News Reel

Alicia and Jon Langenhop's three children were each diagnosed with a rare disorder. A clinical trial was "a no-brainer."

Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz and Donald Tusk are in Ukraine for talks with Zelenskyy

It is the first time the leaders of the four European nations (France, the UK, Germany and Poland) have made a joint visit to Ukraine, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“We are clear the bloodshed must end. Russia must stop its illegal invasion,” the leaders said in a joint statement, adding:

Alongside the US, we call on Russia to agree a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire to create the space for talks on a just and lasting peace.

We will continue to increase our support for Ukraine. Until Russia agrees to an enduring ceasefire, we will ratchet up pressure on Russia’s war machine.

‘Multiple locations’ in India being targeted in retaliatory attacks, says state-run media, after Pakistan says three air bases attacked by Indian missiles

• Full report: Pakistan says it has hit back after India strikes military bases

Who is Asim Munir, the army chief leading Pakistan’s military amid the crisis with India?

The general once fell foul of Imran Khan, but since taking the top spot has been quietly amassing power over the government and supreme court, as our profile here says.

Yet even now that the country is out of the clutches of martial law, it is still widely understood that the most powerful man in Pakistan is not the head of the government but instead the chief of the army.

Since Gen Munir took over as Pakistan’s army chief more than two years ago, he has been accused of quietly consolidating greater power without even having to topple the country’s civilian rulers. As he kept himself largely out of the limelight, he consolidated an iron grip over the army’s ranks and bent government policy and even the supreme court to his will.

The iPhone 16E packs plenty of new features but also carries a higher price tag. Here's how the phones stack up.

Leaders of UK, France, Germany and Poland meet Ukrainian president in show of support as US intelligence warns of air threat

• Ukraine war live – latest updates

The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Poland have travelled to Kyiv and, together with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, made a joint phone call to Donald Trump to discuss plans for a peace settlement.

Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz arrived in the Ukrainian capital on the same train on Saturday morning, while Donald Tusk travelled on a separate train. The leaders met Zelenskyy for talks in central Kyiv.

@billegerton watch on Ebay 😌

US secretary of state urged both sides to de-escalate as he leads efforts to secure a solution to the deepening crisis

• Kashmir crisis live – latest updates

US secretary of state Marco Rubio has offered US assistance in starting “constructive talks” to end the conflict between India and Pakistan, as the two states traded heavy missile fire on Saturday, prompting concerns over wider military escalation.

Rubio has been engaged in back-and-forth diplomacy between the two countries in recent days, calling for de-escalation as India and Pakistan have been engaged in daily clashes since Wednesday.

Pakistan’s armed forces said they targeted military sites inside India in response to an Indian missile attack at air bases in Pakistan on Saturday.

Upmarket bucolic area notes big rise in number of US citizens scoping a plan B away from the States

Thanksgiving in the Cotswolds is no small affair. Every November, Americans flock to the English market town of Stow-on-the-Wold to collect glazed turkey breasts, green bean casserole and a traditional sweet potato dish covered in marshmallows.

It is, by Jesse D’Ambrosi’s own admission, “bizarre”. The chef, owner of D’Ambrosi Fine Foods, is one of the many Americans who have made the Cotswolds their home in recent years. Here, her Thanksgiving and Fourth of July food hampers are highly coveted.

White House communications have adopted a Trumpian air that’s ‘either completely malevolent or completely brilliant’

There was a disturbance in the Force. Donald Trump celebrated “Star Wars Day” this week with an AI-generated image of himself as a muscle-bound warrior holding a red lightsaber in front of two US flags and eagles.

It seemed like a bit of fun but appeared on the White House’s official X account with a dark political message: “Happy May the 4th to all, including the Radical Left Lunatics who are fighting so hard to bring Sith Lords, Murderers, Drug Lords, Dangerous Prisoners, & well known MS-13 Gang Members, back into our Galaxy. You’re not the Rebellion – you’re the Empire. May the 4th be with you.”

Legislation would radically ease research restrictions on cannabis and other schedule I substances

A recently introduced bill, if it passes, would allow research on cannabis despite its schedule I status, which some experts say could help policymakers “craft effective” legislation in the future and potentially allow more clinical research on medical cannabis.

Representatives Dina Titus and Ilhan Omar introduced the Evidence-Based Drug Policy Act of 2025 (EBDPA) last week, which would radically ease research restrictions on cannabis and other schedule I substances.

Our experts tested these battery-powered cams around our homes to find out which performed the best.

Plus, we've got the 411 on all of the new lands, rides and experiences coming to both Disneyland and Disney World in 2025 (and beyond).

Doom: The Dark Ages drops in a few days, but you can replay other Doom games now to get in the ripping and tearing mood.

Pep Guardiola's men look to take a step closer to Champions League qualification as they take on the doomed Saints.

The Seagulls look to keep their slim hopes of European qualification alive as they travel to Molineux.

The Cottagers are looking for a win to keep alive their faltering Conference League qualification hopes.

DEI initiatives were dividing a Great Lakes city years before President Donald Trump began targeting the programs.

Palestinian rights group says remarks criticising a Lancet analysis on impact of the conflict are ‘sickening’

A UK-based advocacy group for Israel has been criticised for suggesting a reduction in obesity resulting from the war in Gaza may increase life expectancy there.

The comments by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), which came amid warnings of impending famine in Gaza, were condemned as “sickening” by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).

The Pakistani military said it used medium-range Fateh missiles to target an Indian missile storage facility and airbases in Pathankot and Udhampur.

From the Galaxy S25 series to more affordable options, these are the top Samsung phones we've tested.

These federal agencies use your complaints to aid criminal investigations and educate the public.

World Trade Organization hails ‘constructive step’ as senior figures come together to discuss tariffs

Senior US and Chinese officials held talks early on Saturday in Geneva in a tentative first step towards defusing a trade war that is disrupting the global economy, according to China’s state-owned news agency and people close to the talks.

China’s vice-premier, He Lifeng, and the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, met after weeks of growing tensions as duties on imports between the world’s two largest economies have risen above 100%.

Startling allegations that the Base’s leader is a Russian spy lend support to claims of a Kremlin ‘long game’

A former Pentagon contractor works with secretive sections of US special forces, then ups and moves to Russia. He gets married, radicalizes and starts popping up on Telegram channels as the leader of a neo-Nazi terrorist group recruiting Americans.

Soon, allegations swirl that he is a Russian spy.

Your library card is a ticket to all the feel-good fun.

Netflix is the best at playing make-believe.

joshuark shares a report from Axios: Bill Gates, once the richest man in the world, vowed to give away "virtually all" of his wealth through the Gates Foundation over the next two decades. Then, the foundation will close its doors on Dec. 31, 2045. [...] Gates wrote in a Thursday Gates Notes essay that the original plan was to sunset the foundation several decades after he and his then-wife died. Now, Gates believes that a "shorter timeline" is feasible. Gates pledged three "key aspirations" to guide the foundation's funding over the next two decades, which center on promoting child and maternal health and fighting infectious diseases and poverty. He emphasized that progress is not possible without government cooperation, as the U.S. and other nations slash their foreign aid budgets. "The reality is, we will not eradicate polio without funding from the United States," Gates wrote. It's unclear whether the world's richest countries will continue to stand up for its poorest people," Gates wrote. He added, "But the one thing we can guarantee is that, in all of our work, the Gates Foundation will support efforts to help people and countries pull themselves out of poverty."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle, No. 1,421, for Saturday, May 10. Bake on!

Here are hints and the answers for Connections for May 10, #699.

China produces many American summer essentials — from swimsuits and flip-flops to beach shades to grills — and this weekend’s trade talks might not avert price rises.

Claims of missile attacks on targets deep inside both countries marks the steepest escalation in confrontation yet

• Kashmir crisis live – latest updates

India and Pakistan have accused each other of cross-border missile strikes against major military targets, the most significant escalation so far in the brewing conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

On Saturday, India accused Pakistan of launching strikes on dozens of airbases and military headquarters across north India, using long-range weapons, drones and fighter aircraft. The accusations came a few hours after Pakistan said India had fired six surface-to-air missiles targeting three of Pakistan’s most important military bases early on Saturday morning.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Health and Human Services Secretary, defended President Donald Trump‘s new surgeon...

The post RFK Jr. Backs Unlicensed Trump Surgeon General Nominee Despite Backlash appeared first on News Facts Network.

• Brazilian beats returning surfing veteran in Gold Coast Pro decider
• Bettylou Sakura Johnson claims first World Surf League women’s title

Julian Wilson’s incredible run from the trial to the title has fallen just short with the Australian surfing veteran beaten in the final of the Gold Coast Pro.

The 36-year-old squared off against Filipe Toledo in the title decider which was a repeat of their 2015 final, also won by the Brazilian, and was edged in a thriller 17.60 to 17.20.

When six young women hired a room to discuss the war in Gaza, the gathering ended with 30 officers storming in to make arrests

When six young women gathered in central London to discuss the climate crisis and the war in Gaza, the setting could not have been more appropriate. The building in which they sat was a Quaker meeting house, the home of a movement whose centuries-long history is rooted in protest and a commitment to social justice. On the table were cups of jasmine tea, ginger biscuits and a selection of vegan cheese straws.

But the events that brought this apparently convivial gathering to an abrupt end have sparked protests of a different kind and raised questions about how justice is administered by the UK’s largest and most embattled police force.

Three types of beans have been more than a decade in the making and hit shelves amid booming interest in legumes

The pan of beans on my cooker have taken a long time to prepare. It’s not just because I soaked them overnight and have now simmered them for about an hour: more than 12 years has gone into the creation and production of these beans. After all that, they had better taste delicious.

These beans are the creation of Prof Eric Holub, a geneticist and researcher at the University of Warwick, who has spent more than a decade developing three new varieties of beans, engineered to be grown in the UK.

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Earth.com: McDermitt Caldera in Oregon is attracting attention for what could be one of the largest lithium deposits ever identified in the United States. Many view it as a potential boost for domestic battery production, while local communities voice concern over the impact on wildlife and cultural sites. The excitement stems from estimates that value the deposit at about $1.5 trillion. Some geologists say these ancient volcanic sediments could contain between 20 and 40 million metric tons of lithium. The study is published in the journal Minerals.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Notifications in Chrome are a useful feature to keep up with updates from your favorite sites. However, we know that some notifications may be spammy or even deceptive. We’ve received reports of notifications diverting you to download suspicious software, tricking you into sharing personal information or asking you to make purchases on potentially fraudulent online store fronts.

To defend against these threats, Chrome is launching warnings of unwanted notifications on Android. This new feature uses on-device machine learning to detect and warn you about potentially deceptive or spammy notifications, giving you an extra level of control over the information displayed on your device.

↫ Hannah Buonomo and Sarah Krakowiak Criel on the Chromium Blog

So first web browser makers introduce notifications, a feature nobody asked for and everybody hates, and now they’re using “AI” to combat the spam they themselves enabled and forced onto everyone? Don’t we have a name for a business model where you purport to protect your clients from threats you yourself pose?

Turning off notifications is one of the first things I do after installing a browser. I do not ever want any website sending me a notification, nor do I want any of them to ask me for permission to do so. They’re such an obvious annoyance and massive security threat, and it’s absolutely mindboggling to me we just accept them as a feature we have to live with. I genuinely wish browsers like Firefox, which claim to protect your privacy, would just have the guts to be opinionated and rip shit features like this straight out of their browser.

Using “AI” to combat spam notifications instead of just turning notifications off is peak techbro.

A few months ago I shared my Swift SDK for Darwin, which allows you to build iOS Swift Packages on Linux, amongst other things. I mentioned that a lot of work still needed to be done, such as handling codesigning, packaging, and bundling.

I’m super excited to share that we’ve finally reached the point where all of these things are now possible with cross-platform, open source software. Enter, xtool!

[…]

This means it’s finally possible to build and deploy iOS apps from Linux and Windows (WSL). At the same time, xtool is SwiftPM-based and fully declarative, which means you can also use it to replace Xcode on macOS for building iOS software!

↫ kabiroberai

While this is obviously an impressive piece of engineering that’s taken countless years to fully put together, the issue this doesn’t address are Apple’s licensing terms when it comes to Xcode and development for Apple’s platforms. The Apple Developer Program License Agreement clearly forbids installing Xcode and the Apple SDK on non-Apple branded devices, and as this new xtool requires you download Xcode.xip and use it, it seems it violates these terms.

Now, as far as I’m concerned, these terms are idiotic and should be 100% illegal, but if you’re an Apple developer who relies on your Apple developer account to make money, using a tool like this definitely has the potential to put your developer account at risk. For experimentation, sure, this is great, but for any official work I would be quite weary until Apple makes some sort of statement about the matter, which is highly unlikely to happen.

Perhaps the courts can, at some point, have a say here – especially in the EU – but even then, Apple can always find or manufacture some reason to terminate your account if they really want to. If you want to develop on your own terms, perhaps developing for Apple platforms is not what you should be doing.

• Cavaliers beat Indiana 126-104 in Game 3 of East semis
• Thunder defeat Nuggets 113-104 in overtime thriller

Donovan Mitchell had 43 points and nine rebounds, and the finally full-strength Cleveland Cavaliers beat Indiana 126-104 on Friday night to cut the Pacers’ lead to 2-1 in the Eastern Conference semi-finals.

The road team has won all three games in the series, and the Pacers will have another chance to break that trend Sunday in Game 4.

Sap-sucking insects top list of queries to gardening charity after causing significant harm to plants

Aphids are plaguing gardeners this spring due to the warm weather, with higher numbers of the rose-killing bugs expected to thrive in the UK as a result of climate breakdown.

The sap-sucking insects have topped the ranking of gardener queries to the Royal Horticultural Society, with many of its 600,000 members having complained of dozens of aphids on their acers, roses and honeysuckle plants.

T&Cs show limitations to the promises of 12 free seat reservations, insurance and monthly access to a sale

Ryanair has become the latest low-cost airline to offer a yearly membership scheme that promises benefits such as free reserved seats and cheap flights – but the consumer group Which? says you should look at the small print before you join.

The low-cost carrier’s Prime membership costs £79 a person a year and promises 12 free seat reservations, travel insurance, and monthly access to a sale. However, the terms and conditions show a number of limitations.

The specifics of the administration’s economic masterplan – from strollers to movies to China – change by the day

Decades of economic orthodoxy failed millions of Americans, according to Donald Trump, who marched back into the White House promising to shred the status quo. But the specifics of his alternative – exactly how his administration claims it will make America great again – change by the day.

The US president declared this week to be a key milestone of his second term, as he unveiled his first major trade deal since returning to office following accelerated talks with the UK.

Experts say that the iPhone is due for a price hike, regardless of what happens with tariffs.

Attacks on the Druze by Islamist gunmen backing the new Syrian government have pushed some in the community to welcome Israeli promises of protection.

TikTok trend is inspiring tourists to seek out cheaper locations such as Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina

It will take more than a TikTok trend to break Britons’ love affair with Mediterranean beaches. But latest figures show travellers are increasingly swapping Málaga for North Macedonia and Benidorm for the Balkans as part of a social media craze for “destination dupes”.

Flights from the UK to Bosnia and Herzegovina soared by 284% in 2024 compared with the previous year, while trips to Montenegro increased by 164%. Getaways to Albania – billed by some as “the new Croatia” – rose by 61%, according to an analysis of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) data.

The rules-based world order is in retreat and violence is on the rise, forcing countries to rethink their relationships

In a week in which former allies in a redividing globe separately commemorated the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war, the sense of a runaway descent towards a third world war draws ever closer.

The implosion of Pax Americana, the interconnectedness of conflicts, the new willingness to resort to unbridled state-sponsored violence and the irrelevance of the institutions of the rules-based order have all been on brutal display this week. From Kashmir to Khan Younis, Hodeidah, Port Sudan and Kursk, the only sound is of explosions, and the only lesson is that the old rules no longer apply.

Rightwing opposition party claims some artists will receive benefits having contributed little to the state

Slovenia’s populist opposition has mounted a campaign against “degenerate” artists as it seeks to topple government plans for special pension top-ups for award-winning artists in a referendum on Sunday.

Voters in the central European country will cast their verdict on a government bill that details the conditions and terms under which certain artists can claim an allowance to be added to their pensions.

Ras Baraka’s arrest took place at Delaney Hall, a newly opened immigrant detention facility in New Jersey.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested at an ICE facility during a visit with members of New Jersey's congressional delegation.

A federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration Friday to pause mass layoffs of...

The post Judge Temporarily Halts Trump’s Federal Workforce Reduction Order appeared first on News Facts Network.

A judge is blocking the Trump administration and Elon Musk's DOGE from carrying out sweeping layoffs at over a dozen agencies — at least for now.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Using AI can be a double-edged sword, according to new research from Duke University. While generative AI tools may boost productivity for some, they might also secretly damage your professional reputation. On Thursday, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published a study showing that employees who use AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini at work face negative judgments about their competence and motivation from colleagues and managers. "Our findings reveal a dilemma for people considering adopting AI tools: Although AI can enhance productivity, its use carries social costs," write researchers Jessica A. Reif, Richard P. Larrick, and Jack B. Soll of Duke's Fuqua School of Business. The Duke team conducted four experiments with over 4,400 participants to examine both anticipated and actual evaluations of AI tool users. Their findings, presented in a paper titled "Evidence of a social evaluation penalty for using AI," reveal a consistent pattern of bias against those who receive help from AI. What made this penalty particularly concerning for the researchers was its consistency across demographics. They found that the social stigma against AI use wasn't limited to specific groups. "Testing a broad range of stimuli enabled us to examine whether the target's age, gender, or occupation qualifies the effect of receiving help from Al on these evaluations," the authors wrote in the paper. "We found that none of these target demographic attributes influences the effect of receiving Al help on perceptions of laziness, diligence, competence, independence, or self-assuredness. This suggests that the social stigmatization of AI use is not limited to its use among particular demographic groups. The result appears to be a general one."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The settlement divides the $700 million payment equally between pharmaceutical giants Bristol Myers Squibb and Sanofi.

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for May 10.

Donald Trump said Friday he would accept a “TINY” tax increase on wealthy Americans to...

The post Trump Suggests “Tiny” Tax Increase for Wealthy, But Advises GOP to Reject It appeared first on News Facts Network.

This blog has now closed. Read the latest here

Large institutional investors have massively increased their holdings of Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) in recent months according to SEC filings, with many enlarging their positions by hundreds of millions of dollars.

The revelations raise further questions about big business’s desire to curry favor with Donald Trump and his administration via the enterprises he has maintained or commenced. TMTG runs the Truth Social social media platform – on which the US president himself posts almost daily – as well as financial services and a film and TV streaming service.

Donald Trump’s refusal to divest from his publicly traded company has predictably prompted huge investments from wealthy special interests that could use a favor from the president.

Institutional Wall Street investors and even a foreign company with business before the administration have effectively offered a form of tribute by bulk purchasing shares in DJT on the open market, which helps juice the value of Trump’s own shares.

Presidential adviser Stephen Miller announces potential move, which US has made only four times in history

The Trump administration is considering suspending the writ of habeas corpus, the legal right to challenge one’s detention, Stephen Miller, a top White House adviser, said on Friday.

“The constitution is clear, and that of course is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus could be suspended in time of invasion. So that’s an option we’re actively looking at. A lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not,” Miller said to a group of reporters at the White House.

A spokesperson for Taylor Swift said the subpoena is being used "to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait."

Elizabeth Holmes has lost her bid to have the appeal of her 2022 fraud conviction reheard by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, leaving the U.S. Supreme Court as her final option. She and former Theranos executive Sunny Balwani remain liable for $452 million in restitution, while Holmes continues serving her 11-year sentence. CNBC reports: The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied Holmes' request for a rehearing before the original three-judge panel that upheld her conviction. At the same time, the court said no judge on the circuit court had asked for a vote on whether to have the full court rehear the appeal. Holmes, 41, was sentenced in January 2023 to 11 years and 3 months in prison after being found guilty of four counts of wire fraud in January 2022. She was found guilty of deceiving investors about the capabilities of Theranos, the blood-testing company she founded in 2003. The company crumbled after a Wall Street Journal story outlined the firm's struggles and shut down in 2018.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Exasperated by turmoil dogging defense secretary, the White House will block his new choice, sources say – key US politics stories from 9 May 2025 at a glance

Exasperated by the turmoil that has dogged Pete Hegseth’s office in recent weeks, the White House will block the US defense secretary’s choice of chief of staff and select a candidate of its own, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Hegseth had suggested giving the chief of staff position to Marine Col Ricky Buria after the first person in the role, Joe Kasper, left last month in the wake of a contentious leak investigation that brought the ouster of three other senior aides. But the White House has made clear to Hegseth that Buria will not be elevated.

Mayor’s wife accuses government of targeting her husband as video shows him being placed in handcuffs by officials

The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was arrested for alleged trespass at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention center in New Jersey on Friday and released after several hours.

Baraka was released shortly after 8pm and, after stepping out of an SUV with flashing emergency lights, told waiting supporters: “The reality is this: I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) announced she will not challenge Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) for...

The post Marjorie Taylor Greene Confirms She Won’t Run for Georgia Senate Seat appeared first on News Facts Network.

Exclusive: Jay Bratt, who led Mar-a-Lago case, first special prosecutor known to be summoned after Trump vows revenge

The former special counsel prosecutor Jay Bratt is scheduled to appear before the Republican-led House judiciary committee next week as it attempts to find instances of politicization in the federal criminal cases brought against Donald Trump, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The deposition of Bratt, who led the criminal case over Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents as a top deputy to the former special counsel Jack Smith, has been scheduled for 10am ET next Wednesday, according to a notice reviewed by the Guardian.

Huawei has launched its first laptop running HarmonyOS instead of Windows, complete with AI features and support for over 2,000 mostly China-focused apps. The product is largely a result of U.S. sanctions that prevented U.S.-based companies like Google and Microsoft from doing business with Huawei, forcing the company to develop its own in-house solution. Liliputing reports: Early version of HarmonyOS were basically skinned version of Android, but over time Huawei has moved the two operating systems further apart and it now includes Huawei's own kernel, user interface, and other features. The version designed for laptops features a desktop-style operating system with a taskbar and dock on the bottom of the screen and support for multitasking by running multiple applications in movable, resizable windows. Since this is 2025, of course Huawei's demos also heavily emphasize AI features: the company showed how Celia, its AI assistant, can summarize documents, help prepare presentation slides, and more. While the operating system won't support the millions of Windows applications that could run on older Huawei laptops, the company says that at launch it will support more than 2,000 applications including WPS Office (an alternative to Microsoft Office that's developed in China), and a range of Chinese social media applications.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

President Trump opened the door to lowering tariffs on China as U.S. and Chinese officials prepare to meet this weekend.

