Law enforcement officers have shot a woman with what appears to be “less lethal” ammunition at close range while she was walking alone near her residence in Los Angeles, new footage shot during the recent protests reveals.
The video, which was taken by another woman and shared on social media, shows the woman walking down a street alone. A line of law enforcement officers appear to tell her to leave the area.
Moments later there is a loud bang as one of the officers appears to fire at the woman, who steps back after being hit and staggers away.
Later she can heard saying: “I live here.”
The woman who filmed the incident runs to the victim, who is crying, and helps her sit down before moving across the street as the officers continue to shout orders. “They literally just shot her point-blank,” the woman filming says.
The Los Angeles police department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday morning.
During the current protests in Los Angeles, law enforcement officers have fired flashbangs, teargas and rubber bullets, while other news outlets have also reported the use of pepper balls.
In a statement, Nine News said Tomasi was “struck by a rubber bullet” and said that she and her camera operator “are safe and will continue their essential work covering these events”.
“This incident serves as a stark reminder of the inherent dangers journalists can face while reporting from the frontlines of protests, underscoring the importance of their role in providing vital information,” the network added.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has confirmed it is flying Predator drones above the Los Angeles protests, and specifically in support of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to a CBP statement sent to 404 Media. The statement follows 404 Media’s reporting that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has flown two Predator drones above Los Angeles, according to flight data and air traffic control (ATC) audio.
The statement is the first time CBP has acknowledged the existence of these drone flights, which over the weekend were done without a callsign, making it more difficult, but not impossible, to determine what model of aircraft was used and by which agency. It is also the first time CBP has said it is using the drones to help ICE during the protests.
In 1979, Atari released the Atari 400 and 800, groundbreaking home computers that included custom graphics and sound chips, four joystick ports, and the ability to run the most advanced home video games of their era. These machines, which retailed for $549 and $999, respectively, represented a leap in consumer-friendly personal computing, with their modular design and serial I/O bus that presaged USB. Now, 46 years later, a hobbyist has shrunk down the system hardware to a size that would have seemed like science fiction in the 1970s.
Polish engineer Piotr "Osa" Ostapowicz recently unveiled "Atarino," which may be the world's smallest 8-bit Atari computer re-creation, according to retro computing site Atariteca. The entire system—processor, graphics chips, sound hardware, and memory controllers—fits on a module measuring just 2×1.5 centimeters (about 0.79×0.59 inches), which is roughly the size of a postage stamp.
Ostapowicz's creation reimplements the classic Atari XL/XE architecture using modern FPGA (field-programmable gate array) technology. Unlike software emulators that simulate old hardware (and modern recreations that run them, like the Atari 400 Mini console) on a complete computer system of another architecture, Atarino reproduces the original Atari components faithfully at the logic level, allowing it to run vintage software while maintaining compatibility with original peripherals.
The Atarino is only slightly larger than a Polish 1 Grosz coin.
Credit:
Piotr Ostapowicz
"The current project is not strictly a clone of Atari but basically, well, I'm forming a machine that is compatible with the Atari 8-bit computer itself, but it was created on the basis of the framework that I created some time ago," Ostapowicz told Atari Online PL in a January 2024 YouTube interview.
An assortment of some of the Atari 8-bit computer systems released in the 1970s and '80s.
Credit:
Atari
The project, which began over a decade ago and was first publicly demonstrated in December 2023, includes a 6502C processor, ANTIC and GTIA graphics chips, POKEY sound chip, and memory controllers onto a single Lattice UP5K FPGA chip. Despite its tiny size, the system can run at clock speeds up to 31 MHz—far faster than the original hardware's 1.79 MHz.
Smaller, faster, and positioned for future projects
While Atarino maintains broad compatibility with classic Atari software, Ostapowicz says he has enhanced the original design in several ways. For example, the 6502 processor core follows the physical chip specifications but adds new instructions. The memory system uses independent channels rather than the original's "cycle stealing" approach (where the graphics chip temporarily halts the CPU to access memory), improving performance.
The graphics capabilities of the Atarino also extend beyond the original's limitations. Ostapowicz implemented functional clones of the ANTIC and GTIA chips with extended resolution modes. And the system outputs video through both VGA at 60 Hz and HDMI.
The Atarino seen attached to an early evaluation breakout board that features peripheral connectors.
