luv carrots for possible salmonella contamination
Follow USA TODAY reporter Kelly Tyko on Twitter: @KellyTyko. For more shopping tips and deals, join us on our Shopping Ninjas Facebook group.