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student, had been held in an ICE detention facility in Louisiana since she was seized by masked federal agents outside her home near Boston.

When Kari and Bill Cox of Culloden, West Virginia, lost their daughter to a car crash, they thought they would never adopt again. But a discovery while going through their late daughter's things changed everything.

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle No. 433 for May 10.

Hints and answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 229, for Saturday, May 10.

Mexico has filed a lawsuit against Google for changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to "Gulf of America" for U.S. users on Google Maps, following a Republican-led House vote on Thursday to codify the name change. President Claudia Sheinbaum argues the U.S. only has authority to rename its portion of the continental shelf and warned of legal action unless Google reversed the change. The Guardian reports: "All we want is for the decree issued by the US government to be complied with," Sheinbaum said. "The US government only calls the portion of the US continental shelf the Gulf of America, not the entire gulf, because it wouldn't have the authority to name the entire gulf," she added. In response to Trump, Sheinbaum has cheekily suggested calling the United States "America Mexicana" -- Mexican America, pointing to a map dating back to before 1848, when one-third of her country was seized by the United States.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

These seven architects hope to show First Nations design and connection to Country at the world’s most prestigious architecture exhibition

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Australia’s participation in next year’s Venice Biennale remains under a cloud. With Creative Australia holding fast to its decision to cancel its commission of artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino, it’s becoming increasingly likely that the Australian Pavilion might remain dark in 2026.

It is an added weight for the First Nations team who have unveiled their new creation inside the pavilion as part of Venice’s other biennale: the Venice Biennale of Architecture, held every other year in the Giardini.

Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning

China's Xi Jinping joined Vladimir Putin for a huge Victory Day parade in Moscow, hoping to reassure Russians of their nation's strength as the Ukraine conflict grinds on.

Watch movies and TV shows and play games just about anywhere with the best portable projectors I've reviewed from Anker, AAXA, TCL, Samsung and others.

The Amtrak Inspector General said it was "the largest employee conspiracy" the office has ever investigated.

PhD student arrested in March for political speech released on Friday after federal judge’s ruling

Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University student arrested in March for her political speech, has been released from the Louisiana detention center where she was being held in what she and her lawyers had argued was a breach of her constitutional rights.

A federal judge on Friday morning had ordered Öztürk’s return to Vermont, where she was briefly held after being grabbed on the street by masked immigration agents near Boston, for hearings. But the judge decided not to wait for her physical transportation and she appeared remotely from Louisiana at the hearing in Burlington on Friday.

Newark Liberty International Airport suffered another brief air traffic control outage Friday morning, the FAA confirmed.

Rumeysa Ozturk was taken into custody on March 25 after her student visa was revoked by the Trump administration.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Schools across the US are warning parents about an Internet trend that has students purposefully trying to damage their school-issued Chromebooks so that they start smoking or catch fire. Various school districts, including some in Colorado, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Washington, have sent letters to parents warning about the trend that's largely taken off on TikTok. Per reports from school districts and videos that Ars Technica has reviewed online, the so-called Chromebook Challenge includes students sticking things into Chromebook ports to short-circuit the system. Students are using various easily accessible items to do this, including writing utensils, paper clips, gum wrappers, and pushpins. The Chromebook challenge has caused chaos for US schools, leading to laptop fires that have forced school evacuations, early dismissals, and the summoning of first responders. Schools are also warning that damage to school property can result in disciplinary action and, in some states, legal action. In Plainville, Connecticut, a middle schooler allegedly "intentionally stuck scissors into a laptop, causing smoke to emit from it," Superintendent Brian Reas told local news station WFSB. The incident reportedly led to one student going to the hospital due to smoke inhalation and is suspected to be connected to the viral trend. "Although the investigation is ongoing, the student involved will be referred to juvenile court to face criminal charges," Reas said. TikTok recently banned the search term "Chromebook Challenge" and created a safety message that pops up when searching for the term. The social media company notes that the challenge is on other social media platforms, too.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I have an XRV that seems to be operating well.
I’ve been thru the IMU steps and followed the setup guide steps.

It feels like my board may be riding a little ‘nose up’. What would be the easiest way to set the nose angle down 1 degree (for example)?

One revolutionized first-person shooters on consoles, another taught us how to care for a virtual pet, but they all deserve a spot in history.

Hundreds of leading figures from UK creative industries urge prime minister not to ‘give our work away’

Hundreds of leading figures and organisations in the UK’s creative industries, including Coldplay, Paul McCartney, Dua Lipa, Ian McKellen and the Royal Shakespeare Company, have urged the prime minister to protect artists’ copyright and not “give our work away” at the behest of big tech.

In an open letter to Keir Starmer, a host of major artists claim creatives’ livelihoods are under threat as wrangling continues over a government plan to let artificial intelligence companies use copyright-protected work without permission.

The new pope faces a divided church in his home country, as Catholics have split along political lines.

Dutchman, 39, had been working underwater in Sicily during operations to raise British tech tycoon’s vessel

A diver who was working on preliminary operations to raise the late tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s sunken superyacht, Bayesian, has died during underwater work in Sicily.

The 39-year-old Dutch diver died on Friday while working underwater in preparation to cut the ship’s mainmast.

The administration’s plan for Gaza food aid distribution remains in flux, as anticipated major funders and humanitarian groups decline to participate.

We present the formal verification of Apple’s iMessage PQ3, a highly performant, device-to-device messaging protocol offering strong security guarantees even against an adversary with quantum computing capabilities. PQ3 leverages Apple’s identity services together with a custom, post-quantum secure initialization phase and afterwards it employs a double ratchet construction in the style of Signal, extended to provide post-quantum, post-compromise security.

We present a detailed formal model of PQ3, a precise specification of its fine-grained security properties, and machine-checked security proofs using the TAMARIN prover. Particularly novel is the integration of post-quantum secure key encapsulation into the relevant protocol phases and the detailed security claims along with their complete formal analysis. Our analysis covers both key ratchets, including unbounded loops, which was believed by some to be out of scope of symbolic provers like TAMARIN (it is not!).

↫ Felix Linker and Ralf Sasse

Weekend, light reading, you know how this works by now. Light some candles, make some tea, get comfy.

According to The Information (paywalled), Meta is reportedly developing facial recognition capabilities for its Ray-Ban smart glasses -- technology it previously avoided due to privacy concerns. 404 Media's Joseph Cox writes: The move is an obvious about-face from Meta. It's also interesting to me because Meta's PR chewed my ass off when I dared to report in October that a pair of students took Meta's Ray-Ban glasses and combined them with off-the-shelf facial recognition technology. That tool, which the students called I-XRAY, captured a person's face, ran it through an easy to access facial recognition service called Pimeyes, then went a step further and pulled up information about the subject from across the web, including their home address and phone number. When I contacted Meta for comment for that story, Dave Arnold, a spokesperson for the company, said in an email he had one question for me. "That Pimeyes facial recognition technology could be used with ANY camera, correct? In other words, this isn't something that only is possible because of Meta Ray-Bans? If so, I think that's an important point to note in the piece," he wrote. This is true. But entirely misses the point of why the students created the tool with Meta's Ray-Ban glasses. They said themselves in a demonstration video they identified dozens of people without their knowledge. You do that by wearing a pair of glasses that look like any other. Meta's Ray-Ban's do have a light that turns on when it's recording, but according to the new report, Meta is questioning whether new versions of its glasses need this.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The wand developed by Teal Health allows patients to self-collect a vaginal sample and mail it to a lab for testing.

About 60 Afrikaners are set to be routed through Virginia next week, documents show, in a notable exception to President Donald Trump’s suspension of refugee admissions.

Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.

When the Washington Post reported via anonymous sources that a government intelligence assessment concluded the Venezuelan government was not directing the migration of members of the Trenreport de Aragua gang to the United States, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, dismissed such reports and said those “behind this illegal leak of classified intelligence” had “twisted and manipulated [the information] to convey the exact opposite finding.”

But a redacted copy of the intelligence memo shows that the Washington Post’s reporting was accurate. 

The April 7 intelligence assessment broadly concluded that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s “regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States.”

The six-page memo from the National Intelligence Council, “Venezuela: Examining Regime Ties to Tren de Aragua,” was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on May 5 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Freedom of the Press Foundation. The foundation provided us a copy of that memo.

The conclusions in the National Intelligence Council memo — the shared assessment of 18 U.S. intelligence organizations — undercut the basis for President Donald Trump’s March 15 invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport Venezuelan immigrants suspected of affiliation with Tren de Aragua. In that proclamation, the Trump administration argued that TdA is “conducting irregular warfare” in the U.S. and operating “in conjunction” with the Maduro regime, and in support of “the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States.”

As we have written, the Alien Enemies Act is an 18th century law that says that in times of war or during an “invasion or predatory incursion … by any foreign nation or government,” the president can apprehend, restrain, secure and remove any immigrants who came from the enemy country.

Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act hinges on two assertions: that TdA is “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States” and that it is acting “at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.”

As we said, the National Intelligence Council memorandum broadly contradicted that second statement.

What the Memo Says

According to the NIC memo, “While Venezuela’s permissive environment enables TDA to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States.”

The NIC memo listed several reasons for its conclusion.

First, it said, “Venezuelan intelligence, military, and police services view TDA as a security threat and operate against it in ways that make it highly unlikely the two sides would cooperate in a strategic or consistent way.” The memo noted that in late January, “at least two Venezuelan National Guard units arrested TDA members in Venezuela in separate operations.”

The memo further noted — citing press reports and redacted sources — that “[s]ince at least 2016, Venezuelan security forces have periodically engaged in armed confrontations with TDA, resulting in the killing of some TDA members.”

The memo stated that the intelligence community “has not observed the regime directing TDA, including to push migrants to the United States, which probably would require extensive coordination, and funding between regime entities and TDA leaders that we would collect.” The memo stated that “the decentralized makeup of TDA … would make such a relationship logistically challenging.” The memo also noted that the IC “recognizes the regime appreciates migration as a safety valve, allowing discontented Venezuelans to leave.”

In her April 21 social media post criticizing press reports about the then unreleased memo, Gabbard contradicted those assessments, saying, “The Office of the Director of National Intelligence fully supports the assessment that the foreign terrorist organization, Tren De Aragua, is acting with the support of the Maduro Regime, and thus subject to arrest, detention and removal as alien enemies of the United States.”

“Illegal immigrant criminals have raped, tortured, and murdered Americans, and still, the propaganda media continues to operate as apologists for them,” Gabbard said in a released statement. “It is outrageous that as President Trump and his administration work hard every day to make America safe by deporting these violent criminals, some in the media remain intent on twisting and manipulating intelligence assessments to undermine the President’s agenda to keep the American people safe.”

But the released NIC memo shows the media reports were not twisting the intelligence assessments. As the Washington Post reported on April 17, “The intelligence product found that although there are some low-level contacts between the Maduro government and Tren de Aragua, or TdA, the gang does not operate at the direction of Venezuela’s leader. The product builds on U.S. intelligence findings in February, first reported by the New York Times, that the gang is not controlled by Venezuela.”

The FBI’s Position

The FBI was the lone agency among the 18 U.S. intelligence organizations on the National Intelligence Council that offered partial dissent. (Other NIC organizations include the CIA, the five Department of Defense armed services, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence, and the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.)

According to the memo, “While FBI analysts agree with the above assessment, they assess some Venezuelan government officials facilitate TDA members’ migration from Venezuela to the United States and use members as proxies in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and the United States to advance what they see as the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing governments and undermining public safety in these countries, based on DHS [Department of Homeland Security] and FBI reporting as of February 2024.” (The italics are the memo’s emphasis.)

On April 23, Fox News Digital said it talked to an unnamed “senior administration official” who shared unclassified portions of an FBI report in which “[t]he FBI assesses that in the next six to 18 months, Venezuelan government officials likely will attempt to leverage Tren de Aragua members in the United States as proxy actors to threaten, abduct and kill members of the Venezuelan diaspora in the United States who are vocal critics of Maduro and his regime.”

In a speech in Michigan on April 29, Trump referenced that report, saying, “The FBI recently assessed that these vicious gangs have been sent by the foreign regime in Venezuela to foment violence and instability in the United States of America.”

The NIC memo, however, said that “most of the IC” has concluded that “intelligence indicating that regime leaders are directing or enabling TDA migration to the United States is not credible.”

“Some regime officials are probably willing to capitalize on migration for personal financial or other benefits, even though the Maduro regime probably is not systematically directing Venezuelan outflows, such as to sow chaos in receiving countries,” the NIC memo stated. “The intelligence record indicates Venezuelans have migrated voluntarily, often at great personal risk, to flee political instability and near-collapse of Venezuela’s economy. The IC attributes increased migration flows, including the spike in US arrivals from 2021 to 2024 of Venezuelan nationals –which could include some TDA members — to a variety of push and pull factors including socioeconomic conditions, family ties to the United States, and migrants’ perceptions of US and regional enforcement.”

But the NIC said that while Maduro may not have been directing the migration of Venezuelans, neither has he sought to stem it, saying that migration “helped him retain power by having dissidents leave the country.”

“The Maduro regime may have also welcomed the logistical, financial, and political headaches that unregulated migration has caused for the US Government, its perceived principal adversary, even if not a principal intent,” the memo stated.

Even in cases of “limited IC reporting suggesting a link between TDA and some Venezuelan officials aimed at facilitating TDA migration to the United States,” the memo noted that “in some cases, reporting warns that these sources could also be motivated to fabricate information.”

An official in Gabbard’s ODNI, however, said there’s reason to put more credence in the FBI intelligence than the assessment from the umbrella National Intelligence Council. The FBI assessment is based on its domestic law enforcement operations against TdA in the U.S., an ODNI official told us. “This information and intelligence are the most robust and accurate given their focus on domestic security and crimes, versus limited intelligence assessments from other intelligence elements who by law focus solely on foreign intelligence collection, and who until President Trump took office, had very limited resources focused on TdA,” the official said.

The ODNI official argued that the Venezuelan government is “aiding and abetting” TdA by creating conditions in the country that enable it to thrive — much the same way that the Taliban government in Afghanistan was providing sanctuary to al Qaeda, and thereby enabling al Qaeda to carry out its Sept. 11, 2001, attack in the U.S. The official also pointed to comments that José Gustavo Arocha, a former lieutenant colonel in the Venezuelan army, made to Fox News Digital in December. Arocha said that TdA is “a state-sponsored Maduro regime organization. The real boss of the Tren de Aragua is in Caracas, Venezuela. It is the Maduro regime, because they created TdA, and they use the TdA as a blackmail [tool] for any situation.”

The NIC memo acknowledged, “The lack of transparency and accountability in Venezuela has created an environment for widespread corruption and for regime officials to benefit from a variety of illicit activities, an environment fueled by Maduro’s illegitimate and autocratic grip on power. This persistent outflow of migrants probably offers opportunities for some regime officials in capacities to facilitate migration movement to look for and receive personal kickbacks for their services, and to conceal the benefits they receive.”

The memo noted that U.S. law enforcement reports claim members of the regime “have cooperated with TDA by providing financial or material support, but we cannot verify the sources’ access. Even so, these reports do not claim that these figures direct the group.”

And, the NIC memo warned, “Some reports come from people detained for involvement in criminal activity in the United States or for entering the country illegally, which could motivate them to make false allegations about their ties to the Venezuelan regime in an effort to deflect responsibility for their crimes and to lessen punishment by providing exculpatory or otherwise ‘valuable’ information to US prosecutors.”

Courts on Use of Alien Enemies Act

The question of whether the Maduro regime in Venezuela is coordinating with TdA is central to the Trump administration’s argument for invoking the Alien Enemies Act in order to — as Trump put it — “expel every foreign terrorist from our soil as quickly as possible.” As we said, the act pertains to times of war or an “invasion” by a “foreign nation or government.”

The act has been used three times in U.S. history, during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.

In his March 15 proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act, Trump declared that “TdA is perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States. TdA is undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.” And as a result, the proclamation said, “all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are members of TdA, are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.”

Trump invoked the act in March to summarily deport 238 Venezuelan migrants alleged to be members of TdA, who were then sent to a mega prison in El Salvador. But the New York Times found no evidence that a vast majority of the men had any connection to Tren de Aragua.

Some federal judges have ruled that the administration can’t use the Alien Enemies Act in this way.

On May 1, a federal district judge in Texas — who was appointed by Trump — concluded that Trump had improperly applied the Alien Enemies Act.

“[T]he historical record renders clear that the President’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute’s terms,” U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. wrote. “As a result, the Court concludes that as a matter of law, the Executive Branch cannot rely on the AEA, based on the Proclamation, to detain the Named Petitioners and the certified class, or to remove them from the country.”

In similar cases in other states, two more federal judges have since concurred.

“Since Respondents have not demonstrated the existence of a ‘war,’ ‘invasion’ or ‘predatory incursion,’ the AEA was not validly invoked by the Presidential Proclamation,” Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, wrote in a May 6 ruling.

“Petitioners have not been given notice of what they allegedly did to join TdA, when they joined, and what they did in the United States, or anywhere else, to share or further the illicit objectives of the TdA,” Hellerstein wrote. “Without such proof, Petitioners are subject to removal by the Executive’s dictate alone, in contravention of the AEA and the Constitutional requirements of due process.”

The same day, a federal district judge in Colorado, an appointee of President Joe Biden, said she found “unpersuasive” the Trump administration’s definition of “invasion” to broadly include “hostile entrance,” or “hostile encroachment.” U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney said she agreed the word “invasion” meant military action against the U.S.

These decisions can all be appealed by the Trump administration, and the question of whether the president can use the Alien Enemies Act may ultimately end up before the Supreme Court.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, P.O. Box 58100, Philadelphia, PA 19102. 

The post Intelligence Memo Undercuts Trump’s Immigration Argument appeared first on FactCheck.org.

by Christopher Bing and Avi Asher-Schapiro

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

The ranking member of the House Oversight Committee is launching an investigation into whether the General Services Administration has given preferential treatment to a technology startup competing for a lucrative government contract. The startup is backed by some of President Donald Trump’s most influential Silicon Valley allies.

The committee’s action follows reporting by ProPublica last month that revealed the GSA was eyeing New York-based payments company Ramp to remake a massive, $700 billion federal credit card program known as SmartPay. Our reporting showed that senior GSA officials met with Ramp executives at least four times before publicly opening up a SmartPay contract opportunity.

Ethics experts flagged the early meetings as unusual and potentially problematic. Insiders at the GSA told ProPublica that, internally, Ramp was seen as the clear favorite for an initial $25 million pilot contract, which could act as an introduction to larger SmartPay work. The contract for the pilot program hasn’t been awarded yet.

A letter sent Friday to the GSA by Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., and reviewed by ProPublica says Democrats on the committee want information about the GSA’s dealings with “Ramp, a company with zero federal contracting experience that is backed by prominent Trump supporters, Trump family connections, and allies of Elon Musk.”

Connolly’s letter demands an array of GSA documents, including “all communications between any GSA official, contractor or subcontractor and any representative of Ramp.”

Ramp did not respond to a request for comment about the investigation.

The GSA did not respond to questions Friday. Asked about Ramp for a previous article, a GSA spokesperson told ProPublica that the agency “refutes any suggestion of unfair or preferential contracting practices” and that the “credit card reform initiative has been well known to the public in an effort to address waste, fraud, and abuse.”

SmartPay, which provides Visa and Mastercard charge cards to government employees, enables the federal workforce to purchase office supplies and equipment, book travel and pay for gas. The cards typically are used for purchases up to $10,000.

Sources within the GSA say Trump appointees at the agency, including acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian and Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum, the nation’s top procurement officer, came into their roles saying SmartPay and other government payment programs were rife with fraud or waste.

Yet both GOP and Democratic budget experts call this view inaccurate, saying SmartPay has implemented effective safeguards and monitoring tools.

SmartPay has been worth hundreds of millions of dollars in fees for the financial institutions that currently operate it, U.S. Bank and Citibank. The GSA will decide by year’s end whether to extend SmartPay with the current contract or to remake the program more fundamentally.

Ramp’s investors include some of Silicon Valley’s most powerful figures, such as Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist who provided crucial early support to Trump and spent millions on Vice President JD Vance’s Ohio Senate run. Other major backers include Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures, who sits on Ramp’s board; Thrive Capital, founded by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; and 8VC, a firm run by Musk and Trump allies.

In late April, as the GSA received a flurry of business pitches on the SmartPay pilot program, Ramp’s CEO, Eric Glyman, and Rabois appeared at a high-profile conference in Washington that brings together tech entrepreneurs, lawmakers and other senior government officials.

During a livestreamed panel titled “First Principles for a Smarter, Leaner Government,” the pair touted Ramp as a transformational solution for government payments. Later, during an interview, Rabois pointed to the fact that SmartPay issues more charge cards than there are total government employees as evidence of fraud.

But SmartPay experts say this betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how the program works. Employees are issued separate cards for different types of purchases and often hold multiple cards at once.

Rabois did not respond to questions from ProPublica on Friday. In his response for an earlier story, Rabois said he had “no involvement in any government-related initiatives for the company.”

In the oversight committee’s letter to the GSA, Connolly writes that “the Trump Administration’s false claims about the SmartPay program may be an attempt to discredit the program to provide a new, Trump-affiliated contractor with a lucrative contract.”

Numerous coffee establishments across the US are actively restricting internet access and laptop use as they push back against remote workers monopolizing their spaces for hours. New York's Devocion chain limits WiFi to two-hour windows on weekdays and eliminates it entirely on weekends, while Detroit's Alba coffee shop has operated without WiFi since its 2023 opening. Some venues have resorted to physically taping over electrical outlets. DC-based cafe Elle initially launched without WiFi but reversed course after receiving negative Google reviews, implementing a compromise with access restricted to Monday-Thursday, 8am-3pm, with a 90-minute usage cap. The restrictions primarily aim to increase customer turnover, improve sales figures, and restore the community atmosphere that extended laptop sessions often diminish.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Josep Borrell also criticises EU response to what he calls largest ethnic cleansing operation since second world war

The former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has launched a blistering attack on Israel, accusing its government of committing genocide in Gaza and “carrying out the largest ethnic-cleansing operation since the end of the second world war in order to create a splendid holiday destination”.