Credit:
Piotr Ostapowicz
The modular design allows hobbyists to integrate Atarino into custom keyboards, miniaturized cases, or development boards. Ostapowicz has created multiple keyboard variants, including one based on the 65XE layout and another using a UART interface with microcontroller-based scanning. The system also supports connections to modern peripherals through Wi-Fi or Ethernet modules.
Development continues on the project, with Ostapowicz currently refining the POKEY sound chip emulation to match the original's asynchronous behavior. He's also working on simplifying development tools for users, with the environment already compatible with CC65 and Visual Studio Code. He plans to release complete kits with documentation, inviting the retrocomputing community to experiment with the hardware.
The European Atari connection
The Atari 8-bit platform holds particular significance in Poland and Europe in general, where these computers performed well on the home market throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. While most American consumers had moved on to newer systems, Polish users in particular embraced Atari's affordable computers during the country's economic transition away from communism, creating a vibrant community that persists today. This nostalgic connection has made Poland a global hub for Atari 8-bit development and preservation.
A European family enjoying an Atari 600 XE computer from a 1980s German catalog.
Credit:
Atari
In communist Poland, Western computers were primarily available through Pewex, a chain of hard-currency shops that accepted only US dollars. Despite COCOM embargoes on Western technology, Atari computers became generally available at these stores, partly thanks to efforts by Jack Tramiel, the Polish-born Atari owner who ensured his computers reached his homeland. This nostalgic connection has made Poland a global hub for Atari 8-bit development and preservation.
For Atarino creator Ostapowicz, his Atari miniaturization project is more than a nostalgic exercise or a mere technical challenge; it stems from a desire to create a tiny platform that applies 8-bit computing to new applications. He also saw an opportunity to build something fun and useful for today's hobbyists and developers, bridging the past with future possibilities.
"I just came to the conclusion that we can build something that is compatible with Atari, give it a miniature form, and then it will happen," he said in the Atari Online interview. "As I mentioned, if someone wants to make a portable console, he has an open road. If someone wants to make an IoT system out of it, here you go."
I can prove I am a US citizen because a) I have all the documentation, b) it's four generations back before you find immigrants in my family, c) I'm well-known enough that my birthplace is public record. But the system isn't designed to help anyone prove anything.nymag.com/intelligence…
In New York magazine this week,an article about how US citizens who have been detained by ICE can have an exceptionally difficult time proving that they they are, in fact, US citizens, or will have the ability to prove it before they are sent off to El Salvador or Rwanda or anywhere else in the world this embarrassment of an administration wants to unconstitutionally send people. And, while acknowledging the fact that it’s deeply unlikely I, a middle-aged white dude who lives in rural Ohio, will find myself attracting the attention of ICE in the first place, the article does raise a larger and sadly growingly more pertinent question: How many US citizens could, in fact, prove that they are US citizens at the drop of the hat? Leave aside for the moment the absolutely correct argument that it should not be incumbent on any of us to do so, and focus on this particular question. Can you, directly and/or indirectly, show that you have citizenship here in the US?
The gold standard physical proof of this would be an official birth certificate from within the United States (or naturalization certificate), followed by a valid US passport, followed by a REAL ID driver’s license. To obtain a US passport the first time, you need that official birth certificate or a US naturalization or citizenship certificate. For the REAL ID license here in Ohio, where I live, you need proof of US citizenship (passport or birth certificate) and a social security number, proof of Ohio residency, and, if your name has changed due to marriage or other reasons, legal proof of the name change, from a marriage license or a court-ordered name change.
So: Can you quickly lay hands on an official copy of your birth certificate? Do you now have — or indeed have you ever had — a valid US passport? Do you have a REAL ID-compliant drivers license/state ID card? Do you know your Social Security number (or have access to the physical card itself)? If you’ve ever changed your name, do you have ready access to your marriage license and/or court documents approving that name change?
These are not trivial questions, since in 2024, the Brennan Center noted that over 21 million US citizens of voting age don’t have ready access to documents proving their citizenship, and that the percentage of minority US citizens without these documents is higher than the percentage of white citizens. When the rubber hits the road, nearly ten percent of US citizens can’t easily prove they are citizens. These include some of the people most vulnerable to “accidental” deportation from this country — and I put “accidental” in quotes here because it’s been made very clear that this particular administration doesn’t see deporting US citizens, particularly ones of color, as an actual problem.
