Our picksCentral Valley is sinking; fake news algorithms; school safety app, and more

The Valley floor is sinking, and it’s crippling California’s ability to deliver water (Dale Kasler And Phillip Reese, Sacramento Bee)
Completed during Harry Truman’s presidency, the Friant-Kern Canal has been a workhorse in California’s elaborate man-made water-delivery network. It’s a low-tech concrete marvel that operates purely on gravity, capable of efficiently piping billions of gallons of water to cities and farms on a 152-mile journey along the east side of the fertile San Joaquin Valley. Until now. The Friant-Kern has been crippled by a phenomenon known as subsidence. The canal is sinking as the Valley floor beneath it slowly caves in, brought down by years of groundwater extraction by the region’s farmers. Along a 25-mile stretch of Tulare County rich with grapevines and pistachio trees, the canal has fallen so far — a dozen feet since it opened in 1951 — that it has lost more than half of its carrying capacity downstream from the choke point. Water simply can’t get through like it’s supposed to.

Fake news: algorithms in the dock (AFP)
At the heart of the spread of fake news are the algorithms used by search engines, websites and social media which are often accused of pushing false or manipulated information regardless of the consequences. They are the invisible but essential computer programs and formulas that increasingly run modern life, designed to repeatedly solve recurrent problems or to make decisions on their own. Their ability to filter and seek out links in gigantic databases means it would be impossible to run global markets without them, but they can also be refined down to produce personalized quotes on everything from mortgages to plane tickets.

When fake news sparks violence: India grapples with online rumors (Daily Monitor)
India has been shaken by a spate of mob killings sparked by a hoax about child kidnappers spread on WhatsApp. In just two months, 20 people have been murdered in such attacks. Officials and social media platforms have so far been powerless to stop the violence. But who is to blame? And why is a rumor turning people to violence?

How secure are New Jersey’s voting machines from hacking? This report may worry you. (Jonathan D. Salan, NJ.com)
New Jersey has some of the weakest election security in the country, according to a congressional report that placed the blame on former Gov. Chris Christie. New Jersey was named one of the five most vulnerable states to hacking in the report by the Democratic members of the House Administration Committee.

After mass shootings, schools turn to Miami-Made app to keep out the bad guys (Rob Wile, Miami Herald)
As schools region-wide focus on security, many are turning to CONCIERGEpad, an iPad-based app that allows schools to discreetly screen all visitors.

U.S. needs a national strategy for artificial intelligence, lawmakers and experts say (Jack Corrigan, Defense One) The government is well-positioned to flag specific research areas that would have the biggest impact on national interests.

The one word missing from Kim Jong Un’s “very nice note” to Trump (Uri Friedman, Defense One)
Donald Trump called it “a very nice note.” And it is super-nice! In the letter that the president published on Twitter on Thursday, Kim Jong Un refers to Trump as “Your Excellency” and writes glowingly of the “meaningful journey” he and the U.S. president have embarked on since last month’s summit in Singapore. He notes the “epochal progress” they’re pursuing in improving U.S.-North Korea relations, which he suggests could include a second meeting between the two leaders.
But there’s one word conspicuously missing from the message, which Kim’s deputy delivered to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Pyongyang last weekend: “denuclearization.” The North Korean leader makes no mention of giving up his nuclear-weapons program, his more ambiguous vow in Singapore to “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” or anything else related to his nuclear weapons. The closest he gets is mentioning “faithful implementation of the joint statement” he and Trump signed at the summit, but even there it’s in the context of praising Trump’s efforts to implement the agreement, not his own.

It’s natural disaster season. Can your government afford it? (Liz Farmer, Governing)
Most states don’t know how much they spend on extreme weather events.