Borrell, a former Spanish foreign minister who served as the EU’s top diplomat from 2019 to 2024, and president of the European parliament from 2004 to 2007, also criticised the bloc’s failure to use all the means at its disposal to influence Israel, saying expressions of regret were simply not enough.

Radar systems at Newark Liberty International Airport stopped working for about 90 seconds Friday morning, the second major outage for the New Jersey airport.

Prevost, who was promoted by Francis and has a knack for management and a zeal for missionary work, was a stronger candidate than many outside the Vatican knew.

President Donald Trump keeps saying he doesn’t know what his own administration is up to. 

Three times in the last week, Trump responded to questions about his signature policies by expressing ignorance.

Is he truly clueless? Is he fully aware of the answer but using ignorance as a cover? Whatever the case, the White House doesn’t want to talk about it.

The first instance came in comments to NBC News’ Kristen Welker on May 4. Though Trump has twice placed his hand on a bible and sworn, to the best of his ability, to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” he seemed to have forgotten those oaths on “Meet the Press.” Asked whether everyone in the United States is entitled to due process — the constitutional rights enshrined in both the Fifth and the Fourteenth amendments — Trump was foggy.

“I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer,” he said. “I don’t know.”

When reports surfaced May 7 that Trump planned to deport hundreds of immigrants to Libya, a reporter put the question to him: “Is your administration sending migrants to Libya?”

“I don’t know,” Trump replied. “You’ll have to ask the Department of Homeland Security.”

While fielding questions that same day in the Oval Office, Trump was asked whether he agreed with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s comments about potential tariff exemptions for products that families rely on, such as baby car seats. Trump, again, appeared vexed. “I don’t know, I’ll think about it,” the president said. “I don’t know. I really don’t.”

Trump repeatedly cast his predecessor, President Joe Biden, as senile and inept. “He can’t do an interview. He’s incompetent,” Trump said of Biden while he was running for president in 2020. “To be president, you have to be sharp and tough and so many other things.” During last year’s presidential campaign Trump derided Biden’s “hazy memory” and dusted off his “Sleepy Joe” dig from the prior election cycle. “I’m not sure that Biden knows what the hell’s going on,” Trump said last year. “I don’t think he knows he’s alive, actually.”

In 2020, Trump bragged about passing a mental competence test. “I aced it,” he said of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test, noting it was “very hard,” specifically the last five questions. The test is not, however, supposed to be hard if you aren’t suffering from some form of dementia. 

During a press gaggle last month, Trump boasted about the results of a more recent test. “I wanted to be a little different than Biden. I took a cognitive test and I don’t know what to tell you other than I got every answer right,” he boasted. Asked if it was the same one he had taken in 2020, Trump replied: “I think it’s a pretty well-known test. Whatever it is, I got every one.”

A little more than a minute later, Trump was asked about the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador for alleged ties to the MS-13 gang.

“How do you plan to respond to the Supreme Court ruling and the other courts about the gentleman who was in Maryland who was put in the El Salvador prison?” asked a reporter.

“Is that the one that was not Tren de Aragua but he was MS-13?” Trump said. 

“Just the one that they’ve said needs to come back,” the reporter responded.

“Was he MS-13? ’Cause I only know about that,” Trump offered. “I mean, I don’t know which one.”

The post “I Don’t Know.” Trump’s Go-To Response to All Sorts of Questions appeared first on The Intercept.

Louis Prevost told CBS News that he was "mind blown" after finding out the news that his brother was now Pope Leo XIV.

Habeas corpus entails the constitutional right to appear before a court to challenge detention.

Over a dozen states are suing the Trump administration over its efforts to fast-track energy projects, claiming the government is bypassing environmental laws.

In a place where civic pride is a way of life, Chicagoans need little help believing the election of Pope Leo shows their city is among God’s favorites.

Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz and Donald Tusk to make symbolic visit day after Putin parade

The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Poland are due in Kyiv on Saturday for a symbolic visit to Ukraine, a day after Vladimir Putin hosted a set-piece military parade on Red Square. The visit comes as the US warned of intelligence about a big impending air attack on Ukraine.

Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz and Donald Tusk are expected to arrive in Kyiv early on Saturday and will meet the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a show of support for Ukraine, Downing Street said in a statement issued late on Friday.

To many, Pope Leo XIV seemed a different sort of American, a man who served the poor of Peru for decades, who spoke Spanish and Italian, and who was close to Pope Francis.

Aler Baldomero Samayoa-Recinos, whose alias is "Chicharra" (Cicada), is accused of leading a group called Los Huistas.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A Florida bill, which would have required social media companies to provide an encryption backdoor for allowing police to access user accounts and private messages, has failed to pass into law. The Social Media Use by Minors bill was "indefinitely postponed" and "withdrawn from consideration" in the Florida House of Representatives earlier this week. Lawmakers in the Florida Senate had already voted to advance the legislation, but a bill requires both legislative chambers to pass before it can become law. The bill would have required social media firms to "provide a mechanism to decrypt end-to-end encryption when law enforcement obtains a subpoena," which are typically issued by law enforcement agencies and without judicial oversight. Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation called the bill "dangerous and dumb." Security professionals have long argued that it is impossible to create a secure backdoor that cannot also be maliciously abused, and encryption backdoors put user data at risk of data breaches.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amid steep levies, shipments from China to the U.S. plunged in April, with Chinese exports rerouted to other countries.

President Trump says a new U.S. trade pact with the U.K. can serve as the basis for more trade deals. Economists say that could be a problem.

The so-called "X-date" marks when the government could run out of borrowing power and face an unprecedented default without action from Congress to address the debt limit.

This season's Islanders haven't been announced, but there is a premiere date set.

Stephen Miller, top adviser to President Trump, said the White House is actively considering suspending...

The post White House Weighs Suspending Habeas Corpus Over Immigration Orders appeared first on News Facts Network.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested Friday after protesting the opening of a new Immigration...

The post Newark Mayor Ras Baraka Arrested During Protest at ICE Detention Facility appeared first on News Facts Network.

Well, this is a bad idea: Kids are jamming metal into their school computer USB ports.

Just days after a radar and communications outage at Newark Liberty International Airport, the FAA confirmed a second incident on May 9 that disrupted radar and radio contact for 90 seconds due to a telecom failure at Philadelphia TRACON. "As of 12:30PM ET, FlightAware stats showed 292 total delays for flights into or out of Newark, which is also experiencing delays due to runway construction," reports The Verge. From the report: After the first outage on April 28th, an air traffic controller who had been on duty that day told CNN it "...was the most dangerous situation you could have." CNN reports that after a change made last July, the airport's radar and radio communication flows over a single data feed from a facility in New York, where controllers used to manage Newark's flights, to Philadelphia. The FAA has announced a plan to replace the current copper connection with fiber, as well as adding "three new, high-bandwidth telecommunications connections between the New York-based STARS and the Philadelphia TRACON," and more air traffic controllers. Until those and other changes are made, the agency also said a new backup system is being deployed in Philadelphia, but it's unclear when that will be available. NBC News reports the Friday outage affected a limited number of sectors, but it's another incident in the string of issues that have highlighted the problems with the airport's aging control system and lack of staffing. [...] A statement from the FAA said, "Frequent equipment and telecommunications outages can be stressful for controllers. Some controllers at the Philadelphia TRACON who work Newark arrivals and departures have taken time off to recover from the stress of multiple recent outages."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Whether you’re gift-wrapping a toy car, or hanging Christmas ornaments, there’s a strong chance you’re handling products made in a Chinese factory.

The day after President Donald Trump said during an interview about his tariff policies that girls in the U.S. don’t need to "have 30 dolls," some political commentators discussed China’s influence over the U.S. toy market. The U.S. currently has a 145% tariff on goods from China.

"China makes 80% of all toys sold in this country and 90% of all Christmas goods sold in this country," former New York Times columnist Charles Blow said during a May 5 appearance on CNN’s "NewsNight with Abby Phillip." "We have a lot of leverage with China. The Christmas and the doll industry is not one of them."

Blow told PolitiFact his source was an April 29 report in The New York Times. It said, "Factories in China produce nearly 80 percent of all toys and 90 percent of Christmas goods sold in America."

Data shows those figures are rounded up, but not far off.

Blow’s statement is "directionally accurate but slightly overstated on toys," said Gilberto Garcia-Vazquez, chief economist at Datawheel, which operates an online economic data platform called the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

He said out of the United States’ $41 billion imports in toys, games and sports equipment in 2024, $30 billion, or about 73.3%, was manufactured in China.

"If you include domestic production — small but non-negligible — China likely supplies closer to 72% of toys actually sold in the U.S., not 80%," Garcia-Vazquez said. The Observatory of Economic Complexity uses data sources from "statistical offices, open data portals or custom union websites."

Claire Huber, spokesperson for the U.S. International Trade Commission, provided PolitiFact with an analysis of 2024 data that showed 78.3% of toy imports and 85% of Christmas-related imports (such as lights, trees and decorations) are manufactured in China. The toy category includes dolls, wheeled toys and scale models. 

The data was compiled using the commission’s DataWeb, which cites data published by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau, accessed May 9.

Garcia-Vazquez also analyzed 2024 data for Christmas goods and said 90% of U.S. imports in that category came from China. 

He said Christmas lights are an exception, because "Cambodia has recently overtaken China as the top source."

The New York Times published an April 27 report that showed 76% of "toys and puzzles" and 87% of "Christmas decorations" come from China. Bloomberg, citing the trade organization Toy Association, said "roughly 80% of toys sold in the U.S. are made in China."

Data show 73% to 78% of toy imports and 85% to 90% of Christmas-related imports in 2024 came from China, supporting Blow’s point that the vast majority of these goods come from China. We rate his statement True.

John Siracusa, one third of the excellent ATP podcast, developer of several niche Mac utilities, and author of some of the best operating system reviews of all time, has called for Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, to step down. Now, countless people call for Tim Cook to stand down all the time, but when someone like Siracusa, an ardent Mac user since the release of the very first Macintosh and a staple of the Apple community, makes such a call, it carries a bit more weight.

His main argument is not particularly surprising to anyone who’s been keeping tabs on the Apple community, and the Apple developer community in particular: Apple seems to no longer focus on making great products, but on making money. Every decision made by Apple’s leadership team is focused solely on extracting as much money from consumers and developers, instead of on making the best possible products.

The best leaders can change their minds in response to new information. The best leaders can be persuaded. But we’ve had decades of strife, lawsuits, and regulations, and Apple has stubbornly dug in its heels even further at every turn. It seems clear that there’s only one way to get a different result.

In every healthy entity, whether it’s an organization, an institution, or an organism, the old is replaced by the new: CEOs, sovereigns, or cells. It’s time for new leadership at Apple. The road we’re on now does not lead anywhere good for Apple or its customers. It’s springtime, and I’m choosing to believe in new life. I swear it’s not too late.

↫ John Siracusa

I reached this same point with Apple a long, long time ago. I was an ardent Mac user during the PowerPC G4 and G5 days, lasting into the early Intel days. However, as the iPhone and related services took over as Apple’s primary source of income, I felt that Mac OS X, which I once loved and enjoyed so much, started to languish, and it’s been downhill for Apple’s desktop operating system ever since. Whenever I have to help my parents with their computers – modern M1 and M2 Macs – I am baffled and saddened by just how big of a convoluted, disjointed, and unintuitive mess macOS has become.

I long ago stopped caring about whatever products Apple releases or updates, because I feel like as a user who genuinely cares about his computing experience, Apple simply doesn’t make products for me. I’m not sure replacing Tim Cook with someone else will really change anything about Apple’s priorities; in the end, it’s a publicly traded corporation that thinks it needs to please shareholders, and a focus on great products instead of money isn’t going to help with that.

Apple long ago stopped being the beleaguered company many of its most ardent fans still seem convinced that it is, and it’s now one of those corporate monoliths that can make billions more overnight by squeezing just a bit more out of developers or users, regardless of what that squeezing does to the user experience. Apple is still selling more devices than ever, and it’s still raking in more gambling gains through digital slot machines for children, and as long as that’s the case, replacing Tim Cook won’t do a goddamn thing.

Delving into Pope Leo XIV’s views, including on LGBTQ+ rights, the climate and women in the church.

The order is the latest step in the Trump administration's broad effort to purge so-called diversity, equity and inclusion content from federal agencies.

Adm Sir Ben Key has been asked to ‘step back’ as first sea lord, after MoD said he had departed for ‘private reasons’

The head of the Royal Navy has been suspended pending an investigation.

Adm Sir Ben Key has been asked to “step back” as first sea lord, sources at the MoD confirmed on Friday.

The Trump administration is planning to soon receive the first group of White South Africans​ it says deserve a safe haven in the U.S.

This free AI tool will help you create Lego designs that actually work.

Wearable startup Whoop just announced its new Whoop 5.0 fitness tracker yesterday, but some existing users are already calling foul. From a report: Previously, Whoop said people who had been members for at least six months would get free upgrades to next-generation hardware. Now, the company says that members hoping to upgrade from a Whoop 4.0 to 5.0 will have to pay up. Whoop is a bit different from other fitness trackers in that it runs entirely on a subscription membership model. Most wearable makers that have subscriptions will charge you for the hardware, and then customers have the option of subscribing to get extra data or features. A good example is the Oura Ring, where you buy the ring and then have the option of paying a monthly $6 subscription. Whoop, however, has until now said that you get the hardware for "free" while paying a heftier annual subscription. Previously, Whoop promised users that whenever new hardware was released, existing members would be able to upgrade free of charge so long as they'd been a member for at least six months.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The team that makes Cockpit, the popular server dashboard software, decided to see if they could improve their PR review processes by adding “AI” into the mix. They decided to test both sourcey.ai and GitHub Copilot PR reviews, and their conclusions are damning.

About half of the AI reviews were noise, a quarter bikeshedding. The rest consisted of about 50% useful little hints and 50% outright wrong comments. Last week we reviewed all our experiences in the team and eventually decided to switch off sourcery.ai again. Instead, we will explicitly ask for Copilot reviews for PRs where the human deems it potentially useful.

This outcome reflects my personal experience with using GitHub Copilot in vim for about 1.5 years – it’s a poisoned gift. Most often it just figured out the correct sequence of ), ], and } to close, or automatically generating debug print statements – for that “typing helper” work it was actually quite nice. But for anything more nontrivial, I found it took me more time to validate the code and fix the numerous big and subtle errors than it saved me.

↫ Martin Pitt

“AI” companies and other proponents of “AI” keep telling us that these tools will save us time and makes things easier, but every time someone actually sits down and does the work of testing “AI” tools out in the field, the end results are almost always the same: they just don’t deliver the time savings and other advantages we’re being promised, and more often than not, they just create more work for people instead of less. Add in the financial costs of using and running these tools, as well as the energy they consume, and the conclusion is clear.

When the lack of effectiveness of “AI” tools our in the real world is brought up, proponents inevitably resort to “yes it sucks now, but just you wait on the next version!” Then that next version comes, people test it out in the field again, and it’s still useless, and those same proponents again resort to “yes it sucks now, but just you wait on the next version!”, like a broken record. We’re several years into the hype, and that mythical “next version” still isn’t here.

We’re several years into the “AI” hype, and I still have seen no evidence it’s not a dead end and a massive con.

The former Cardinal Robert Prevost, known as “Father Bob” in Chicago, is a White Sox fan, a naturalized citizen of Peru and is fluent in five languages.

Trading was mixed Friday as concerns about the U.S. economy offset signs that the Trump administration will de-esclate its trade war.

Rich Trumka says he was fired from the Consumer Product Safety Commission after refusing to allow DOGE into the agency.

The Order of St. Augustine is a centuries-old religious order focused on community and charity.

Providing semaglutide for all those eligible may bring productivity gains as people are able to work more

Giving weight loss jabs to everyone eligible for them could boost the UK economy by £4.5bn, according to research.

Worldwide, about 3.8 billion people over 25 and just under 750 million children and young people are forecast to be overweight or obese by 2050. In England, 26.5% of adults are obese, while across the UK 4.6 million are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

Brothers granted hearing that could lead to freedom but attorneys withdraw bid to remove prosecutors from case

After months of legal battles, Erik and Lyle Menendez, who were convicted of killing their parents in 1989, will finally get a resentencing hearing in Los Angeles court next week, giving the brothers a new chance at freedom.

LA county superior court judge Michael Jesic ruled on Friday that the resentencing hearing can take place, starting next Tuesday.

Each country has accused the other of fresh attacks, while a stream of misinformation on social media has deepened public unease on either side of the border.

Tech giant Google began labeling the Gulf of Mexico with different names depending on a person's location after President Trump's executive action soon after he took office in January.

Newark airport has been experiencing communications issues that have led to 20% of its controllers taking leave. Here's what to do if you're flying in or out of EWR.

The new all-access ESPN app will be different from the ESPN Plus app and include live sports and more.

Want to diversify your retirement income? Here's what to know if you plan to stack annuities with Social Security.

A HELOC can be a smart way to borrow money now. Here are three smart ways to pay it off when you do.

The moment it became clear that newly elected Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, is an American, internet users circulated statements about his political affiliations and social media habits. 

Some of the observations were based in fact. Others were fabricated.

"Wait how woke is this pope," wrote comedian Jeremy Kaplowitz May 8. His X post, which had been viewed about 900,000 times as of mid-afternoon May 9, included a screenshot that appeared to be a headline from The New York Times. 

"Pope Leo XIV was a founding member of the 2020 anarchist Portland autonomous zone known as CHAZ," read the purported headline in the Times’ font style. The subhead read: "Robert Francis Prevost spent much of his time in the early COVID-19 pandemic writing an anarchist zine in Portland describing how to best fist-fight police officers." 

Screenshot from X. 

When commenters asked whether the headline was real, Kaplowitz responded with additional posts insisting it was true. Tagging the New York Times, he also wrote, "CHAZ was in Seattle, not Portland," adding an expletive. 

Given that Kaplowitz is a comedian (although his X profile does not clearly state that), it’s possible he intended the posts as a prank, but he never said so and the image stoked confusion as it spread quickly across social media without clarity or disclaimers.

Times spokesperson Maria Case said, "The New York Times did not publish this headline." 

Searching the Times’ website for the headline returned no results. A more general search for "Pope Leo XIV" returned 45 results as of about 11 a.m. May 9, but none of those articles linked Prevost to an autonomous zone. 

The headline’s details also don’t add up.

Following George Floyd’s murder in 2020, protesters occupied several blocks in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood as part of a Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, or CHOP, which also was called the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or CHAZ. The protest began in early June and lasted about three and a half weeks.  

Protesters in Portland, Oregon, tried to establish an autonomous zone similar to the Seattle one in the early hours of June 18, 2020, but local news reports said few protesters stayed overnight and law enforcement dispersed it at dawn. 

Searching the Nexis news database for "Pope Leo XIV" and "autonomous zone" returned no results. A search for "Robert Prevost" and "autonomous zone" also revealed no results. 

We rate claims that a purported headline from The New York Times said "Pope Leo XIV was a founding member of the 2020 anarchist Portland autonomous zone known as CHAZ" False. 

RELATED: Is the new pope a ‘registered Republican’? No, but Robert Prevost has voted in GOP primaries

In a review of visuals posted online, The Post verified debris consistent with at least two French-made fighter jets flown by the Indian air force.

Is there and update to the “reinstall original GTV firmware” help

I can’t see where to install the float control xml VESC. My GTV is bricked as I lost my backup. Trying to revert to stock GTV software, followed the downloads but can’t see where to load the float xml as no tab

My board doesn’t engage anymore

So you encountered a problem and need help…

bug?
crash?
weird behavior?
Please include ALL the info if you want useful help. The more obscure your issue the more details we’ll need. There can never be too much info. Basically we need to be able to reproduce it or at least fully understand the circumstances leading up to the issue you’re reporting

controller/motor
firmware version
package version (and name)
configuration details
how often has this happened? single incident? can you reproduce it?
the circumstances leading up to it, when the incident happened what exactly were you doing?
and last but not least: log files / videos - however DO NOT EXPECT that we’ll watch minutes of video or sift thru megabytes of logs to try to figure out what might have happened. Keep the logs and videos short.

I personally ignore any video posted as the primary problem description. Use your words

The pomp, the vestments and the spectacle have always drawn attention, but no previous conclave was quite so online.

Live updates and latest news as the first North American pope steps into his role as the new leader of the Catholic Church.

A U.S. senator introduced a bill on Friday that would direct the Commerce Department to require location verification mechanisms for export-controlled AI chips, in an effort to curb China's access to advanced semiconductor technology. From a report: Called the "Chip Security Act," the bill calls for AI chips under export regulations, and products containing those chips, to be fitted with location-tracking systems to help detect diversion, smuggling or other unauthorized use of the product. "With these enhanced security measures, we can continue to expand access to U.S. technology without compromising our national security," Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas said. The bill also calls for companies exporting the AI chips to report to the Bureau of Industry and Security if their products have been diverted away from their intended location or subject to tampering attempts.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, was elected pope, genealogists got to work. What they found surprised them.

Senior Vice President, Social Media & Trending Content

Teal Health offers alternative to pap smear tests that need to be undertaken at a doctor’s office, slated for June rollout

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first at-home test for cervical cancer screening, its maker Teal Health said on Friday, offering an alternative to smear tests that need to be undertaken at a doctor’s office.

Pap smear tests have significantly reduced cancer incidence from when they were first introduced 80 years ago. But they can be uncomfortable and inconvenient owing to the requirement for an in-clinic exam.

Kaja Sokola says disgraced movie mogul forced her to touch his genitals in Manhattan apartment when she was 16

A former model has told a New York court that the disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her when she was 16, calling it the most “horrifying thing I ever experienced”.

Kaja Sokola told jurors at Weinstein’s retrial that he put his hand inside her underwear and made her touch his genitals at his Manhattan apartment in 2002 when she was 16.

A look at the features for this week's broadcast of the Emmy-winning program, hosted by Jane Pauley.

