Another sleep issue that tech seeks to address at CES 2019: snoring. The most interesting solution we found? A sleep mask called Hupnos that fits over your eyes and your nose. If you're snoring, it'll use subtle, built-in vibrations to get you to adjust positions without waking you up. If that doesn't work, it'll tighten pressure on your nostrils to slow your exhales and help quiet the maelstrom coming from within. How does it know when you're snoring? A companion app on your phone listens for the telltale sounds while you sleep.
At the onset of the Great Depression, Buffalo had 573,000 inhabitants, making it the 13th-largest city in America. In the 75 years that followed, this once-mighty metropolis lost 55% of its population, a decline most dramatic in its blighted inner city but also apparent in its broader metropolitan area, one of the 20 most quickly deteriorating such regions in the nation. 27% of Buffalo's residents are poor, more than twice the national average. The median family income is just $33,000, less than 60% of the nationwide figure of $55,000. Buffalo's collapse—and that of other troubled upstate New York cities like Syracuse and Rochester—seems to cry out for a policy response.
Since moving to Manhattan in 2008, I’ve frequently returned to witness Buffalo’s transformation: dilapidated grain silos reimagined as popular venues for cultural events; vacant waterfront lots playing host to concerts and public-arts shows; architectural masterpieces inching closer and closer to full restoration; and telltale signs of a downtown revival, including boutique hotels, microbreweries, and even kombucheries.
Buffalo’s new life has come from both natives and international talent seeing the metropolis with fresh eyes
Passage of the controversial law, which has been discussed by Republicans for more than a decade, means those charged with enforcing it have just under two months to develop and implement the training needed to handle polls in the coming recall elections. “This will be a huge undertaking, to get everything and everybody ready,” said Diane Hermann-Brown, Sun Prairie city clerk and president of the Wisconsin Municipal Clerks Association. “We still have questions about how this will work.”
The Wisconsin law, one of the strictest in the nation, was enacted in 2011 but had been mostly blocked by various courts. It requires prospective voters to show a current or recently expired Wisconsin driver’s license or a similar identification issued to people who do not drive, a military ID, a United States passport, a tribal ID, a recent naturalization certificate or some Wisconsin student IDs.
The state said the law was needed to combat voter fraud. But cases of impersonation at the polls are very rare.
But Wisconsin has now made these types of drives much more difficult to organize. A new law signed by Gov. Scott Walker in March limits ways that volunteers can help people register. The state will soon be emphasizing an online voter registration system, which will require people to already have approved state IDs.
Critics fear the law will make it impossible to go door-to-door to register voters or set up registration tables in high schools, college campuses or at events like the Farmers’ Market. This could leave thousands of low-income people, students, transients and people of color unable to vote, they fear.
By one estimate, 300,000 eligible voters in the state lacked valid photo IDs heading into the election; it is unknown how many people did not vote because they didn't have proper identification. But it is not hard to find the Navy veteran whose out-of-state driver's license did not suffice, or the dying woman whose license had expired, or the recent graduate whose student ID was deficient -- or Harris, who at 66 made her way to her polling place despite chronic lung disease and a torn ligament in her knee.
That means out-of-state students and students with no driver’s licenses at those schools must get a second ID card from the university as well as a Voter Enrollment Verification letter proving they are enrolled in school.
These extra steps were by design: A former GOP staffer testified in 2016 that some Republican senators in a closed session were “giddy” about the prospect of voter ID suppressing votes by Milwaukee residents and college students, both of whom tend to vote Democratic.
