The Day My Grandfather Arrived

24 January, 1923

Built by Germania Werft, Kiel, Germany, 1908. 8,072 gross tons; 449 (bp) feet long; 54 feet wide. Steam quadruple expansion engines, twin screw. Service speed 13.5 knots. 1,260 passengers (100 first class, 1,160 third class).

Built for Anchor Line, British flag, in 1921 and renamed Assyria. Glasgow-New York service. Built as YPIRANGA for Hamburg-American Line. Sold to Companhia Colonial, Portuguese flag; renamed COLONIAL in 1929.


As listed at the Ellis Island site.

Ship’s Manifest



First Name: Alexander Mc Kechnie
Last Name: Anderson
Ethnicity: Britain, Scotch
Last Place of Residence: Eaglesham, Scotland
Date of Arrival: Jan 24, 1923
Age at Arrival: 37y 
Gender: M 
Marital Status: M 
Ship of Travel: Assyria
Port of Departure: Glasgow
Manifest Line Number: 0004

Note: Anyone whose relatives immigrated to America should check out this site, which has 25 million records.

HEADLINES:

• Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home raided by DHS in fraud probe of immigration paperwork: Report (CNBC)

• Trump claims Russia and Ukraine agree to energy ceasefire (Axios)

• Kremlin rejects 60-day truce offer and refuses to comment on Trump’s ‘energy ceasefire’ (Guardian)

• Ukraine doesn’t deserve ‘respite’, Russia’s Lavrov says, as Zelensky says he’d support Trump’s energy ceasefire (BBC)

• US threatens to block arms for Ukraine over attacks on Russian refineries (FT)

• Tillis says Trump’s Russian diesel deal may be illegal (Politico)

• Six senators call for Trump administration to ‘immediately reverse course’ on Russian diesel plan (AP)

• Why are Houthi missiles breaking through Saudi Arabia’s air defences? (Al Jazeera)

• Riyadh airport hit again as Houthis claim attacks, including strike that killed 12 – as it happened (Guardian)

• Hormuz attacks intensify as efforts to end war on Iran stall (Al Jazeera)

• America’s Elected Officials Are Living in Fear (NYT)

• Republicans face midterm backlash from factory workers squeezed out of jobs by Trump's tariffs (AP)

• These are the voters who will decide the midterm elections (WP)

• The Deleted Tweets of the New White House Press Secretary (Bulwark)

• ‘Musk’ Documentary Suggests DOGE’s Real Purpose Was Something Else Entirely (HuffPost)

• The terrifying prospect of President Pete Hegseth (Independent)

• How Trump aide Natalie Harp’s family broke apart — and polarized (WP)

• Can Wearables Really Track Blood Pressure Without the Cuff? I Tested Them. (WSJ)

• ‘It felt like the Hunger Games had started’: Employees are ‘loud working’ in an effort to secure their jobs (BI)

• A Week Later, Russia Hasn’t Said What Pathogen Killed Plague Researcher (NYT)

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• Joseph Gordon-Levitt Sounds the Alarm on AI Models ‘Being Trained to Hijack Your Intimacy’ (Wrap)

• Ex-Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon says he’s 90% certain China has spies inside America’s AI giants (Yahoo)

• Grandma Fondly Recalls Once Working With Homosexual (Onion)

 

Get Ready

“If the coming election does result in a blue wave, Trump will be faced with the fact of his diminishment. The rest of us will be faced with the wreckage.” — David Remnick, New Yorker

“Get Ready” — Smokey Robinson

***

With a little over three weeks to go until Election Day, I can’t shake the feeling that this is going to be like a massive natural disaster, an earthquake, hurricane, tornado and tsunami combined.

Trump appears to be increasingly unhinged as he realizes that is about to get thumped by voters from sea to shining sea. Democrats stand to take the House by a wide margin; while the outcome in the Senate is less certain, the signs point to a possible Democratic victory there as well.

In addition, Democrats look to make gains in state and local races nationwide.

All of that is good news for the health of our democracy, but no matter how the elections turn out, we’re still stuck with Trump for two more exhausting years.

What many fear is that Trump will seek to overturn the results of the elections just as he did on Jan. 6, 2021, one of the darkest days in American history.

So back to my point about an impending disaster. I recommend stocking up on necessities— food, water, batteries, toilet paper, medications, whatever you can’t live without — just to stay safe during whatever crazy steps Trump takes in the wake of his thumping at the polls.

It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

HEADLINES:

• Hegseth’s public execution plan meets the age of viral violence (Axios)

• Republican opposition widens to livestreamed execution (Reuters)

• Kelly calls to remove Hegseth ‘immediately’ over public execution plan (The Hill)

• American Taliban (Journal of the Plague Years)

• What to know about public executions, and why they stopped in the U.S. (WP)

• Houthis warn airlines and passengers not to use Saudi Arabian airports after deadly Riyadh attack (BBC)

• At Least 12 Killed in Houthi Attack on Airport in Saudi Capital (NYT)

• Trump Says Voter Fraud Is Rampant. The Evidence Says Otherwise. (Reveal)

• How Trump’s Revenge Campaign Descended Into Turmoil (NYT)

• Trump hits International Criminal Court with sanctions after Nobel goes to former judge (Reuters)

• Christa Pike is discharged from a hospital after surviving execution attempt, her attorneys say (AP)

• One Philadelphia Officer Is Killed and Another Is Shot 12 Times in Ambush (NYT)

• At least 2 deaths attributed to Isaias after hurricane bashes Florida and Alabama (NPR)

• This Is the Hurricane Season El Niño Foretold (Atlantic)

• Justice Dept. Is Investigating TV Networks Over Trump Pool Coverage (NYT)

• Trump’s New Press Secretary Says Abortion Pill Came From Nazi Germany (TNR)

• Walmart Denies Plans for Surveillance Pricing Despite Holding Patents for Surveillance Pricing (Gizmodo)

• India arrests protest leaders (Reuters)

• Zelenskyy furious as Trump announces deal to buy Russian diesel (Guardian)

• 8 dead after shooting in Erie, Pennsylvania, governor says. Shooter also dead (CNN)

• Pope Leo says he will undergo surgery to remove a nodule on his lung (NBC)

• How narcoleptic dogs helped this Stanford scientist crack a medical mystery (SFC)

LATEST AI NEWS:

• The US and China Cannot Slow the AI Race, But They Can Make It Safer (Diplomat)

• Why Companies Are Building Humanoid Robots And What It Means For Your Job (Forbes)

• ‘Pure insanity’: Mathematicians will need years to make sense of OpenAI’s latest drop (Verge)

• Anthropic AI agents took ‘unintended’ actions on government sites (WP)

• Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Decision to Pull the Trigger on Meta’s A.I. Agent (NYT)

• Cornell Tries Going By Different Name (Onion)