At the end of season 2 of the hit CBS series "Tracker," Justin Hartley says his character, Colter Shaw, "kind of crumbles a little bit."

An elevated gold price doesn't mean investors can't find an affordable entry price point. Here are three to know.

The Pentagon has directed all military commands to pull and review books related to diversity,...

The post Pentagon Expands DEI Crackdown, Orders Removal of Books on Race, Gender, and Civil Rights appeared first on News Facts Network.

Conservative activist Laura Loomer is publicly feuding with Calley Means, brother of Trump’s new surgeon...

The post Laura Loomer and Calley Means Clash Over Surgeon General Nomination appeared first on News Facts Network.

Landmark legislation follows local uproar over a Guardian investigation into a major non-profit’s high prices

Indiana’s governor, Mike Braun, has signed a landmark bill that would strip charity hospitals of their non-profit status if they continue to charge high prices.

The legislation, the first of its kind in the United States, followed uproar across the state after a Guardian series in October that investigated how one major Indiana non-profit hospital system bought up its competition, then hiked its prices, leaving businesses and patients struggling to pay their medical costs.

Exclusive: The intervention to marginalize Ricky Buria is aimed at insulating the Pentagon from any more missteps

Exasperated by the turmoil that has dogged Pete Hegseth’s office in recent weeks, the White House will block the US defense secretary’s choice of chief of staff and select a candidate of its own, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Hegseth had suggested giving the chief of staff position to Marine Col Ricky Buria after the first person in the role, Joe Kasper, left last month in the wake of a contentious leak investigation that brought the ouster of three other senior aides.

Officials float idea of compact of free association (Cofa), used by US to keep close ties with Pacific Island nations

US officials are discussing a plan to pull Greenland into America’s sphere of influence using a type of agreement that the United States has used to keep close ties with several Pacific Island nations, according to two US officials and another person familiar with the discussions.

Under the plan being considered, the Trump administration would propose to Greenland’s leaders that the island enter into a so-called compact of free association, or Cofa, with the United States.

Looking to borrow $15,000 worth of home equity right now? Here's how much it could cost you to pay it back monthly.

Software firm 37signals is completing its migration from AWS to on-premises infrastructure, expecting to save $1.3 million annually on storage costs alone. CTO David Heinemeier Hansson announced the company has begun migrating 18 petabytes of data from Amazon S3 to Pure Storage arrays costing $1.5 million upfront but only $200,000 yearly to operate. AWS waived $250,000 in data egress fees for the transition, which will allow 37signals to completely delete its AWS account this summer. The company has already slashed $2 million in annual costs after replacing cloud compute with $700,000 worth of Dell servers in 2024. "Cloud can be a good choice in certain circumstances, but the industry pulled a fast one convincing everyone it's the only way," wrote Hansson, who began the repatriation effort in 2022 after discovering their annual AWS bill exceeded $3.2 million.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mohsen Mahdawi — who was detained by immigration agents last month during what he was told was his citizenship interview — can remain out of detention.

Move to speed up appeals of people in government-funded hotels could be challenged on discrimination grounds, officials warn

A plan to fast-track the appeals of asylum seekers living in government-funded hotels could face multiple legal challenges on the grounds of discrimination, the government has said.

A 24-week legal deadline on appeal decisions for those staying in hotel rooms is being introduced in an attempt to fulfil a Labour manifesto promise to end a practice that costs the taxpayer billions of pounds a year.

Acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson warns FEMA personnel in first all-hands meeting, saying "I and I alone speak for FEMA."

Former SAS officer led a group of 70 who attempted to overthrow Equatorial Guinea’s president

Simon Mann, an Eton and Sandhurst-educated ex-SAS officer, who led a botched coup involving Margaret Thatcher’s son to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea, has died aged 72.

Mann led a group of 70 fellow mercenaries who were arrested in Zimbabwe in 2004 for attempting to topple Equatorial Guinea’s despotic president, Teodoro Obiang.

The Supreme Court announced on Friday that retired Associate Justice David H. Souter has died at the age of 85 at his residence in New Hampshire. Souter left the bench in 2009, and his term was marked by several noteworthy decisions and a perceived shift in his voting patterns.

In a statement, Chief Justice John Roberts said of Justice Souter: “Justice David Souter served our Court with great distinction for nearly twenty years. He brought uncommon wisdom and kindness to a lifetime of public service. After retiring to his beloved New Hampshire in 2009, he continued to render significant service to our branch by sitting regularly on the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for more than a decade. He will be greatly missed.”

President George H.W. Bush appointed Souter to the Supreme Court in 1990. Souter replaced Justice William J. Brennan. He retired in 2009, after serving more than 19 years on the Court.

Justice Souter’s Opinions

In Washington v. Glucksberg (1997), Souter concurred with the Court’s unanimous opinion in a case about the state of Washington’s ban on physician-assisted suicide, which overturned a lower ruling striking down the law as unconstitutional. “We therefore have a clear question about which institution, a legislature or a court, is relatively more competent to deal with an emerging issue as to which facts currently unknown could be dispositive. The answer has to be, for the reasons already stated, that the legislative process is to be preferred,” Souter wrote in his concurrence.

Souter also clearly delineated the boundaries between church and state in Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston (1995). The city of Boston authorized a council to coordinate the St. Patrick’s Day Parade; the council denied approval for the Irish American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston (GLIB) to participate in it. The Massachusetts State Court ordered the council to include GLIB, but a unanimous Supreme Court held that requiring private citizens organizing a public parade to include a group expressing a message the organizers did not want to convey violated the organizer’s First Amendment rights. Writing the Court’s majority opinion, Souter concluded: “Disapproval of a private speaker’s statement does not legitimize use of the Commonwealth’s power to compel the speaker to alter the message by including one more acceptable to others.”

In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), Souter joined Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy in writing the controlling plurality opinion that upheld Roe v. Wade (1973). And in Bush v. Gore (2000), Souter joined the Court’s 7-2 majority in agreeing that the Florida Supreme Court’s method for recounting ballots in the presidential election was unconstitutional. But Souter disagreed with the 5-4 majority that had held time had run out for another recount. “Unlike the majority, I see no warrant for this Court to assume that Florida could not possibly comply with this requirement before the date set for the meeting of electors, December 18,” he wrote.

Souter was also criticized by conservative observers for voting with the Court’s liberal wing in decisions such as Lee vs. Weisman (1992), which held that clergy offering prayers at official public school ceremonies violated the First Amendment; Kelo v. New London (2005), which held that a city’s taking of private property to sell for private development qualified as a “public use” within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause; and McCreary County vs. ACLU of Kentucky (2005), which held that Ten Commandments displays in public schools and courthouses violated the Establishment Clause. However, he wrote the majority opinion in Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker (2008), where Souter joined the Court’s conservative wing to reduce the $2.5 billion verdict in the Exxon Valdez case to $500 million.

Souter received an A.B. degree from Harvard College, and went on to become a Rhodes Scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford University. After attending and graduating from Harvard Law School, he served in private practice briefly, and then in the Attorney General’s office in New Hampshire, eventually becoming Attorney General in 1976. In 1978, he was named an Associate Justice of the Superior Court of New Hampshire, and was appointed to the Supreme Court of New Hampshire as an Associate Justice in 1983. He became a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on May 25, 1990. After his confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1990, he served on the Court for more than 19 years.

During his retirement, Souter heard cases on the First Circuit, and he participated in civics education curriculum reform efforts.

Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.

NordVPN’s recently released Linux GUI app makes improving privacy on Linux easier and more accessible, especially for beginners.

The newly chosen Roman Catholic pope, Robert Prevost — Pope Leo XIV — is the first U.S.-born pontiff. Is he also a "registered Republican," as social media posts said?

"SCOOP: Our Turning Point Action team pulled the voting history for Pope Leo XIV," conservative influencer Charlie Kirk wrote May 8 on X. "He's a registered Republican who has voted in Republican primaries when not living abroad. Our data shows he's a strong Republican, and he's pro-life."

Many other X posts called Prevost a "registered Republican."

Prevost, 69, is a registered voter in Will County, Illinois, and cast ballots there over the past 13 years. In Illinois, voters do not register by party affiliation. But they declare a party when voting in a primary, according to an April video by the Illinois State Board of Elections. 

"However, you are not tied down or formally registered to this party and are free to vote for another party at a subsequent election," the video says.

The Illinois voter registration application does not ask people to provide a party affiliation. 

The Will County clerk’s office sent PolitiFact Robert Prevost’s voter information, which lists his party affiliation as "undeclared." It shows that he voted in the 2012, 2014 and 2016 Republican primaries. He voted absentee in the 2024 general election, with an undeclared party affiliation. 

The viral screenshots Kirk and others shared on X are from L2, a paywalled database that aggregates consumer and voter data. L2’s profile of Prevost lists "Republican" in its "party" field. 

It is unclear how L2 determines a party affiliation for people who live in states such as Illinois where this information is not included in voter registration. L2 did not respond to PolitiFact’s request for comment.

🚨 🚨 🚨 New Pope is a registered REPUBLICAN! pic.twitter.com/bj8MH8H2Qs

— Jared Small 💁🏼‍♀️ (@jaredsmall) May 8, 2025

Prevost, who was born in 1955, grew up in Dolton, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. He was ordained as a priest in 1982, then moved to Peru, where he lived from 1988 through 1998. In 1999, he returned to Chicago to serve as the Prior Provincial of the Augustian Province of "Mother of Good Counsel," which covers the Midwest and Canada. 

Prevost’s voter file lists his address to a house owned by his brother, John Prevost. We were unable to determine Robert Prevost’s address or where he was registered to vote before 2012. In 2014, he returned to Peru and served as Bishop of Chiclayo from 2015 to 2023. He then moved to Rome, where he has lived since.  

U.S. citizens who live overseas and meet certain criteria can vote absentee while abroad.

We contacted the clerk’s office in Cook County, Illinois — where Chicago is located — to ask whether Prevost has a voter file in that county. The clerk’s office directed us to submit a Freedom of Information Act request for that information; we did so but did not receive an immediate response. 

Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, chair of religious studies and political science professor at Northwestern University in the Chicago suburbs, said Prevost’s voting history doesn’t tell the public "much about his views or positions other than that in that particular primary he was inclined toward one or more of the Republican candidates."

Our ruling

X posts said Prevost is a "registered Republican."

Prevost is registered to vote in Illinois; in that state, voters do not register with a party affiliation. However, they declare a party affiliation when voting in a primary. County records show Prevost voted in three Republican primaries from 2012 through 2016, the most recent records we obtained.

Still, the Illinois State Board of Elections says that when voters participate in primaries, they are not formally registered to a party.

No one is registered by party affiliation in Illinois and evidence is scant about Prevost’s voting history over his lifetime. 

The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts. We rate it Mostly False.

PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this fact-check.

RELATED: How faithful is ‘Conclave’ about the process of picking a new pope? We fact-checked the movie

RELATED: Pope Francis defended truth as misinformation trailed him

In addition to the Whoop 5.0, there is now the Whoop MG. These new wearables can track your pace of aging, heartbeat, blood pressure and more.

Exclusive: PM says he has ambitious plans for partnership and argues Britons have moved on from Brexit

The UK has “ambitious” plans to secure a closer trading partnership with the EU, Keir Starmer has said, as he argued the British public had moved on from Brexit.

Before a UK-EU summit, the prime minister urged people to “look forward, not back” as the country embarked on a new era of its relationship with the bloc.

Can Frank Lampard guide the Sky Blues to Wembley?

A comprehensive analysis in Science Advances reveals that humans have explored less than 0.001% of the deep seafloor -- an area equivalent to merely one-tenth the size of Belgium. Oceanographer Katherine Bell and colleagues at the Ocean Discovery League compiled data from approximately 44,000 deep-sea dives conducted between 1958 and 2024, finding that expeditions have concentrated overwhelmingly around waters near the United States, Japan, and New Zealand. The study exposes significant gaps in ocean exploration, with vast regions -- particularly the Indian Ocean -- remaining virtually untouched by direct observation. Much of the existing dive data remains inaccessible to scientists, locked away by private companies.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

FAA says radar went black due to malfunction at key control facility as officials promise that system will be modernized

Newark airport, one of the main hubs serving the New York City area, suffered another blackout of its air traffic control system, early on Friday morning, according to US aviation regulators – the second in recent weeks of disrupted flights that have become a major concern for passengers.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said that a key air traffic control facility in Philadelphia that guides aircraft in and out of Newark Liberty international airport in New Jersey had a malfunction.

Galdieria extract blue, butterfly pea flower extract and calcium phosphate are three food colors from natural sources the FDA has approved for use in food.

Two addresses in north-west London searched after three other Iranians detained in same investigation last Saturday

A 31-year-old Iranian man has been arrested in north-west London under the National Security Act 2023 as part of a counter-terrorism policing investigation in which three other Iranian men were detained, the Metropolitan police have said.

The man was detained on Friday morning and searches were carried out at two addresses in the area.

In a new interview, the new pope’s brother reveals he ‘knew how to behave’ because he had seen the 2024 hit thriller

Vatican watchers weren’t the only ones consulting the movie Conclave before the pivotal election of a new pope.

The new pontiff himself – Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who took the name Leo XIV – watched the 2024 movie dramatizing the Vatican’s selection process ahead of the sequestration of cardinals that chose him to lead the Catholic church, according to his older brother.

CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm that became a household name after causing a massive global IT outage last year, has announced it will cut 5% of its workforce in part due to "AI efficiency." From a report: In a note to staff earlier this week, released in stock market filings in the US, CrowdStrike's chief executive, George Kurtz, announced that 500 positions, or 5% of its workforce, would be cut globally, citing AI efficiencies created in the business. "We're operating in a market and technology inflection point, with AI reshaping every industry, accelerating threats, and evolving customer needs," he said. Kurtz said AI "flattens our hiring curve, and helps us innovate from idea to product faster," adding it "drives efficiencies across both the front and back office. AI is a force multiplier throughout the business," he said. Other reasons for the cuts included market demand for sustained growth and expanding the product offering.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Superfoods are nutrient-dense foods that offer various health benefits. Here is everything you need to know about incorporating them into your diet.

Trump administration understood to have pushed for requirements to be attached to deal in effort to freeze out Chinese steel

The US deal on steel tariffs imposes conditions on the “nature of ownership” of British plants as part of its efforts to freeze out Chinese steel, it has emerged.

It is understood Donald Trump’s administration pushed for requirements to be attached to the steel deal to ensure that the Chinese-owned British Steel plant in Scunthorpe was not used by Beijing as a backdoor to circumvent US tariffs.

Any Trump administration efforts to send non-Libyans to the north African country would violate a prior court order

Immigrants in Texas who were told they would be deported to Libya sat on a military airfield tarmac for hours on Wednesday, unsure of what would happen next, an attorney for one of the men has said.

The attorney, Tin Thanh Nguyen, told the news agency Reuters that his client, a Vietnamese construction worker from Los Angeles, was among the immigrants woken in the early morning hours and bussed from an immigration detention center in Pearsall, Texas, to an airfield where a military aircraft awaited them.

Prog rockers score seventh No 1 album with recording of Italian gig, extending their chart run following final studio album The Endless River in 2014

A recording of Pink Floyd’s eerie and evocative 1972 gig in the ruins of Pompeii, entitled Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII, has become the band’s seventh UK chart-topping album.

The album captures the gig that was documented by director Adrian Maben for one of rock’s most arresting concert films, which has been restored to 4K quality and rereleased in cinemas, including in Imax format. A recording of the gig was previously included as part of a larger Pink Floyd box set, but this is the first standalone version, featuring a new sound mix helmed by prog rock musician Steven Wilson.

Simon Clarke says ‘pipeline of future voters is dead’ as party figures warn Kemi Badenoch her job as leader is in danger

The Conservative party is fighting to justify its existence amid concerns that its pipeline of future voters is “completely dead”, a former cabinet minister and leading thinktank director has said.

Simon Clarke, an ally of Boris Johnson who backed Kemi Badenoch for the leadership last year, was among a string of former Tory ministers and serving MPs to tell the Guardian she faced removal by her party if she did not turn its fortunes around by next year’s local elections.

Pope faced questions about his handling of clerical sexual abuse cases earlier in his career after a survivors group filed a complaint

Groups supporting clergy-molestation survivors say they are gravely concerned and insulted by the election of Pope Leo XIV after he overcame questions about his handling of clerical sexual abuse cases earlier in his career to become the Roman Catholic church’s first-ever US-born leader.

Before Robert Prevost’s ascent to the papacy at age 69, he was leading a chapter of the Augustinian religious order in his home town of Chicago when allegations surfaced that a priest and Catholic high school principal under his jurisdiction had molested at least one student as well as kept child-abuse imagery.

May 9, 2025 — Luxembourg’s Ministry of the Economy and the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR), together with Luxinnovation, are launching a new joint call for projects in the fields of high-performance computing (HPC) and/or artificial intelligence (AI). This initiative aims to support companies and public research institutions working on projects in these domains.

This call for projects primarily targets private-sector stakeholders with strong R&D capabilities but limited in-house experience in artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). By encouraging collaborations between public research and industry, the objective of the call is to support these companies in exploring, adopting, and integrating cutting-edge AI and HPC technologies into their operations, thereby accelerating innovation and boosting long-term competitiveness.

It is also a strategic priority of the FNR to turn public research into a competitive advantage for Luxembourg and to give researchers the opportunity to pursue high-impact research strategies while working with the most innovative private actors. The aim is to raise general awareness of the use of AI and HPC in companies’ R&D activities and to support a sustainable evolution towards a relevant and well-developed ecosystem.

The development of innovations along with the broader adoption of digital technologies and the fostering of a collaborative ecosystem, supporting technology and knowledge transfer among private and public actors, are key priorities of the government’s strategy to accelerate digital sovereignty. AI and HPC are the technological backbone of the national ambitions of Luxembourg.

This joint call for projects will be accompanied by a dedicated portfolio of aid schemes offered by the Ministry of the Economy, which takes into account the varying levels of AI and HPC expertise among private actors.

The HPC-AI Joint Call aims to:

• Foster innovation and sustainable value creation by stimulating strong partnerships between public research institutions and the industry in the field of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.
• Strengthen the company’s expertise in:
  • AI models, enabling their fine-tuning and deployment for relevant use cases.
  • HPC applications, enhancing capabilities in complex computations such as modelling and simulation, quantum simulation via emulators, data analysis, virtual testing, machine learning, and AI, ultimately leveraging the long-term opportunities these technologies offer.
• Encourage the implementation of innovative projects that contribute to the development of Luxembourg’s economic landscape and are in line with national strategic priorities.
• Enhance the attractiveness of Luxembourg as an innovation hub based on advanced technological research in AI and HPC.
• Fund high-quality, impactful R&D projects that address major challenges, deliver new or improved solutions, and clearly demonstrate the benefits of AI and HPC integration for industry and society.

Call Topics

This joint call focuses on R&D initiatives in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and High-Performance Computing (HPC), with particular emphasis on the following application areas:

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Industry and Scientific Innovation aims to improve industrial processes, enable scientific breakthroughs, and create intelligent systems that drive innovation. It includes machine learning, automation, and intelligent decision-support systems.
2. High-Performance Computing (HPC) for Advanced Simulations and Data Processing targets the use of high-performance computing to conduct large-scale simulations, analyse big data, and enable advanced predictive modelling across fields like engineering and environmental science.
3. Cross-Domain Projects Combining AI and HPC promote integrated solutions that leverage HPC infrastructure to power large-scale AI models, enabling advanced analytics, optimization, and real-time decision-making for complex, data-intensive challenges.

Eligibility criteria and further information about the joint call can be found here.

To facilitate the emergence of projects and to support interested actors in their efforts, Luxinnovation, the national agency for the promotion of innovation, has set up an online platform where companies and public research actors are invited to submit their project outline from now to June 18, 2025 in a first phase.

In a second phase, from July 21 to September 17, full project proposal (FPP) must then be submitted by each project participant either to the Ministry of the Economy (Myguichet platform) for companies and to FNR (FNR Grant system) for accredited research organizations.

A webinar will be organized on May 15, 2025. It will present the objectives of the Joint Call AI – HPC as well as the process of preparing applications, followed by a Q&A session. Information and registration: https://joint-calls.research-industry-collaboration.lu/joint-call-high-performance-computing.

Source: Luxembourg Ministry of the Economy

The post Luxembourg Launches Joint AI-HPC Call to Boost Industry–Research Collaboration appeared first on HPCwire.

The Polish prime minister criticised anyone seen ‘applauding President Putin’ at today’s Moscow parade

Let’s bring you some more pictures from the Moscow parade earlier today, a not very subtle attempt as showing off the Russian military power.

French president Emmanuel Macron posted a social media update on his last night’s phone call with US president Donald Trump.

I spoke several times last night with @POTUS.

I commend his strong call for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire, as did our British and Nordic partners earlier this morning.

Rising tensions resurface Pakistan’s credibility problem– and India’s backfiring policy on Kashmir Expert comment jon.wallace 9 May 2025

The Pahalgam terror attack has returned Kashmir to the international agenda. But a history of flawed policy means neither country can claim moral authority on the region.

Tensions between India and Pakistan are fast escalating, following the terrorist attack that killed 26 Indian tourists near Pahalgam in India-administered Kashmir on 22 April – and subsequent military action by India against alleged terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir on 7 May. But two stark realities have emerged as hostilities have grown, exposing the limits of each party’s ability to gain leverage over its rival.  

The first pertains to Pakistan’s enduring credibility problem created by allegations that the country has historic connections with acts of terrorism abroad, especially in Indian-administered Kashmir. The second relates to India’s frustrated attempts to ‘marginalize’ Pakistan internationally and – as an extension of that policy – to revoke Kashmir’s special status and de-list it as a disputed territory. Both issues have resurfaced as hostilities have gained momentum.

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Urgent mediation to save the Indus Waters Treaty could be a route to de-escalation between India and Pakistan

Within hours of the attack, India announced – without evidence – that the gunmen had ‘cross-border’ links to Pakistan and threatened retaliation. India also suspended its water-sharing agreement with Pakistan under the 1960 Indus Water Treaty (IWT), downgraded its diplomatic representation in Pakistan, revoked Indian visas for Pakistani nationals, and sealed off all border crossings.  