Personally, if you’re a US citizen, I strongly recommend getting a US passport, including the US passport card (I’ll explain why below). Get them for identification purposes, even if you don’t have immediate plans to travel outside of the US.
Let’s turn these questions back to me, since I am exhorting all y’all to have these documents at the ready. Do I have any/all of these documents ready to go?
In fact, yes. I have a certified copy of my birth certificate in a fireproof lock box. I have a current passport — indeed I renewed it last year, just before the change of administration, in order to avoid any delays due to intentional or inflicted incompetence on the part of the State Department — and I have had a REAL ID for several years, since I saw no benefit in not getting that as soon as possible.
I don’t typically keep my US passport with me when I travel domestically (it stays in the lockbox with the birth certificate), but I do have a US passport card in my wallet at all times, which aside from being useful for land crossings to Mexico and Canada, also “is proof of U.S. citizenship and identity” according to our own State Department (and is also the equivalent of a REAL ID for US domestic air travel purposes). Importantly, the REAL ID Ohio driver’s license which also lives in my wallet is not proof of US citizenship, “just” of legal US residency. So I keep both the passport card and my REAL ID drivers license on me when I leave the house.
Will any of this keep an ICE stooge from looking at one’s various forms of ID and deciding they are fake? Nope! That said, having both a REAL ID and a passport card makes it that much harder for such absolute bullshit to stick after the fact (also, memorize your Social Security number). Do I resent that I live in a time and place where having two forms of ID on me at all times, including one that explicitly tags me as a US citizen, is just about required? Sure do, although this is tempered by the fact that I was doing this anyway, long before it was a defensive posture against my own federal government.
Again, I am white middle-aged dude, and live in rural Ohio, so the chances of ICE getting up in my face about anything is pretty damn low. But if they did, and decided the forms of ID I had on me were fake and tossed me into ICE detention, what else do I have going for me? Well, as noted, I have those other forms of ID in the lockbox. I also have provably US citizen parents, both of whom are still living, complete with birth certificates of their own. Their parents were also provably US citizens. I suspect three full generations of provable US citizenship would be difficult for even this administration to brush aside.
(And before that? Well, everyone came over before (European) immigration quotas and controls were a thing. I have relatives here on the North American continent going back to the 1640s, which is to say, long before the racist-ass current president’s progenitors hied their sorry hides over from the mother country. Which to be clear ought not to fucking matter, as regards US citizenship. But here we are in 2025.)
The other thing I have going for me is that I am, well, me: both well-enough off financially that I could mount a reasonable legal defense, and well-known enough that if ICE actually tried to disappear me, bluntly, it would be noticed by more than my immediate family. Heck, my birthplace is in my Wikipedia article (and even if some troll changes that now, the article history will show it). This doesn’t mean my life wouldn’t be miserable before I got sprung, mind you. Just that it would be difficult for this administration to credibly argue they didn’t know what they were doing before they attempted to ship this particular US citizen into some extranational hole.
Again, at this point, I do not see ICE or anyone else trying to expel me from our national borders. I am, statistically and otherwise, as safe as anyone in the US can be from the unconstitutional fuckery being perpetrated at the moment by our federal government. Also, in the current “show me your papers, no these papers are fake” environment, “safe as anyone in the US can be” is not actually safe at all, especially with an administration that is clearly contemptuous of the US Constitution and the protections it affords not only our nation’s citizens, but everyone who is on our soil. If anyone here lacks constitutional protections, we all lack them; our “rights” exist at the whim of bad people.
For all that, if you’re a US citizen, you should have ready access to your documentation. If you don’t have your birth certificate on hand, get a certified copy of it. If you don’t have a passport, get one, including the passport card. And yes, spring for the REAL ID. We don’t exist in the just world where these don’t matter for your personal security. In the world in which we exist, they are useful to have.
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The Atarino is only slightly larger than a Polish 1 Grosz coin.
Credit:
An assortment of some of the Atari 8-bit computer systems released in the 1970s and '80s.
Credit:
Atari
The Atarino seen attached to an early evaluation breakout board that features peripheral connectors.
Credit:
A European family enjoying an Atari 600 XE computer from a 1980s German catalog.
Credit:
Atari