The measures triggered strong condemnation in Pakistan, which angrily rejected India’s allegations of involvement in the terrorist attack. Islamabad announced that it was withdrawing from the 1972 Simla Agreement with India, which committed both parties to the bilateral settlement of all outstanding issues, including the Kashmir dispute.

But in a move that was clearly intended to defuse tension, Pakistan subsequently offered to participate in ‘any neutral, transparent and credible investigation’ into the attack at Pahalgam – a proposal that appears to be supported by the United States. 

Credibility

However, the gesture was rejected as a ‘ploy’ by India. New Delhi cited the fate of earlier investigations, notably into the 2008 Mumbai attacks. India believes it provided ‘irrefutable evidence’ of Pakistani involvement to that investigation, only for the findings to be buried and the perpetrators offered protection by Islamabad. Pakistan strongly denied any state involvement in the attack. 

But Indian claims that Pakistan has been reluctant to pursue terrorist groups and their leaders operating beyond its borders may have some foundation. Previous links with terror groups have been acknowledged by Pakistani officials:

In an interview with Sky News, Pakistan’s Defence Minister, Khawaja Asif, while insisting that no collusion exists with the group that carried out the Pahalgam attacks, appeared to concede that Pakistan had harboured links to terrorist groups over many decades in the past – albeit in the service of doing the West’s ‘dirty work’.  

The senior opposition leader from the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Bilawal Bhutto, has also acknowledged that Pakistan ‘has a past as far as extremist groups are concerned’.  

President Claudia Sheinbaum says lawsuit has been filed after US lawmakers voted on name change

Mexico has sued Google for changing the Gulf of Mexico’s name to “Gulf of America” for Google Maps users in the United States, Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, said on Friday.

“The lawsuit has already been filed,” Sheinbaum said at her morning news conference, without saying where and when it was submitted.

Enjoy 4K, Ultra HD detail on the biggest of screens with some of the best projectors we've ever tested.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Panasonic will undertake a major restructuring across a range of its business, including consumer electronics, cutting 10,000 jobs globally, as the Japanese company plans to streamline, spinning out struggling divisions in hopes of reversing its dwindling market share and fending off fierce Chinese competition. Panasonic did not say which businesses it intended to shrink. The company expects to book structural reform costs of roughly $900 million this business year. Panasonic ended the fiscal year

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Prince Albert Jacob feels disappointed in continued ignorance of role many non-whites played in war effort

“Most black people went overboard and tried hard to make sure that they did their best for Britain,” says Prince Albert Jacob, a 99-year-old veteran from Trinidad who joined the RAF in 1943.

In a London hotel lobby, after a busy week of VE Day celebrations, Jacob describes feeling disappointed at findings from a recent survey that showed British people remained largely unaware of the black and Asian contribution to the second world war.

• School says Jordon Hudson still welcome at facilities
• Pablo Torre stands by reporting she was banned
• Hudson’s role with Belichick remains under scrutiny

The University of North Carolina on Friday denied reports that Jordon Hudson, the girlfriend of head football coach Bill Belichick, has been banned from its football facilities.

“While Jordon Hudson is not an employee at the University or Carolina Athletics, she is welcome to the Carolina Football facilities,” an athletic department spokesperson said in a statement. “Jordon will continue to manage all activities related to Coach Belichick’s personal brand outside of his responsibilities for Carolina Football and the University.”

Moscow stages largest Victory Day parade since start of Ukraine war with Putin using celebrations to justify invasion

Russian troops fighting in Ukraine have marched with Chinese forces on Moscow’s Red Square to mark the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in a Victory Day celebration marked by greater spectacle than in recent years.

After several scaled-back Victory Days – with reduced military displays and few foreign guests – Vladimir Putin on Friday addressed the largest parade since his 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The bear was one of four cubs that emerged in 2020 with their mother, Grizzly No. 399, who was often called the world's most famous grizzly bear.

CBS News is tracking a outbreak of measles in West Texas that has led to the deaths of two children and a growing number of cases around the country.

Do these things ASAP to use the latest rate decision to your advantage.

Parenthood is becoming a lot more expensive with President Trump's tariffs on China and other countries.

Retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter was a steady member of the high court's liberal wing during his tenure despite being appointed by a Republican president.

Pope Leo XIV gave a homily at a Mass a day after he was chosen to lead the Catholic Church. Here's what the new pontiff said, and what he's up to in the coming days.

On the high court from 1990 to 2009, he saw his role as one of quiet resistance against excess and dramatic change.

The firings are his administration’s latest test to the limits of presidential power over independent agencies.

The Trump administration has raised the idea of privatizing the nearly 250-year-old Postal Service.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Major tech companies lobbying to salvage a tax deduction for research and development are warning they may pull back from high-profile pledges of new US investments if Congress doesn't fully reinstate the break. Big tech companies have pledged more than $1.6 trillion in investments in the US since Donald Trump took office, promising to build factories and data centers in alignment with Trump's push to build in America. But industry representatives are signaling those promises will be imperiled if Congress doesn't fully reinstate the R&D tax deduction, which was pared back to help offset the massive cost of President Donald Trump's 2017 bill. At the time, it was estimated that limiting the provision would temporarily raise about $120 billion from 2018 to 2027. "A lot of those announcements are predicated on an expectation the administration and Congress will partner together on reinstating those R&D provisions," said Jason Oxman, president of the Information Technology Industry Council, a trade group that includes among its members Amazon, Apple, Anthropic, Alphabet, and IBM. Lobbyists representing tech companies that announced US investments have made similar claims to congressional aides and lawmakers, according to people familiar with the conversations.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Washington state and Oregon forest and fire officials say Trump funding cuts make wildfire prevention planning a challenge.

The United States has granted refugee status to 54 white Afrikaner South Africans, with their...

The post U.S. Grants Refugee Status to 54 White Afrikaner South Africans Under Trump Executive Order appeared first on News Facts Network.

Dubbed the "Butcher of Lyon" for his wartime torture of prisoners, former Gestapo chief Klaus Barbi fled to South America after the end of World War II.

The FDA is warning the public about "gas station heroin," or products that contain tianeptine, an opioid alternative prescribed as an antidepressant in some countries.

Robert Fico and Aleksandar Vučić accept Vladimir Putin’s invitation to attend Victory Day celebrations

Despite warnings from European Union officials, Slovakia’s Moscow-friendly prime minister, Robert Fico, shook hands with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin before becoming the only EU leader to attend Russia’s 9 May parade of military forces waging war on Ukraine.

The Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, whose country aspires to join the 27-nation union, also accepted the Russian president’s invitation to attend the annual Victory Day celebrations marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war.

Pocketpair says it's continuing to evolve its monster-collecting game, even as it strips out features that may be too similar to the Pokemon franchise it parodies.

Dylan Tippetts of Plymouth resigns from party ‘that does not support my fundamental rights’

One of Labour’s only transgender councillors has resigned from the party, accusing it of “throwing trans people under the bus”.

In a post on X on Friday morning, Dylan Tippetts, who has represented Compton ward on Plymouth city council since 2022, wrote: “I cannot continue to represent a party that does not support my fundamental rights. I cannot as a trans person continue to support the Labour party.”

Do these things ASAP to use the Fed's latest decision to your advantage.

If you redeem your bonus for travel, you're looking at an extra $1,250 off your next trip.

Explosions heard in Indian Kashmir as witnesses say attacks are heavier than those reported on Thursday

Pakistan has been accused of launching a fresh wave of drone strikes against India, with projectiles reported over the states of Indian-administered Kashmir and Punjab.

Early on Saturday morning, a spokesperson for the Pakistan army said India had fired ballistic missiles that fell in Indian territory, making the claim in an unscheduled television broadcast at 1.50am local time.

The specialized role of prompt engineering, not long ago heralded as a promising new career path in AI, has virtually disappeared just two years after its emergence. Many companies are now considering strong AI prompting a standard skill rather than a dedicated position, Fast Company reports, with some firms even deploying AI systems to generate optimal prompts for other AI tools. "AI is already eating its own," Malcolm Frank, CEO of TalentGenius, told the publication. "Prompt engineering has become something that's embedded in almost every role, and people know how to do it. It's turned from a job into a task very, very quickly." The prompt engineer's decline serves as a case study for the broader AI job market, where evidence suggests AI is primarily reshaping existing careers rather than creating entirely new ones. Further reading: 'AI Prompt Engineering Is Dead.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ISS and Glass Lewis concerned new long-term bonus could reward bosses regardless of performance

Metro Bank is at risk of a shareholder backlash, after two influential shareholder advisers warned over a complex bonus scheme that could hand chief executive Daniel Frumkin a £60m windfall.

ISS and Glass Lewis – both prominent proxy advisory services that suggest how shareholders should vote on company policies at annual meetings – are concerned that the new long-term bonus will be linked to the bank’s share price, which may climb regardless of how well bosses run the lender.

The White House is expected to send Congress a rescissions package in the coming days, looking to claw back congressionally approved funding.

John Prevost told "CBS Mornings" he found out his brother was the next pope with everyone else – after hearing his name announced on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica on TV.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy tells "CBS Mornings" it will take months to restore normal operations at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Teal Health, the maker of an at-home cervical cancer screening test, says it will give patients an alternative to in-clinic pap smears.

Exclusive: Act found to be failing as hostile immigration policies deter trafficking victims from seeking help

Modern slavery victims are choosing to stay with their exploiters rather than access government support designed to protect them for fear of immigration enforcement, research has found.

The independent anti-slavery commissioner, Eleanor Lyons, said the system was “deeply broken”.

The Denmark prime minister's comments come a day after the top American diplomat in the country was summoned for an explanation of reports of U.S. intelligence gathering in Greenland.

Games like Roblox are played by millions of children globally – but some researchers warn dark design patterns embedded in them are difficult to avoid

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Over the last decade, Dean has amassed a healthy collection of video games, from smash hits to cult classics. His digital library is like a modern day Blockbuster, all readily accessible with just a click or two. But his son, Sam, has eyes for only one video game: Roblox, the behemoth virtual universe-slash-video game that’s among the most popular on the planet.

The company reports that more than 97 million people log on to Roblox every day. Around 40% of those are, like Sam, under 13 years of age. In 2024, Roblox generated around A$5.6bn (US$3.6bn) in revenue, largely through purchases of “Robux”, its virtual currency, with the average user dropping around A$25 per month.

Already vulnerable from the pandemic and gentrification, Chinatown’s immigrant-run businesses now face a trade war

On a balmy afternoon last month, Amy Tran unboxed a delivery at Yue Wa Market, a small grocery and herbal medicine shop in Los Angeles’s Chinatown that she opened 17 years ago.

The package contained two dozen units of Shou Wu Chih, a Chinese herbal concoction known to rebuild kidney function and promote hair health. The shipment arrived two weeks after the US implemented new tariffs on Chinese imports, so her distributor charged her $115, a $35 markup from her previous order.

See how Factor's prepared meal delivery fared in a taste test at our New York office.

Souter was a New Hampshire Republican who became a darling of liberals during his nearly 20 years on the bench

Retired supreme court Justice David H Souter, the ascetic bachelor and New Hampshire Republican who became a darling of liberals during his nearly 20 years on the bench, has died. He was 85.

Souter died on Thursday at his home in New Hampshire, the court said in a statement Friday. John Roberts, the chief justice, said Souter, who retired from the court in 2009, “brought uncommon wisdom and kindness to a lifetime of public service”.

Ukrainian security services claimed to have uncovered a Hungarian spy ring gathering information about military activities in Ukraine’s western Transcarpathia region.

Struggling with unpaid medical bills? There may be strategies you can use to help erase what you owe.

Site likely to create 1,000-plus jobs as AESC wins £680m from UK government plus £320m in private finance and equity

The owner of the UK’s only operating gigafactory has secured £1bn in funding for a new electric car battery plant in Sunderland, in a government-backed deal that secures the future of a key project for the struggling British car industry.

The funding will allow Japan’s AESC to install tooling and start production of batteries at the site, which is being built to serve Nissan’s car factory down the road. More than 1,000 people are expected to be employed there.

Our tech expert is back with an updated guide to the top-tier Android phones, from budget buys to the best for battery life

Need an Android phone, but not sure which to go for, or whether to buy new or refurbished? With lots to consider, view me as your guide as you trek through the process of picking the best handset for you.

The latest flagship Android phones come in various sizes, at different prices, and with varying hardware and software features, all powered by the fastest chips. Whether your priority is battery life, camera, screen size, software support or value for money, there is more to choose from than ever. But if you’re thinking of buying Apple instead, we have a guide for iPhones, too.

Best Android for most people:
Google Pixel 9
_{£621.96 at Amazon}

Best Android for camera:
Google Pixel 9 Pro
_{From £999 at Carphone Warehouse}

Best Android for battery life and big screen:
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
_{From £1,099 at Samsung}

Best small Android:
Samsung Galaxy S25
_{From £699 at Samsung}

Best value Android:
Google Pixel 9a
_{£499 at John Lewis}

Caught in the middle: Iraq’s positioning in US-Iran tensions 5 June 2025 — 6:00PM TO 7:00PM Anonymous (not verified) 9 May 2025 Chatham House and Online

A panel of experts examine Iraq’s balancing act amid changing US-Iran dynamics.

A panel of experts and policymakers (if Hickey joins especially) examine Iraq’s balancing act amid changing US-Iran dynamics.

In recent years, Iraq has managed to maintain a degree of insulation from turbulence in the Middle East. Despite ongoing US-Iran tensions, the fallout of Israel’s war in Gaza and against the axis of resistance, regime change in Syria, and global economic upheavals, Iraq has maintained a precarious stability. But a convergence of challenges is testing Iraq’s ability to safeguard this fragile balance.

With US-Iran negotiations at a critical juncture, Baghdad once again finds itself caught between two strategic partners whose competition frequently plays out on Iraqi soil. Meanwhile, the cancellation of US energy waivers could severely impact Iraq’s electricity imports from Iran, threatening widespread blackouts just as summer temperatures soar – an unwelcome backdrop to brewing public discontent and looming national parliamentary elections.

Externally, Iraq’s rentier economic model – heavily reliant on oil exports – faces new pressure from shifting global trade dynamics and the rise of protectionist policies. Compounding this, the impact of regime change in Syria creates potential for militant groups to regroup and re-enter Iraq’s porous western border, threatening a hard-won security equilibrium.

This session will explore key questions including:

• How are Washington and Tehran recalibrating their relations and how may this impact Iraq’s politics and economy?
• How is the Middle East security landscape evolving and how can Iraq maintain stability amidst changing regional dynamics and shifting US foreign policy priorities?
• How can Iraq ensure fiscal and political cohesion amidst increasing tariffs and a volatile global trade environment?

By registering for this event, attendees agree to our Code of Conduct, ensuring a respectful, inclusive, and welcoming space for diverse perspectives and debate.

• Minnesota beat Golden State 117-93 in Game 2
• Green angry after fifth technical foul of playoffs

The Minnesota Timberwolves were stewing over their rough start in Game 1 against Golden State, a reaction coach Chris Finch was pleased to see.

Julius Randle had 24 points and 11 assists to help the Timberwolves capitalize on Warriors star Stephen Curry’s absence in a 117-93 victory Thursday that tied the second-round series at a game apiece.

While Putin hosted several world leaders, European ministers gathered in Ukraine to announce the formation of a war crimes tribunal targeting Russian officials.

Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang has served up another blunt take on the job market as AI permeates society. From a report: "You will not lose your job to AI, but will lose it to someone who uses it," Huang said at the Milken Institute Conference. Added Huang, "I recommend 100% take advantage of AI, don't be that person."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

PALO ALTO, Calif., May 9, 2025 — D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS), a leader in commercial quantum computing systems, software, and services, today announced financial results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2025.

“The first quarter of 2025 was arguably the most significant in D-Wave’s history, especially in terms of our unique ability to deliver quantum value today to our customers and the scientific community,” said Dr. Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave. “We recognized revenue on our first Advantage system sale to a major research institution, moved an additional customer application into commercial production, and became the first to demonstrate quantum supremacy over classical computing on a useful real-world problem. The end result was a record revenue and gross profit quarter.”

First Quarter Fiscal 2025 Financial Highlights

• Revenue: Revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 was $15.0 million, an increase of $12.5 million, or 509%, from revenue of $2.5 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2024. The increase was primarily driven by the sale of a quantum computing system in the first quarter of fiscal 2025.
• Bookings: Bookings for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 were $1.6 million, a decrease of $2.9 million, or 64%, from the first quarter of fiscal 2024 Bookings of $4.5 million.
• Customers: In comparing the most recent four quarters with the immediately preceding four quarters, D-Wave had a total of 133 customers compared with a total of 128 customers. The 133 customers includes 69 commercial customers (25 of which are Forbes Global 2000 customers), 52 research organizations, and 12government customers.
• GAAP Gross Profit: GAAP gross profit for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 was a record $13.9 million, an increase of $12.2 million, or 736%, from the first quarter of fiscal 2024 GAAP gross profit of $1.7 million, with the increase due primarily to a higher margin system sale in the first quarter of fiscal 2025.
• GAAP Gross Margin: GAAP gross margin for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 was 92.5%, an increase of 25.2% from the first quarter of fiscal 2024 GAAP gross margin of 67.3%, with the increase due primarily to the higher margin system sale in the first quarter of fiscal 2025.
• Non-GAAP Gross Profit: Non-GAAP Gross Profit for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 was a record $14.0 million, an increase of $12.1 million, or 644%, from the first quarter of fiscal 2024 Non-GAAP Gross Profit of $1.9 million. The difference between GAAP and Non-GAAP Gross Profit is limited to non-cash stock-based compensation and depreciation and amortization expenses that are excluded from the Non-GAAP gross profit.
• Non-GAAP Gross Margin: Non-GAAP Gross Margin for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 was 93.6%, an increase of 17.0% from the first quarter of fiscal 2024 Non-GAAP Gross Margin of 76.6%. The difference between GAAP and Non-GAAP Gross Margin is limited to non-cash stock-based compensation and depreciation and amortization expenses that are excluded from the Non-GAAP Gross Margin.
• GAAP Operating Expenses: GAAP operating expenses for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 were $25.2 million, an increase of $6.0 million, or 31%, from the first quarter of fiscal 2024 GAAP operating expenses of $19.2 million, with the year-over-year increase primarily driven by increases of $3.1 million in salaries and related personnel costs as well as increases of $1.1 million in marketing expenses, $0.5 million in non-cash stock-based compensation, $0.4 million in third party professional services and $0.4 million in fabrication costs. The increased operating expenses stem from incremental investments to support the Company’s continued growth and expansion.
• Non-GAAP Adjusted Operating Expenses: Non-GAAP Adjusted Operating Expenses for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 were $20.2 million, an increase of $5.4 million, or 36%, from the first quarter of fiscal 2024 Non-GAAP Adjusted Operating Expenses of $14.8 million, with the difference between GAAP and Non-GAAP Adjusted Operating Expenses being primarily non-cash stock-based compensation expense, non-cash depreciation and amortization, and non-recurring one-time expenses.
• Net Loss: Net loss for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 was $5.4 million, or $0.02 per share, a decrease of $11.9 million, or $0.09 per share, from the first quarter of fiscal 2024 net loss of $17.3 million or $0.11 per share. The lower net loss was primarily driven by a $12.2 million increase in gross profit associated with the sale of a quantum computing system.
• Adjusted EBITDA Loss: The Adjusted EBITDA Loss for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 was $6.1 million, a decrease of $6.8 million, or 53%, from the first quarter of fiscal 2024 Adjusted EBITDA Loss of $12.9 million, with the decrease due primarily to the increase in revenue, partially offset by higher operating expenses, driven by the Company’s increased investment in its go-to-market and research and development organizations.

Balance Sheet and Liquidity

As of March 31, 2025, D-Wave’s consolidated cash balance totaled a record $304.3 million. During the first fiscal quarter of 2025, the Company raised $146.2 million in net proceeds through its third At-The-Market (ATM) program.

As of March 31, 2025, the Company had $37.8 million in available issuance capacity under the Equity Line of Credit (the “ELOC”) with Lincoln Park Capital Fund, LLC, with the investment commitment running through October 2025. D-Wave’s ability to raise additional funds under the ELOC is subject to a number of conditions including having a sufficient number of registered shares and D-Wave’s stock price being above $1.00 per share.

About D-Wave Quantum Inc.

D-Wave is a leader in the development and delivery of quantum computing systems, software, and services. We are the world’s first commercial supplier of quantum computers, and the only company building both annealing and gate-model quantum computers. Our mission is to help customers realize the value of quantum, today. Our 5,000+ qubit Advantage quantum computers, the world’s largest, are available on-premises or via the cloud, supported by 99.9% availability and uptime. More than 100 organizations trust D-Wave with their toughest computational challenges. With over 200 million problems submitted to our Advantage systems and Advantage2 prototypes to date, our customers apply our technology to address use cases spanning optimization, artificial intelligence, research and more.

Source: D-Wave Quantum

The post D-Wave Reports 1st Quarter 2025 Results appeared first on HPCwire.

Move comes after US president withdraws nomination of Ed Martin, GOP loyalist who supported January 6 pardons

• US politics live – latest updates

Donald Trump said on Thursday he would name Jeanine Pirro, a Fox News host and former local prosecutor, to be the interim US attorney for the District of Columbia after a key Republican senator said he would not support the candidate initially selected for the job.

Pirro, who spent more than a decade as district attorney of Westchester county, New York, is a diehard Trump supporter and supporter of his baseless claim that the 2020 election was rigged. Dominion Voting Systems cited false statements she made on air in their lawsuit against the network.

Analysts say the news boosts business confidence, helps an EU trade reset and shows the UK is a good place to invest – but it’s unlikely to turbo-charge GDP

You wait three years for a trade deal and then two come along at once.

As of Monday, the UK had not announced a free trade agreement since 2022, when Boris Johnson’s government signed one with New Zealand, ranked 52nd among global economies.

Meetings between President Donald Trump and foreign leaders can be tense or bruising affairs. But when Trump invited Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to the White House in April, it was all smiles as they joked about mass incarceration.

“Sometimes they say that we imprisoned thousands — I like to say that we actually liberated millions,” Bukele told reporters, referring to his so-called war on gangs in El Salvador.

Trump responded glowingly to Bukele’s remarks. “Who gave him that line?” he said. “You think I could use that?” — which drew scattered laughter from the room.

“And in fact, Mr. President, you have 350 million people to liberate,” Bukele responded, in reference to the U.S. population. “To liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some.”

In Bukele, Trump has found a partner for his anti-immigrant agenda — and also a world leader similarly willing to not just normalize the deprivation of rights and suspension of the rule of law, but also celebrate it. As Trump flouts court orders and floats ideas like reopening San Francisco’s Alcatraz, the former prison island, for “the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering,” it’s hard not to see Bukele’s influence.

Bukele, in March 2022, declared a state of emergency in El Salvador, suspending most civil rights, including due process to imprison at least 85,000 people who the government accused of being gang members. While the crackdown greatly reduced homicide rates and the decadeslong grip of gangs on Salvadorans, thousands who had no association with gangs were dragged into custody. Many have been beaten, tortured, or even killed. Even so, Bukele’s popularity soared. He has used this moment to further erode El Salvador’s democratic institutions, expanding his grip on power. In 2024, Salvadorans reelected Bukele to an unconstitutional second term.

Central to Bukele’s ability to justify his war on gangs to the public has been the opening of the Terrorism Confinement Center, a megaprison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, with an inmate capacity of 40,000. When the prison, known by its Spanish acronym CECOT, received its first 2,000 inmates in 2023, Bukele released polished promotional videos of guards rushing shirtless, shackled, tattooed men into the megaprison’s massive cell blocks. Once imprisoned, people incarcerated there are denied any access to the outside world.

On March 15, the Trump administration used a wartime powers law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deny due process rights for more than 250 Venezuelan and Salvadoran immigrants, flying them to El Salvador to be imprisoned in CECOT. Both Trump and Bukele have claimed the men are members of gangs Tren de Aragua and MS-13. 

The move drew widespread outrage with criticism coalescing around the case of one of the disappeared men, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident and father of three, who the Trump administration had accidentally sent to El Salvador because of an apparent administrative error. The Supreme Court ordered Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. in a rare 9-0 ruling. Democratic lawmakers conducted trips to El Salvador to push for his release, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who was granted an unlikely one-hour meeting with Abrego Garcia last month.

Trump doubled down, promising that Abrego Garcia would never be allowed a return to the U.S., making the dubious claim that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13, despite having fled El Salvador as a teenager out of fear of violence from the gang. The Trump administration said it still hopes to imprison immigrants in CECOT and has even floated the idea of incarcerating U.S. citizens there.

Bukele has framed his $6 million deal with the White House to imprison immigrants in CECOT as a way to help a strong ally in the U.S. But he has also seized the moment for his own political gain, continuing to champion his anti-gang narrative within El Salvador. 

Hours after the transfer, Bukele once again promoted his megaprison with a similarly dramatized video documenting the men’s arrival from the U.S. “This will help us finalize intelligence gathering and go after the last remnants of MS-13,” Bukele wrote alongside the video. “As always, we continue advancing in the fight against organized crime.”

Like other megaprisons, such as the U.S. government’s Guantánamo Bay detention center where 9/11 suspects have been abused and tortured for more than two decades, Bukele uses CECOT to project power over Salvadorans. Unlike at American black sites, however, Bukele eagerly shares images of prison guards dehumanizing men incarcerated there. But what the public can see — men covered head to toe in tattoos forced into tight rows with their heads bowed — are intended as a distraction from the more everyday cruelty of disappearing thousands of innocent civilians into El Salvador’s shadowy prisons, said Salvadoran human rights activists and journalists who have documented and opposed Bukele’s rise to authoritarian power.

Bukele has referred to the men incarcerated in CECOT as “terrorists” pulled from El Salvador’s streets, even as many of those shown in government images of the prison were likely arrested prior to Bukele’s presidency, rights activists said. They said that while Abrego Garcia’s case and the cases of those transferred from the U.S. to CECOT deserves attention, they are just a small slice of an unfathomable number of people deprived of due process and disappeared within El Salvador’s prison system.

While CECOT has been the most visible prison in the country, the majority of those arrested in the past three years under the state of emergency have been imprisoned at other facilities, according to human rights groups. CECOT is one of 22 facilities within the country’s vast network of prisons that have been expanding over the past decade. While the government has opened up CECOT to international media and American conservative lawmakers, Bukele has kept most of his prisons out of sight. 

“CECOT is what the Bukele regime wants you to see, because they will not show you the images of Mariona, they will not show you the images of Izalco, they will not show you the images of Apanteos,” said Salvadoran journalist Nelson Rauda Zablah, listing the country’s older prisons rife with documented cases of torture, abuse, and death.

“When you’re paying attention to his narrative, that’s not a game you want to be playing, because, not unlike Trump, he starts a fire to distract you from the fire he just started,” he added. 

El Salvador’s Other Prisons

In 2021, Bukele upended El Salvador’s judicial system by replacing top Supreme Court judges and hundreds of lower court judges with loyalists and ousted the country’s attorney general who had opposed his policies. To the public, Bukele framed the moves as anti-corruption measures, referring to the governmental system as “Los mismos de siempre,” or, “The same as always,” reminiscent of Trump’s “Drain the swamp” slogan of his first term. 

In March 2022, an apparent pact with the country’s gang leaders collapsed, leading to a surge in gang-related homicides. Around that time, pro-democracy opposition groups began to show force with mass protests against Bukele. No longer with judicial constraints, Bukele responded by shepherding a new law through the country’s legislature that declared a state of emergency. The law, known as the State of Exception, suspended many civil rights, including due process, legal representation, and freedom of assembly. He then mobilized police and military into largely low-income neighborhoods controlled by gangs.

Among those caught in the police and military forces’ wide dragnet have been family members of alleged gang members, charged as accomplices, along with many others who have no gang ties and were wrongfully charged, according to human rights groups. Most arrests took place without a warrant. In jail, detainees take part in group hearings where hundreds are charged at once with no ability to speak with a lawyer beforehand. 

Police, often operating on quotas, arrested hundreds based on appearance, social class, or vague grounds, such as “suspicious appearance,” “nervous appearance,” or “anonymous reports,” according to an investigation by El Faro, the country’s foremost investigative news outlet.

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Much like the case of Abrego Garcia and the others illegally transferred from the U.S., the majority of those arrested during the State of Exception, have been without communication with attorneys or family members.

At least 378 in-custody deaths have been recorded since the start of the State of Exception, according to Salvadoran human rights group Cristosal, largely due to lack of medical care and the denial of food, water, or hygiene. At times, such deaths have been combined with physical signs of assault.

“There’s a fixation on Kilmar Abrego, but the Bukele model is built upon Kilmar Abregos — there are thousands of them, and we’ve told their stories,” said Rauda Zablah, the digital editor of El Faro, which has published accounts of torture inside El Salvador’s prisons. 

Among such stories is the case of 64-year-old businessman Francisco Huezo López, who was imprisoned in the early days of the State of Exception in 2022. López, who spent much of his life in the U.S., disappeared after police called him into a station for an interview, according to El Faro. Police arrested López because of a previous charge that accused him of being associated with a gang, for which he was acquitted in 2021. Two months later, his body — which had signs of trauma wounds to the cheekbone, arms, feet, and head — was returned to his family from Mariona prison. A forensic investigation listed the cause of death as pulmonary edema, a commonly cited cause in prison deaths where signs of abuse or torture were present.

During the first year of the State of Exception, Cristosal documented 159 deaths in prison in a 2023 report. Among those, 28 were considered violent, due to signs of torture, beatings, asphyxiation by strangulation, and other injuries. 

El Salvador’s director of prisons Osiris Luna Meza spoke openly about making people “suffer” in prisons, such as withholding meals and preventing people from getting sunlight. 

Cristosal recorded the death of a 23-year-old man whose body showed signs of beatings, such as broken feet and hands, the report said, as well as sores on his back in an elongated burn-like shape, a possible sign of torture. His body was delivered to family in a closed casket. 

A 24-year-old fisherman died in an ambulance while on the way from Mariona prison to a hospital. His body had a perforation through one of his shoulders and lacerations on his knees, though the official cause of death was “pulmonary edema.” His wife, who was five months pregnant at the time of his death, suffered a miscarriage while grieving.

Some individuals died of medical neglect, such as a 42-year-old woman who died of “septic shock due to immunosuppression caused by nasal carcinoma” — her family said they were unaware that she had cancer. “Her body was unrecognizable, she had lost approximately 40 pounds,” the report said. She had been arrested due to an anonymous complaint. 

A 24-year-old man who had no history of illnesses called his family from Mariona prison, seven months after he was detained. Except now, he complained of stomachaches. At a hospital, physicians said the man was malnourished, dehydrated, and deeply anemic. After family members petitioned on his behalf, he was allowed to return home but was diagnosed with terminal kidney failure. He died several days later at home. He had told a relative that the water at Mariona was hot and tasted like chlorine, and that detainees were only fed once a day — when guards would strike them on the back. “So I stopped going out to eat so they wouldn’t hit me, because those blows hurt,” the man recalled. 

The 2023 report also included accounts of collective torture, such as guards beating people who had recently arrived to prisons. Guards also reportedly used electric shocks as another form of torture. Some recalled being forced to watch as guards beat another individual to death.

A separate 2022 report by Humans Rights Watch recorded a case of Marcelo Gómez, a taxi driver detained by police who assured him it was for a routine check and that he would be released in a few days. The 39-year-old Gómez ended up being jailed at Izalco for two weeks, during which he was placed in a barrel filled with cold water while guards interrogated him for hours about alleged gang ties. During some points, guards forced his head underwater.

Those who were incarcerated also spoke of extreme overcrowding, with many forced to take turns sleeping. Cells in Mariona and Izalco prisons are known to be small with covered windows, preventing airflow amid 90-degree temperatures, causing some to faint.

“Worst of the Worst”

In an apparent effort to sell the ongoing State of Exception to the world, last year, the Salvadoran government opened up CECOT to international mainstream media outlets and social media influencers (requests by Salvadoran journalists critical of Bukele have been rejected). Among its early visitors was former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s original pick for head of the Department of Justice. 

The prison’s director walks reporters and influencers through the same choreographed tours, showing CECOT’s thick layers of security, its armory, a solitary confinement cell, the meager meal given to inmates, and the main cell block itself. The CECOT director often repeats the ominous line that once an inmate enters CECOT, they never leave. Visitors walk out of the prison with footage of cells packed with dozens of men, most with visible tattoos across their bodies. 

When CNN visited CECOT in November, the first major U.S. news organization allowed inside, reporter David Culver repeated government lines, referring to those incarcerated there as “the worst of the worst,” or the country’s “most dangerous criminals.” The network’s 6-minute segment featured an interview with a former MS-13 member, Marvin Vásquez, imprisoned at CECOT — the same inmate interviewed in most tours. The man lifted his shirt to reveal “MS” tattooed on his stomach and “CC” on his lower back for the “Crazy Criminals” clique Vásquez said he founded in 2011. “You made the clique? You are a gang leader?” Culver said, his eyes widening.

But the vast majority of those incarcerated in CECOT were not among those arrested under Bukele’s recent crackdowns, said Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal. Gangs in El Salvador have largely done away with tattooing their members. Cristosal did an analysis of 1,200 people arrested in the State of Exception: 54 had tattoos, and only nine were related to gangs.  

“There’s an intentionality to making all the fixation on CECOT,” Bullock said, referring to the tattooed men in CECOT. “The reason for that is to eliminate any shadow of doubt about who is being punished under this, creating the image of the enemy, the monsters, and that plays into the narrative of this is how strongmen deal with ‘the worst of the worst,’ when in fact those are people who were in prison probably even before Bukele was the president.”

After Noticias Telemundo published its own report on CECOT in October 2023, Bukele retweeted the news segment and wrote, “In El Salvador, unlike most Latin American countries, our prisons are clean and orderly; there is no abuse, no unhealthiness, no beatings, no murders.”

Over the past month, Bullock has taken dozens of interviews with U.S. and international media outlets eager for a quick translation of CECOT, El Salvador, and Bukele. 

Bullock said he has been encouraged that Abrego Garcia’s case has increased the spotlight on Bukele’s authoritarian rule, but he noted that among human rights groups in El Salvador, including organizations founded by family members of people who remain incarcerated under the State of Exception, there is also a sense of frustration. 

“It’s hard to help people see that [Abrego Garcia’s] case is symptomatic of a scenario of mass and systematic human rights violations that’s affecting tens of thousands of Salvadorans, and frustration because where was the help before? Where was the interest before?” Bullock said. “How many people would it have taken for the international community to be concerned about their arbitrary detentions, disappearances, suffering of torture and killings in prisons?”

The U.S. media attention that El Salvador received throughout the State of Exception often focused on the security rather than the government’s suspension of rights, Bullock said. The country’s homicide rate fell by 70 percent within the first year of the state of emergency, according to the Salvadoran government. A recent Gallup poll showed that Bukele boasts an approval rating of 83 percent.

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The November CNN segment also included footage of military sweeps through a residential community. It highlighted interviews with residents who spoke in favor of Bukele’s crackdowns. The segment failed to mention allegations of human rights violations by the government. For Salvadorans, CECOT is “a symbol of newfound freedom, the ‘new El Salvador,’” Culver said to end the segment. Even when Culver and CNN returned to CECOT in April after the transfer of Abrego Garcia and other immigrants from the U.S., he again closed his segment by repeating the sentiment of “newfound freedom” among Salvadorans.

Such narratives that suggest it was necessary for the government to strip people’s rights in order to create a safer El Salvador, Bullock said, only justifies Bukele’s broader governmental takeover. 

The U.S. media isn’t alone in condoning Bukele’s regime. After decrying Bukele’s erosion of democracy, President Joe Biden flipped and began voicing support for El Salvador leading up to Bukele’s unlawful reelection. In June 2024, Biden sent a delegation to Bukele’s inauguration, including his Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Also present were members of Trump’s circle, including Gaetz, Donald Trump Jr., Utah Sen. Mike Lee, and Kimberly Guilfoyle. 

“It’s true that the gangs committed horrific abuses and and those members of gangs who did so need to be held accountable, and it’s a fact that Bukele is very popular, but by allowing him to create this space where there’s no protection of the law, not only Salvadorans are at risk, now Venezuelan migrants are also at risk and U.S. citizens can soon be at risk as well,” said Juan Pappier, the Americas deputy director at Human Rights Watch, who helped write the organization’s recent reports on abuses throughout the State of Exception. 

For Lya Cuéllar, a freelance journalist who co-founded Salvadoran feminist publication Alharaca, she has noted the sudden shift among U.S. media in recent weeks, from implicit support for Bukele’s gang war, largely ignoring criticisms from local journalists, to denouncing Bukele’s role in Trump’s deportation machine.

“The framing has always been, ‘This guy managed to make the most homicidal country in the world into one of the most peaceful countries in the world,’” Cuéllar said. “Then I’m seeing this turn around again — ‘When it’s happening to us, when the carceral state that is El Salvador is touching us, we realize that it’s really bad, actually.’ Sorry if I sound a little bitter, but it’s just been a little crazy to me to watch, because it’s something we’ve been warning about the entire time.” 

Silencing Critics

Salvadoran journalists like Cuéllar and Rauda Zablah helped chart Bukele’s rise to power, which was heavily waged through effective disinformation campaigns online with young voters. Bukele and his millionaire father owned advertising agencies that prompted campaigns for the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, or FMLN, the country’s leftist party. With such political and public relations savvy, Bukele relied on social media to boost his popularity. His administration ran a network of government-hired trolls to advocate for his policies, tear down critics, and spread pro-Bukele narratives based on propaganda, according to a Reuters investigation. 

While boosting state-owned media, Bukele has targeted privately owned media outlets in the country, launching lawsuits, costly audits, and threats of criminal investigation, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Salvadoran journalists have been surveilled, and at least one journalist has been jailed. Among those targeted has been El Faro, which in 2023 moved its headquarters to Costa Rica to avoid further government attacks, such as accusations of tax evasion. El Faro leadership dismissed the allegations as government fabrications meant to discredit their work that has been adversarial toward Bukele’s policies — from his embrace of bitcoin to corruption and misuse of Covid relief funds. 

On Saturday, El Faro’s director of news announced that the attorney general is preparing arrest warrants for some of the publication’s journalists.

“We’re trying to tell people a message that they don’t want to hear — we’re trying to tell them we’ve gone down this route before and it didn’t go well for the people,” Rauda Zablah said. He recalled the last time a Salvadoran leader was reelected was in 1935 with the rise of dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, who committed a genocide against the country’s indigenous peoples.

“You feel safer in the street, which is true,” said Rauda Zablah who lives in San Salvador, “Until you run into some soldier or some police, that you were in the wrong place in the wrong time, and then you realize that there’s no constitutional court independent that you can go to anymore — it’s too late for Salvadorans to worry about checks and balances, that ship has sailed.”

Bukele has used such arrests to silence his critics, which have also included the targeting of human rights advocates, such as the recent arrest of activist Fidel Zavala. He was previously detained under Bukele’s State of Exception for 13 months before he was acquitted. After his release in 2023, Zavala became an outspoken critic of the abuse and torture he witnessed while imprisoned at Mariona prison. Last year, he filed a complaint against Bukele’s director of prisons. Zavala was then arrested in February and in early April transferred to Mariona, where rights groups have warned he may be exposed to retaliation by prison guards.

“SOS”

Perhaps the most significant revelation from Abrego Garcia’s unlikely meeting with Sen. Chris Van Hollen last month, aside from confirming his well-being, was that after several weeks of imprisonment in CECOT, officials had transferred him a two-hour drive northwest to the lesser-known prison Centro Industrial in Santa Ana. In recent years, Bukele’s prison director has propped up Centro Industrial as a manufacturing hub where incarcerated men build school desks and vegetable market display racks, a form of slave labor.

Abrego Garcia’s transfer out of CECOT, the first documented case of its kind, has raised questions of the whereabouts of the other men who were forcibly disappeared from the U.S. to El Salvador.

Even so, the Trump administration has said it wants to continue such illegal transfers. U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem visited CECOT a week after the transfer, recording a message while standing in front of a cell packed with incarcerated men who stood by in silence: “If you come to this country illegally, this is one of the consequences you may face.”

“Know that this facility is one of the tools in our tool kit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people,” she continued. 

DHS has also used footage of CECOT in a new commercial for the department’s Customs and Border Protection “Home” app. The ad featured Noem threatening undocumented immigrants who failed to use the app’s “self-deport” option with $1,000 daily fines and deportation, set with images of prisoners shackled in CECOT.

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Last weekend, Trump cast further doubt on constitutional rights for immigrants facing deportation, telling NBC News “I don’t know,” when asked whether he believes such immigrants should receive due process rights. Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff and architect of the administration’s anti-immigrant policies, said in more certain terms that due process is “not to protect foreign trespassers from removal.” On Monday, Trump laid out his vision for constructing his own CECOT within the U.S., announcing that he wants to rebuild and reopen Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay, arguing the notorious prison would help him go around “judges that are afraid to do their job.” Bukele has previously called the judicial backlash to Trump’s policies “a judicial coup” and has encouraged Republicans to “remove corrupt judges.”

For those still jailed under the Alien Enemies Act in the U.S., the fear of possibly being forcibly disappeared into CECOT hangs heavy over their heads. Such fear has been most palpably embodied by the 31 men jailed at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in west Texas who used their bodies to spell “SOS” from a dirt courtyard for a drone photo published by Reuters. The men expressed concern, according to Reuters, of being forced onto planes bound for El Salvador.

Bullock’s organization Cristosal has been in touch with at least 144 families of Venezuelan men who the Trump administration has already illegally transferred from the U.S. into El Salvador’s prison system. Cristosal has filed at least 25 habeas corpus claims, requesting their release within El Salvador’s judicial system, despite the unlikeliness of a judge challenging Bukele. When interviewing the relatives of the Venezuelan men, he is reminded of the interviews with Salvadoran families arrested under Bukele’s State of Exception.

“We are hearing in their voices the echoes of the Salvadoran families, saying things like, ‘I don’t know if he’s dead or alive.’ ‘I feel like he’s been disappeared off the face of the earth,’” Bullock recalled. “There’s a specific type of pain of not knowing.”

The post CECOT Is What the Bukele Regime Wants You to See appeared first on The Intercept.

Katrin Ivanova’s barrister says her sentence should reflect her admin duties and not equate her with ‘classic spy cases’

A woman said to be “chief minion” in a ring of Bulgarians convicted of spying for Russia in Britain should not be treated like George Blake, the double agent sentenced to four decades in jail in the 1960s, the Old Bailey has heard.

Katrin Ivanova was said by her barrister, Rupert Bowers KC, to have been manipulated by her partner, Biser Dzhambazov, and to then have endured the discovery of his affair with a fellow member of the spy ring while in prison.

Former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who recently pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft,...

The post George Santos Seeks Clemency From Trump After Guilty Plea in Fraud Case appeared first on News Facts Network.

The Dark Ages switches up some of the fundamental mechanics from Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal. Here's how to get your footing in the latest installment.

Guns and heavy metal weren't enough this time around.

JENI NANCE
Co-Managing Mosaic Editor

I’m not sure if this is a niche experience (which I was fully prepared to take to the grave), but I was an iPad kid. And not just any iPad kid – I was a Minecraft junkie. I’d spend hours sitting in front of a big screen that I could barely hold up with my tiny hands. 

There was something therapeutic about building your own world and testing your survival skills against zombies, skeletons and creepers. Sometimes, I’d just work in creative mode, building full-fledged farms and villages. 

When I was in middle school, I got even more into it. I downloaded a step-by-step guide on how to build different types of buildings. I flipped through it daily and built the most intricate structures. If I wasn’t playing Minecraft, I was on YouTube watching streams of other people playing Minecraft. 

Based on the trailers and memes I saw about the movie, I knew it was going to be terrible. But terrible “haha,” not terrible “ew.” I knew that I had to go into the movie with the right state of mind, so prior to the movie starting, I decided to take part in some recreational activities (chill, it’s legal). 

I wholeheartedly believe that pre-gaming before the movie is half of the experience. This is a movie that was made for kids and stoners. There was a scene in the movie that had my brain itching, and for a minute, I thought I greened. But seeing it in the state I was in was a whole other worldly experience. 

This is by far the best bad movie I’ve ever seen. 

And the best part was being able to experience it in a nearly sold-out theater surrounded by college students cheering and shouting “Chicken jockey!” It was definitely an experience I wouldn’t trade for anything. 

The crowd cheered for the one and only Jack Black, who played Steve, and everyone was fully engaged in the beautifully terrible film. Being surrounded by fellow Minecraft fans who also lacked a few functioning brain cells was comforting.

My favorite part of the film was watching the tension between Steve and Garrett “Garbage Man” Garrison, played by Jason Momoa. I’m talking about hot and steamy tension. I’m sorry, but you can’t convince me it wasn’t love at first sight between the two of them. 

“Relax, let my hips guide you,” Garbage Man said. “It’s the only way, we’re too chunky. We’re going to have to go nose to toes – full man sandwich.” 

Case in point. 

I also loved the Gen-Z references. General Chungus, voiced by Director Jared Hess, is the absolute epitome of Gen-Z. He’s so oblivious and gives absolutely zero [REDACTED]. He was just along for the ride, like most of us are, until he got turned into a porkchop – and I’m here for it. 

“I’m really sorry, but I have to unalive you and stuff,” General Chungus says casually. I love him because he’s just a big bucket of sass and had me rolling with his one-liners. 

While Jennifer Coolidge’s character had little significance in the overall plot, I found her presence quite humorous. Despite doing absolutely nothing to save the overworld and destroy the evil pig Malgosha, voiced by Rachel House, Coolidge’s added comedy was essential to the film.

As I mentioned before, as a kid I used to watch a lot of Minecraft streamers. While I frequently watched Aphmau’s channel, I also watched Technoblade, who passed away a couple of years ago. As his animated skin crossed the screen, the crowd began to cheer, “Technoblade never dies!”

Henry, played by Sebastian Hansen, turns to Steve and says “Wow, is he some kind of king?” to which Steve replies, “No. That’s a legend.” That moment sent chills down my spine. It warmed my heart to see a tribute to the legendary streamer. That was one of my favorite parts of the movie – second to the cute little panda bears dancing and making baby pandas. 

I personally wasn’t planning on staying past the end credits, but I had lost my keys (are we surprised?) which ended up working out in my favor. Now, I’m not sure if it was my lack of working brain cells in that moment or if I’m just an idiot, but up until that point I hadn’t put two and two together that Steve is the name of the original skin created for the Minecraft game and this was his story. 

There’s a fun little post-credit scene where Steve returns back to his house in the human world to discover someone moved in – a spunky redhead with a braid draped over her shoulder. Anyone who’s played the game before will recognize her as Alex, a skin that was added in 2014, five years after the game’s initial release in 2009. 

Yes, this film has its unserious moments, but it also has an overarching lesson about finding joy in the world around you; and if you can’t find it, build it. Never settle. As a kid who struggled to express herself, it was nice to see the value put on creative minds. 

Overall, it was a super fun movie and absolutely reached its target audience as intended. I would recommend this movie to anyone who has an affinity for the renowned creative building game or just needs a good laugh. So I say to you fellow nerds, “First we mine. Then we craft. Let’s Minecraft!”

Researchers are sounding alarms about the proliferation of AI-generated content -- dubbed "slop" -- that may be overwhelming the internet's human-created material. Fil Menczer, distinguished professor of informatics at Indiana University, who has studied social bots since the early 2010s, is now expressing serious concern about generative AI's impact. "Am I worried? Yes, I'm very worried," he told Bloomberg. Another research from Georgetown University found over 100 Facebook pages with millions of followers using AI-generated images for scams. According to Tollbit, a company that helps publishers get compensated when their sites are scraped, web scraping volume doubled from Q3 to Q4 2024, causing significant strain on sites like Wikipedia during high-traffic events. The situation creates a dangerous feedback loop where AI content is generated to please AI recommendation systems, potentially marginalizing human creators. Jeff Allen of the Integrity Institute told Bloomberg this resembles "the algae bloom that can blow up and suffocate the life you would want to have in a healthy ecosystem."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Clint Curtis, who once claimed to build vote-flipping software, will now lead elections in a conservative county

Clint Curtis is a familiar face among election skeptics in the United States. The Florida-based lawyer and former computer programmer has said he once developed a software that could change votes. He opposes the use of voting machines and highlights his connection to proponents of election conspiracy theories, including Mike Lindell and Steve Bannon.

Soon he is slated to start overseeing elections in Shasta county, California, a conservative region of 180,000 people in the state’s far north where Republicans vastly outnumber Democrats.

A judge made it clear there wasn't enough evidence to prove the jet fuel spill directly caused plaintiffs' medical problems.

Groups say plan to resume limited humanitarian assistance under strict Israeli rules ‘risks enabling war crimes’

• US politics live – latest updates

Aid groups have voiced alarm at US moves to pressure them into accepting an Israeli proposal to resume limited humanitarian assistance to the war-ravaged territory under strictly controlled conditions.

The Trump administration has attempted to strong-arm international agencies – including the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) – into accepting Israel’s stringent rules for resuming deliveries, according to sources familiar with the discussions and news reports.

Oscar nominee warns ‘truth itself is under revision’ while receiving award at Smithsonian American history museum

Ava DuVernay, an Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning director, has urged artists and historians to hold the line against a “criminal” US president at a time when “truth itself is under revision”.

DuVernay, whose films include Selma, which chronicles Martin Luther King’s campaign for voting rights, issued the rallying cry while receiving an award at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington.

Donald Trump has directed officials to grant refugee status to Afrikaners who he claims suffer discrimination

The US has granted refugee status to 54 white Afrikaner South Africans, who could arrive as soon as Monday in Washington DC, where they will be welcomed by government officials, according to media reports.

Donald Trump suspended the US refugee settlement programme in January on his first day in office, leaving more than 100,000 people approved for resettlement stranded, having fled war and persecution in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan.

The topic of President Donald Trump’s desire for Canada to become part of the United States is very much in the news, but about 249 years ago a similar discussion was under way.

For a five-year period at the American Revolution’s start, including Canada into the newly formed nation was a priority for the founding era’s leaders as part of the conflict with Great Britain. There was even an open invitation made to Canada to join the United States in the Articles of Confederation. That quest ended in 1779 when Canada became less of a priority during the conflict.

A series of events and conflicts put Canada’s role in the American Revolution very much in the forefront. In a 1952 article in the American Historical Review, Murray G. Lawson detailed a very fluid situation as the founders of the United States struggled with the idea of Canada as a friend or foe.

The passage of the Quebec Act of 1774 by the English Parliament angered the colonists who had formed the First Continental Congress two weeks earlier. The British had acquired all of the territory in Canada controlled by France at the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763. The crown then created a new province of Quebec in the inhabited areas of the former New France within Canada.

The Quebec Act of 1774 extended the boundaries of the province of Quebec to the Ohio River, and gave French-speaking residents religious freedoms and a French civil law system. The colonial leaders of Virginia opposed the Quebec Act since they had land claims in the Ohio River area and New Englanders were concerned with the return of Catholic leadership in Quebec.

Initial Outreach to Canada

On the last day of the First Continental Congress on Oct. 26, 1774, a long letter written by John Dickinson, Richard Henry Lee, and Thomas Cushing was addressed to the French-Canadian residents of Quebec. Prepared in French, it warned them their British rulers did not have their best interests at heart, and they should send French-Canadian delegates to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775.

According to Lawson’s account, the French Canadians wanted to remain neutral, but they were also offended by various comments of American leaders denouncing Catholicism, including statements in a letter sent from the Continental Congress to “the people of Great Britain” that called Catholicism “a religion that has deluged your island in blood, and dispersed bigotry, persecution, murder and rebellion through every part of the world.”

As the Second Continental Congress opened in Philadelphia in May 1775, American forces had captured Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point and raided a fort in southern Quebec. Congress sent a second letter to “the people of Canada” written by Samuel Adams, Silas Deane, and John Jay that called the Canadians “friends” that hoped they would join the Americans “in defense of our common liberty.”

Instead, Guy Carleton, the British governor of Quebec, declared martial law and hostilities soon ensued. American forces led by first General Philip Schuyler and then General Richard Montgomery took Montreal on Nov. 13, 1775, and then attacked Quebec City. However, the British forces successfully defended the city and Mongomery was killed in battle. On Jan. 24, 1776, a third letter from the Continental Congress, written in part by James Wilson, was sent to the Canadian people, asking them to send delegates to Philadelphia to attend Congress. But according to Lawson’s research, the French clergy and leaders in Canada had lobbied heavily against the Americans with the local population.

Franklin, Canada and the Articles of Confederation

On April 29, 1776, a diplomatic commission authorized by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia arrived in Montreal with several goals in mind. Acting on instructions drafted by a committee that included John Adams, the commission sought the participation of Canada in the new United Colonies of North America.

None other than Benjamin Franklin led the commission, along with Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll. They also sought military volunteers in Canada for their cause and the cooperation of Native American tribes living at the border between Canada and the United States.

Franklin’s commission arrived in Montreal in late April 1776. Prior to the commission’s journey, John Adams in his private correspondence wrote ,“the unanimous voice of the continent is Canada must be ours. … In the Hands of our Enemies, it would enable them to influence all the Indians upon the Continent.” Robert Morris made similar comments, noting Canada “must be ours at all Events. Should it fall into the hands of The Enemy they will soon raise a Nest of Hornets on our backs that will Sting us to the quick.”

Franklin’s stay in Montreal was brief and met with little success. He departed on May 10, 1776, as the American forces began to withdraw over the next six weeks. One highlight from his trip to Canada was that Franklin acquired a marten fur cap he later wore in France, which quickly became a sensation in Europe.

Special Online Town Hall (May 12): Constitutional Meaning in the Shadow of the Articles of Confederation

But the quest to add Canada to the newly formed United States did not end there. After the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress drew up a draft of the Articles of Confederation on July 12, 1776, that included a provision for Canada to join new nation. The final version approved in November 1777 and ratified by the states in 1781 became Article XI of the Articles of Confederation:

“Canada acceding to this confederation, and adjoining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this Union; but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States,” the document read.

During 1778, the Continental Congress considered a second adventure into Canada under the leadership of the Marquis de Lafayette. Congress also told its envoy in France, Benjamin Franklin, to ask the French government if it would provide arms for the invasion. Among the objectors to the scheme was George Washington, who feared the presence of a large French military force in Canada, and the plan was abandoned in January 1779. Congress formally decided that Canada was no longer “an object of last importance to the welfare of the United Colonies” in August 1779.

During the era when the Articles of Confederation served as the first constitution for the nascent United States, the inclusion of Canada into the new nation was no longer a prominent issue, and it was not mentioned during the known debates at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia. The new Constitution replaced Articles of Confederation and it included in Article IV, Section 3 a provision for Congress to add new states to the union.

Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.

Government sources say some of company’s 30,000 UK staff were at risk before agreement to cut car tariffs

The UK’s limited trade deal with the US has immediately prevented job losses at Jaguar Land Rover’s plant in the West Midlands, Britain’s ambassador to the US has said.

“This deal has saved those jobs,” Peter Mandelson said in an interview on CNN. “That’s a pretty big achievement, in my view, and I’m very pleased that the president has signed it.”

May 9, 2025 — SEGGER has announced a partnership with Quintauris to support the growing RISC-V ecosystem through new development tools and hardware for automotive, industrial, and IoT markets.

Quintauris was founded in 2023 by leading semiconductor players Robert Bosch GmbH, Infineon Technologies AG, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP Semiconductors, ST Microelectronics, and Qualcomm Technologies. It was created to serve as a single source for enabling compatible RISC-V-based products, and its aim is to both advance the adoption of RISC-V and facilitate development of next-generation processors for automotive, industrial, and IoT applications.

The focus of the SEGGER and Quintauris partnership is primarily to develop advanced hardware and enable mass deployment of RISC-V products and technology in the automotive, health, Internet of Things, and high-performance computer markets.

Quintauris will work to bridge RISC-V innovations and commercial solutions, as well as specify reference architectures for those solutions. SEGGER will provide debug and tracing support and tools, such as its J-Link and J-Trace debug probes, SystemView real-time recording and visualization tool, and Embedded Studio integrated development environment. It will also collaborate on technical aspects for setting up a reference RISC-V platform for the automotive industry.

“We are excited to collaborate with SEGGER as we work to drive the commercial adoption of RISC-V forward,” said Pedro Lopez, Head of Market Strategy, Quintauris. “SEGGER’s expertise in high-quality development and debugging tools is instrumental for ensuring the reliability and scalability required for mass deployment, as well as facilitating the needed level of maturity — particularly in automotive and other safety-critical areas. Together, we aim to accelerate the availability of reference platforms and contribute to a robust RISC-V ecosystem.”

“RISC-V represents a growing, evolving, and fast-moving market in Europe and the rest of the world,” said Hendrik Sawukajtis, Managing Director, SEGGER. “We moved into the market early and continue to be excited to play our part in cultivating RISC-V and related products, as well as further cement SEGGER as a leading global company in advanced firmware-development tools and libraries for embedded systems.”

A complete list of supported devices for J-Link and J-Trace is available here. More information on RISC-V is available here.

About Segger

SEGGER Microcontroller has been active in embedded systems for more than 30 years. SEGGER has extensive experience producing cutting-edge real-time operating systems and software libraries. Furthermore, it also offers a full set of development- and production-oriented hardware tools, as well as software tools. Embedded systems are a growing part of everyday life, and SEGGER is passionate about its work in this rapidly changing field.

About Quintauris

Quintauris is advancing the adoption of RISC-V globally by enabling next-generation hardware development and will specify reference architectures for RISC-V processor classes. With initial focus in automotive, Quintauris’ commitment is to expand to other markets such as IoT, AI or Data Centers.

Source: Segger

The post Quintauris and SEGGER Collaborate on RISC-V Development appeared first on HPCwire.

President Donald Trump suggested Friday that his administration could lower the 145% tariff on Chinese...

The post Trump Signals Possible Reduction of China Tariff from 145% to 80% Ahead of Trade Talks appeared first on News Facts Network.

Airline assesses options but there is no automatic form of recovery from insurers or the airport

• Business live – latest updates

The power outage that closed Heathrow airport for a day in March cost British Airways £40m, the national carrier has revealed.

The airline said it was “assessing options” but said it had no recourse to compensation from Heathrow.

If your loans are in default and you received a letter that your account will be transferred to collections, here's what to do.

Are antivirus software applications spying on you? Here’s what the researchers have to say about potential security concerns.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: Education giant Pearson suffered a cyberattack, allowing threat actors to steal corporate data and customer information, BleepingComputer has learned. Pearson is a UK-based education company and one of the world's largest providers of academic publishing, digital learning tools, and standardized assessments. The company works with schools, universities, and individuals in over 70 countries through its print and online services. In a statement to BleepingComputer, Pearson confirmed they suffered a cyberattack and that data was stolen, but stated it was mostly "legacy data." "We recently discovered that an unauthorized actor gained access to a portion of our systems," a Pearson representative confirmed to BleepingComputer. "Once we identified the activity, we took steps to stop it and investigate what happened and what data was affected with forensics experts. We also supported law enforcement's investigation. We have taken steps to deploy additional safeguards onto our systems, including enhancing security monitoring and authentication. We are continuing to investigate, but at this time we believe the actor downloaded largely legacy data. We will be sharing additional information directly with customers and partners as appropriate." Pearson also confirmed that the stolen data did not include employee information. The education company previously disclosed in January that they were investigating a breach of one of their subsidiaries, PDRI, which is believed to be related to this attack. BleepingComputer also notes that threat actors breached Pearson's developer environment in January 2025 using an exposed GitLab access token, gaining access to source code and hard-coded credentials. Terabytes of sensitive data was stolen from cloud platforms and internal systems. Despite the potential impact on millions of individuals, Pearson has declined to answer key questions about the breach or its response.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When C.C. Opanowski of Hudson Falls, New York, was a teenager, she survived a terrifying attack at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, Shawn Doyle. Years later, he would kill Lori Leonard, a mother of two young sons in Chittenango, New York.

Two Ukrainians arrested as authorities claim operation had one eye on a possible future military incursion

• Europe live – latest updates

Ukrainian authorities claim to have busted a Hungarian spy ring operating on its territory, alleging that Budapest was collecting sensitive military data with one eye on a possible future incursion into the west of the country.

Hungary’s foreign minister dismissed the accusations as “propaganda” and announced the expulsion of two Ukrainians described as “spies working under diplomatic cover” at the Ukrainian embassy in Budapest.

Meeting aimed at de-escalating trade war after Chinese exports beat expectations despite slump in trade

Donald Trump has floated cutting tariffs on China from 145% to 80% before a weekend meeting as he looks to de-escalate the trade war.

Top US officials are expected to meet a high-level Chinese delegation this weekend in Switzerland in the first significant talks between the two nations since Trump provoked a trade war with stiff tariffs on imports.

COLLEGE PARK, Md., May 9, 2025 — IonQ (NYSE: IONQ), a leading commercial quantum computing and networking company, has announced financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2025.

“I am pleased with the strong start to the year at IonQ, including revenue above the midpoint of guidance for the first quarter and almost $700 million in cash equivalents as of March 31. We delivered important commercialization and expansion milestones for both our quantum computing and quantum networking businesses,” said Niccolo de Masi, CEO of IonQ. “We’re delivering real-world value for our customers today, including a recent demonstration of a 12% speed improvement over classical computing in a simulation of a heart pump using quantum processed data and a production product by our partner Ansys.”

“We look forward to adding a unique accelerant to both our quantum networking and quantum computing roadmaps, via the announced acquisition of Lightsynq. Lightsynq’s unique quantum memory technology, IP, and Harvard-research pedigree is expected to accelerate IonQ’s commercial systems to tens-of-thousands, and someday millions of qubits. In addition, we expect that Lightsynq’s quantum memory will also power the future quantum internet by allowing repeaters to ultimately be spaced over one hundred kilometers apart.”

de Masi continued, “We also announced the first-ever quantum computing and networking hub, in partnership with EPB. This groundbreaking deal includes the sale of a new Forte Enterprise system and the establishment of a permanent IonQ office focused on jointly creating algorithms designed for energy grid optimization. The global availability of our new Europe-based Forte Enterprise system will deliver value to our international customers with access over Amazon Braket, QuantumBasel’s IonQ cloud offering, and our own IonQ Quantum Cloud by adding compute capacity and fault tolerance from our Tennessee location.

“Further, the closure of our acquisition of a controlling stake of ID Quantique, and agreement to acquire Capella, solidifies our global quantum networking position, which now includes offices in South Korea, Switzerland, and the US. We believe IonQ is well positioned to capitalize on both technical and commercial advances in quantum computing and quantum networking.”

Financial Highlights

• IonQ recognized revenue of $7.6 million for the first quarter, which is above the midpoint of the previously provided range.
• Cash, cash equivalents, and investments were $697.1 million as of March 31, 2025. The balance increased due to the $372.6 million ATM facility.
• Net loss was $32.3 million and Adjusted EBITDA loss was $35.8 million for the first quarter.* Exclusions from Adjusted EBITDA include a non-cash gain of $38.5 million related to the change in the fair value of IonQ’s warrant liabilities.

2025 Financial Outlook

For the full year 2025, IonQ expects organic and inorganic revenue to be between $75 million and $95 million, with between $16 million and $18 million for the second quarter.

About IonQ

IonQ, Inc. is a leader in the quantum computing and networking industries, delivering high-performance systems aimed at solving the world’s largest and most complex commercial and research use cases. IonQ’s current generation quantum computers, IonQ Forte and IonQ Forte Enterprise, are the latest in a line of cutting-edge systems, boasting 36 algorithmic qubits. The company’s innovative technology and rapid growth were recognized in Newsweek’s 2025 Excellence Index 1000, Forbes’ 2025 Most Successful Mid-Cap Companies list, and Built In’s 2025 100 Best Midsize Places to Work in Washington DC and Seattle, respectively. Available through all major cloud providers, IonQ is making quantum computing more accessible and impactful than ever before.

Source: IonQ

The post IonQ Announces 1st Quarter Financial Results appeared first on HPCwire.

Carla Hayden, first woman and first African American to hold post, dismissed in terse email on Thursday night

• US politics live – latest updates

Donald Trump abruptly fired the librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, on Thursday as the White House continues to purge the federal government of those perceived to oppose the Republican US president and his agenda.

Hayden was notified in an email late on Thursday from the White House’s presidential personnel office, according to an email obtained by the Associated Press. Confirmed by the Senate to the job in 2016, Hayden was the first woman and the first African American to be librarian of Congress.

This 50% discount on these popular headphones is incredible -- but it's only a limited-time deal, so don't miss out.

Neighbors India and Pakistan have a long history of military clashes, but this is why the nuclear-armed neighbors are fighting now.

The group of House and Senate Democrats say Trump's designation of Latin American cartels as foreign terrorist organizations unlocks legal tools that will help address the flow of U.S.-made guns across the border with Mexico.

Grace Marsceau promised to pack A Million Lives event. Authors arrived to empty rooms, unpaid bills and no decor

In the days leading up to the A Million Lives book festival, things already seemed amiss. Grace Marsceau, the event organizer, messaged an attending author that the DJ was in the hospital and the company had no replacement. She owed the hotel “six figures” because the room block hadn’t sold out, according to messages.

“Oh my gosh that’s awful!” author Sarah Zane responded. The excuses seemed unusual, but as a veteran of book events, Zane expected to deal with some mismanagement.

Apple will likely announce the next iOS software at WWDC in June.

Pope held mass for cardinals in the Sistine Chapel on Friday morning

• Profile: the moderate, good humoured first US pope
• Pope Leo’s in-tray: the many urgent issues to address
• Share your views on Pope Leo XIV

China has sent congratulations to newly elected Pope Leo XIV and hopes the Vatican under the new pontiff will continue dialogue with China “in a constructive spirit”, Reuters reports a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Friday at a regular press conference.

Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, strained relations between the Vatican and China in 2020 when he described China’s Muslim Uyghurs as a “persecuted” people, listing them alongside the Rohingya, the Yazidi, and persecuted Christians in Islamic countries.

Hot start to May gives way to significant rainfall, with egg-sized hailstones reportedly hitting Slavonski Brod in Croatia

Southern and south-eastern Europe have experienced a spate of thunderstorms that have resulted in significant rainfall and hail across parts of the Balkans. After a hot start to May in the area took temperatures into the high 20s celsius, thunderstorms widely developed from Monday.

One particular thunderstorm, which developed over Slavonski Brod in Croatia, reportedly brought egg-sized hail, with 38.2mm of rain being recorded.

A woman and a girl were arrested after a large crowd tried to stop ICE agents from taking a woman into custody in Worcester.

Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, found to have criminally damaged tree and Hadrian’s Wall

• ‘Stealing joy’: the sadness and symbolism of the crime at Sycamore Gap

Two friends who embarked on a “moronic mission” to fell the Sycamore Gap tree with a chainsaw have been found guilty of “mindless” criminal damage.

Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, cut down the cherished tree, next to Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, as Storm Agnes raged in the early hours of 28 September 2023.

Crowning of country’s first world champion set to give fresh boost to sport that has boomed in popularity in China

Chain smoking under the fluorescent lights of a cavernous billiards hall in Beijing, Brother Yuan can’t stop smiling. The previous day, along with 150 million other people across China, he had been at home watching the snooker world championships final. Now he’s with his fellow cue-heads, celebrating the win of China’s first snooker world champion, Zhao Xintong.

“He’s a great role model for young people in China,” Yuan, 55, says of the generation Z upstart who on Monday claimed snooker’s top prize. “He’s bringing the excitement back.”

Jim Mackey says state of public finances means country can no longer afford big spending rises

Ministers have “maxed out” the amount of money they can give the NHS and it will no longer get big increases in its funding because of tight public finances, the health service’s new boss in England has said.

Sir Jim Mackey, who took over as NHS England’s chief executive last month, said the state of the public finances meant the country could no longer afford big increases in spending.

Keen could be following other companies in sticking customers with higher prices as tariffs hit. Here's why it's not.

New leader says he wants a Catholic church that ‘illuminates the dark nights of this world’

• Pope Leo XIV’s first day – live updates

Pope Leo XIV said he hoped to lead a Roman Catholic church “that illuminates the dark nights of this world” as he held his first mass as pontiff under Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.

The surprise election of Robert Francis Prevost, the first US pope, came after a conclave that lasted less than 26 hours, one of the shortest in modern Catholic history.

Supplier says deal is its cheapest fixed tariff since 2021 amid ongoing volatility in the gas and electricity market

Households in Great Britain have been grappling with high energy bills for four years but attractive fixed deals that are £300 cheaper than the current price cap are now available.

This week, EDF launched its “cheapest fixed tariff since 2021”, describing it as the best energy-only deal available from a “big six” supplier. The 12-month tariff, Simply Fixed Direct May26, is priced at £1,549 for an average dual-fuel customer paying by direct debit. This is £300 below the regulator Ofgem’s latest price cap.

SEC filing revelations raise questions about big business’s desire to curry favor with Trump and his administration

Large institutional investors have massively increased their holdings of Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) in recent months according to SEC filings, with many enlarging their positions by hundreds of millions of dollars.

The revelations raise further questions about big business’s desire to curry favor with Donald Trump and his administration via the enterprises he has maintained or commenced. TMTG runs the Truth Social social media platform – on which the US president himself posts almost daily – as well as financial services and a film and TV streaming service.

Looking for fast and reliable speeds? You'll likely find it with fiber internet.

Hello, I’m Spanish, sorry, translate with Google, I have Thor 300 in an XR, the engine detection works well, in one direction and the other, but then in the forward and reverse spin test, it works jerkily, it doesn’t turn, it jerks… is this normal?

Facing deep staffing cuts, the IRS plans to lean heavily on AI to maintain tax collection efforts, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stating that smarter IT and the "AI boom" will offset reductions in revenue enforcement staff. The Register reports: When asked by Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD) whether proposed reductions in the IRS's IT budget, along with plans to cut additional staff, would affect the agencies ability to collect tax revenue, Bessent said it wouldn't, thanks to the current "AI boom." "I believe through smarter IT, through this AI boom, that we can use that to enhance collections," Bessent told Hoyer and the Committee (24:29 into the video linked [here]). "I expect collections would continue to be very robust as they were this year." Bessent's comments didn't explain how the IRS intends to deploy AI. Given how much it has slashed its enforcement staff since Trump took office, the agency definitely needs to do something. [...] Bessent's comments didn't explain how the IRS intends to deploy AI. Given how much it has slashed its enforcement staff since Trump took office, the agency definitely needs to do something. "There is nothing that shows historically that bringing in unseasoned collections agents will result in more collections," Bessent told the Committee. "IRS already uses AI for business functions including operational efficiency, compliance and fraud detection, and taxpayer services," the agency told The Register. "AI use cases must follow all relevant IRS privacy and security policies."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Authorities found 69 living cats, many of which had medical ailments including respiratory infections and eye disease, and 28 dead cats at the man's home.

Pope says ‘evil will not prevail’ as he addresses worshippers. Plus, the man who walked the length of the UK with a donkey

Good morning.

Robert Francis Prevost, the first US cleric to lead the Roman Catholic church, has said “evil will not prevail” as he addressed a crowd of 100,000 pilgrims and tourists in his first speech as Pope Leo XIV from the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica.

Why choose the name Leo? That Prevost has decided to become Leo XIV will make Catholics think of the previous Leo – Leo XIII – and his 1891 encyclical or teaching document, Rerum Novarum, which outlined workers’ rights to a fair wage, safe working conditions and the rights of workers to belong to trade unions.

What does it mean for LGBTQ+ Catholics? After years of sympathetic and inclusive comments from Pope Francis, LGBTQ+ Catholics expressed concern on Thursday about hostile remarks Pope Leo XIV made more than a decade ago in which he condemned “the homosexual lifestyle” and “redefinition of marriage” as “at odds with the gospel”.

Who said they wouldn’t back Martin? Thom Tillis, the Republican North Carolina senator, said he would not support his nomination – and Martin also lacked allies at the justice department.

Why was he unpopular? He was seen as too aggressive with his threats to prosecute Trump’s political adversaries, including Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader. Republican senators were concerned about the risk of a Democratic appointee to act similarly in the future.

Where does Pirro stand? She is a diehard Trump ally whose false claim that the 2020 election was rigged by Dominion Voting Systems was used against Fox in court. Fox settled in the defamation case and acknowledged her statements were false.

Steve Carell’s mouth outshines even Tina Fey in Netflix comedy while billionaire Barry Diller comes out

More by happenstance than planning, perhaps, the Met Gala, which took place in New York on Monday night, struck a note that seemed stridently to oppose Donald Trump. The theme of the evening, devised to advertise the Costume Institute’s new exhibition, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, was Black dandyism – an apparently defiant push back against Trump’s executive order removing initiatives to promote, “so called ‘under-represented groups’”. Even if the theme had been planned before Trump’s re-election, it was surely great to see.

What I’m Discussing Today:

• Kareem’s Daily Quote: When we beat the odds in life, it isn’t a metaphysical commentary on our value.

• Trump says he will reopen Alcatraz prison: He won’t, of course. But his limp reasoning and suspicious timing should scare us all.

• Jewish faculty decry Republican panel members ahead of antisemitism hearing: Antisemitism is the default bias of the smugly irrational. Some of the GOP members of this panel investigating antisemitism are clearly bigots.

• Kareem’s Kvetching Korner: People Miss the Point about Trump’s Pope Picture: It’s not about how offensive he is, it’s about the fact that he can’t recognize why it’s offensive—or admit that many Catholics don’t like it.

• What I’m Watching at the Movies: The Accountant 2 and Thunderbolts* are both highly entertaining movies that are funny and suspenseful. You’ll have a good time watching them.

• Kareem’s Video Break: This horse made my day. I may have to watch this every day for the next four years.

• What I’m Following: Kathy Griffin’s Substack: This is a new feature in which I mention social media sites that I follow.

• Kareem’s Sports Moments: One of the most amazing catches I have ever seen—in any sport.

• Donald O'Connor Sings and Dances to “Make 'Em Laugh”: I’ve watched this scene from Singin’ in the Rain for most of my life. It still makes me laugh.

Kareem’s Daily Quote

“Doctors gave me a one percent chance to live.”

British soldier after being caught in an IED explosion in Afghanistan

I was watching an interview with the above-mentioned British soldier, and when he uttered that line, it immediately reminded me of the numerous times I’ve seen people interviewed or heard people I know say a variation of that line: “The doctors said I’d never walk again, yet I won an Olympic gold medal in the decathlon.” Or, “The doctors said grandpa would never come out of the coma, but here he is paddle boarding every day.”

I am skeptical. It’s more likely that a single doctor (though when retold, people tend to multiply the number to imply a cohort of doctors) was giving the patient or family a complete scenario of possibilities: “If we don’t do this procedure, there’s a strong possibility your legs will (insert medical jargon) and you may never walk again. However, we have several avenues of treatment to explore.” People who tell the story of surviving overwhelming odds aren’t lying, they are recounting the story the way they heard it. But why do so many people hear it in such movie-ready distortion?

Overcoming great odds is the basis for our favorite movies, from Rudy to Rocky to all the Marvel movies. When we do it in real life, we become the hero in our own story. It’s proof that we are somehow special, selected by the gods for greatness. We are supernaturally enhanced to rise above the relentlessness of Nature.

The reason the recounting of the story generally mentions doctors rather than a single doctor is that the teller is no longer referring to a doctor who may have made a mistake in the diagnosis, but to experts in general. To Science as a faulty pursuit that doesn’t take into account the magic of supernatural forces. We want to believe in miracles, which are events that occur against the odds. Ironically, the odds are that a certain number of “miracles” will occur. The difference is when we give them supernatural intent, meaning that the person was somehow chosen to win by an otherworldly being.

So many times I’ve heard people say things like, “Doctors told me to quit smoking or I’d die, yet here I am at 85 still enjoying a pack a day.” Let me interpret: What they said was that smoking increases your chances of dying younger. But even if you live longer, it will probably worsen your general health and make those years more uncomfortable. Though you may live to 87, without smoking, you might have lived to 97.

Undoubtedly, people will beat the odds, the same way they do in Las Vegas or with the lottery. Eventually, those odds catch up with us all. Sometimes experts get it wrong—they aren’t infallible, they’re just humans doing their best—but mostly they get it right. We should celebrate when they get it wrong in our favor, but not elevate our good fortune into a philosophy of our personal exceptionalism.

As Hamlet says, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” I would hope so, but that doesn’t mean that the “more” is supernatural. If you beat the odds on occasion, be happy at your good fortune. But don’t turn it into a metaphysical philosophy about your worth to the universe. Remember, no one beats the odds forever.

Read more

Xbox recently saw two major releases of role-playing games. But which to tackle? Here's what to know in order to decide.

Dr. Casey Means​, President Trump's nominee to serve as U.S. surgeon general, has largely focused on metabolic dysfunction in her work — but what is it?

This is Public Service Recognition Week, but the feds President Donald Trump has celebrated are the ones leading his assault on federal employees and agencies.

by Lexi Churchill, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune

This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up for The Brief Weekly to get up to speed on their essential coverage of Texas issues.

Two years ago, Texas lawmakers quietly cut millions of dollars in funding for kits intended to help track down missing kids, after ProPublica and The Texas Tribune revealed there was no evidence they had aided law enforcement in finding lost children.

The company that made the kits had used outdated and exaggerated statistics on missing children to bolster their sales and charged for the materials when similar products were available for less or for free.

Now, some Texas legislators are again pushing to spend millions more in taxpayer dollars to purchase such kits, slipping the funding into a 1,000-page budget proposal.

Although the proposal does not designate which company would supply them, a 2021 bill introduced by Republican state Sen. Donna Campbell all but guarantees Texas will contract with the same vendor, the National Child Identification Program. Back then, Campbell made clear that her intent was to enshrine into law a long-standing partnership between the state and NCIDP that goes back more than two decades. Her legislation, signed into law that June, also specified that whenever the state allocated funding for such materials, the Texas Education Agency must purchase identification kits that are “inkless,” a technology that NCIDP has patented.

The Waco-based company is led by former NFL player Kenny Hansmire, who ProPublica and the Tribune found had a history of failed businesses and financial troubles, including millions of dollars in federal tax liens and a ban from conducting certain finance-related business in Connecticut due to his role in an alleged scheme to defraud investors.

Hansmire cultivated relationships with powerful Texas legislators who went on to support his initiatives. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who oversees the Senate, championed Campbell’s legislation funding the kits and later told the news organizations that the state should prioritize anything that can speed up the return of a missing child. Campbell told lawmakers in a hearing that the bipartisan measure, which was brought to her by Hansmire and Patrick, was important to “protect our children.”

Patrick, Campbell and Hansmire did not respond to interview requests for this story. Hansmire previously told the newsrooms that his debts and other financial issues had been resolved. He also defended his company’s kits, saying they have helped find multiple missing children, and instructed reporters to ask “any policeman” about the kits’ usefulness. However, none of the dozen Texas law enforcement agencies that the news organizations reached — including three that Hansmire specifically named — could recall any examples.

Stacey Pearson, a child safety consultant and former Louisiana State Police sergeant who oversaw that state’s Clearinghouse for Missing and Exploited Children, said she has never seen any cases demonstrating that these kits work, including in the last two years since lawmakers discontinued the funding.

“I don’t understand why we’re going back to this,” said Pearson, who spoke with the newsrooms recently and for their previous investigation. “It wasn’t a good idea in 2023 and it’s not a good idea now.”

Despite the lack of evidence, Pearson said companies like NCIDP are able to profit off the kits by marketing them as part of a larger child safety program, a strategy that makes opposing lawmakers look as if they are against protecting children. Texas allocated nearly $6 million for the kits between 2021 and 2023.

Lawmakers did not explain their reasoning when they decided to stop paying for the kits in 2023. Republican state Sen. Joan Huffman, who chairs the high chamber’s Finance Committee, told the newsrooms at the time that both the House and the Senate had agreed to remove the funding “after review and consideration.”

During this year’s budgeting process, Democratic state Rep. Armando Martinez proposed adding $2 million to the House’s budget to provide kits to families with children in kindergarten through second grade.

Martinez did not respond to an interview request.

State Rep. Greg Bonnen, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, did not respond to interview requests or written questions.

Bonnen was among the 33 lawmakers who voted against Campbell’s bill that established the child identification kit funding four years ago. The newsrooms attempted to reach a handful of those legislators, but none responded.

Huffman and the Senate have so far chosen not to restore the program’s funding. Huffman declined the newsrooms’ interview requests.

“The entire budget process is ongoing,” she wrote in an emailed statement. “No final decisions have been made on most issues.”

Legislators from the two chambers will continue hashing out the differences between their budget proposals in a joint committee that operates behind closed doors. There’s no guarantee that the funding will make it into the final budget, which lawmakers must pass before the legislative session ends in early June.

Pearson cautioned legislators to question whether the kits are the best use of state funding, given the absence of documented success.

“My advice would be for lawmakers to ask themselves, ‘If this was your personal money and not the taxpayers’, would you spend it on this program?’” Pearson said. “And the answer is going to be no.”

Matthew David Hughes found guilty after breaking into rapper’s Detroit home, following 2020 incident in which he allegedly threatened to kill him and 2019 break-in

A stalker who broke into Eminem’s home in Michigan for a second time has been convicted of first-degree home invasion and aggravated stalking.

Matthew David Hughes was arrested in August 2024 after being seen at the rapper’s home in Clinton Township, a suburb in north-eastern Detroit. He didn’t meet bail conditions and has been jailed since his arrest.

Oghenochuko Ojiri, who has appeared on BBC show, pleads guilty to eight offences under Terrorism Act

An art dealer who has appeared as an expert on the BBC programme Bargain Hunt has admitted failing to report his dealings with a suspected Hezbollah financier.

The court heard that Oghenochuko Ojiri sold artwork to Nazem Ahmad but did not tell the authorities despite knowing Ahmad had been under US sanctions over links to the proscribed organisation.

Many saw the beloved tree that Adam Carruthers and Daniel Graham cut down as a part of north-east England’s DNA

“It was just a tree,” said a mystified Adam Carruthers, one of the two men who illegally cut down the tree at Sycamore Gap in the early hours of a stormy night nearly two years ago. “It was almost as if someone had been murdered.”

Carruthers was right about the reaction to the felling. Many likened its loss to that of a good friend or relative. Its destruction prompted feelings of sadness, grief and then blind fury. Some people wept.

Instagram's AI chatbots are masquerading as licensed therapists, complete with fabricated credentials and license numbers, according to an investigation by 404 Media. When questioned, these user-created bots from Meta's AI Studio platform provide detailed but entirely fictional qualifications, including nonexistent license numbers, accreditations, and practice information. Unlike Character.AI, which displays clear disclaimers that its therapy bots aren't real professionals, Meta's chatbots feature only a generic notice stating "Messages are generated by AI and may be inaccurate or inappropriate" at the bottom of conversations.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

• ‘It does not look nice playing cricket while country at war’
• Thursday’s IPL match was abandoned in Dharamsala

The Indian Premier League has been suspended, initially for a week, because of concerns about the security situation in the country amid rising tensions along its border with Pakistan. The news came hours after the decision was taken to relocate the final fixtures in the Pakistan Super League to United Arab Emirates because of safety concerns. Foreign-based players in India and all teams in Pakistan are expected to leave the countries over the next 24 hours.

“Further updates regarding the new schedule and venues of the tournament will be announced in due course after a comprehensive assessment of the situation in consultation with relevant authorities and stakeholders,” Devajit Saikia, the secretary of the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI), said in a statement. “The decision was taken by the IPL governing council after due consultation with all key stakeholders following the representations from most of the franchisees, who conveyed the concern and sentiments of their players, and also the views of the broadcaster, sponsors and fans; while the BCCI reposes full faith in the strength and preparedness of our armed forces, the board considered it prudent to act in the collective interest of all stakeholders.”

The coach is stepping away from a role in which he won five championships with the Spurs. He will be hard to replace, on and off the court

Raise a glass to Gregg Popovich, the gruff teddy bear who lifted the San Antonio Spurs into the NBA’s elite. After three decades on the Spurs’ sideline, he is stepping back from coaching to become the team’s president of basketball operations. It’s a back-to-the-future move for the 76-year-old: he was the Spurs’ general manager for eight years before he became the team’s coach. (“I’m no longer the coach, I’m El Jefe,” Popovich jokingly declared this week before unveiling a T-shirt with that Spanish title.) Altogether, Pop won five NBA championships from 1999 through 2014, a run that puts him among the greatest coaches in league history. But when it came to being the NBA’s unflinching statesman, he was in a league all by himself.

Popovich wasn’t just the NBA’s backbone. He was, perhaps, the most fearless truth teller in all of sport. Certainly no one was bolder when it came to taking on Donald Trump – whom Popovich has described as a “soulless coward,” a “pathological liar” and a “deranged idiot”. Popovich told beat reporters he was “sick to my stomach” after Trump’s 2016 presidential election win, a tipping point he likened to the fall of Rome. He slammed Steve Bannon’s appointment as chief White House strategist as a fear-mongering exercise. During the Spurs’ 2017 media day, Popovich launched into a 21-minute condemnation of Trump and the Maga movement after the president attacked NFL players and Nascar’s Bubba Wallace for their national anthem protests. “Our country is an embarrassment to the world,” Popovich said. “This is an individual that when people held arms during games, [he thought] that they were doing it to [dis]honor the flag. That’s delusional. But it’s what we have to live with.”

Here are the hints and answers for Connections for May 9, No. 698.

Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle No. 1,420 for May 9. Guess what? The new pope plays, too.

The Trump administration is facing a May 12 deadline to declare if it will defend Biden-era regulations that aim to enforce laws requiring parity in insurance coverage of mental and physical health care.

by David Armstrong

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

In the U.S., the price of Revlimid, a brand-name cancer drug, has been increasing for two decades. It now sells for nearly $1,000 a pill. In Europe, the price has been consistently lower — in some countries by two-thirds.

I started reporting on Revlimid after I was prescribed the drug following a diagnosis of multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer. Stunned by the high price, I found that the drugmaker, Celgene, had used Revlimid as its own personal piggy bank for more than a decade, raising the price in the U.S. whenever it saw fit.

Even with lower prices in Europe, Celgene still made a profit there, a former executive told Congress. That added to the more than $21 billion in net earnings the company made after Revlimid was introduced in 2005.

Of course, Revlimid isn’t the only drug with a price disparity. Americans pay more in general for prescription drugs than people in other wealthy countries. And costs keep going up, saddling patients with crippling debt or forcing them to choose between filling prescriptions or buying groceries. So why do we pay so much more? And is anything being done about it?

In most other wealthy countries, governments set a single price for a drug that is usually based on analysis of the therapeutic benefit of the medicine and what other countries pay. In the U.S., drug companies determine what to charge for their products with few restraints. Insurance companies can refuse to cover a drug to try to negotiate a lower price, but for some diseases like cancer, that poses a risk of public backlash. Cancer is a “very politically charged disease,” said Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, a Harvard Medical School professor who studies drug pricing and regulation. Some states also mandate that insurers cover certain cancer drugs.

Pharmaceutical companies have consistently argued that American drug prices reflect the cost of research and development. Americans may pay more, but they also benefit from having first-line access to cutting-edge treatments. (Celgene has since been acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb, which says its price for Revlimid, which it increased in the U.S. last year by 7%, “reflects the continued clinical benefit Revlimid brings to patients, along with other economic factors.”)

Dr. Hagop Kantarjian, a leukemia specialist at MD Anderson Cancer Center who studies drug pricing, said that pharmaceutical companies often overstate the cost of developing drugs and that many drug discoveries originate in hospital and academic labs funded through government grants. Funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health contributed to all but two of the 356 drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration from 2010 to 2019, according to a Bentley University study. Companies also don’t spend all their profits on innovation: The 14 largest drug companies in the world spent more on stock buybacks and dividend payments to investors than on research and development, according to a 2021 analysis by the U.S. House Oversight Committee.

One possible solution to bring down costs: tie American prices to what drugmakers charge in other wealthy countries. The Congressional Budget Office found last year that this would have the biggest impact on reducing costs of seven proposals it studied. It’s an idea with bipartisan support.

Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., introduced a bill this week that would penalize pharmaceutical companies that sell their drugs at higher prices than the average of the prices in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and the United Kingdom. Companies that sell above the average would face civil penalties equal to 10 times the difference between the U.S. list price and the average price in those other countries.

President Donald Trump has advocated for similar actions. During his first term, he issued an executive order directing the Medicare program to employ a “most favored nation” approach in paying for drugs. The administration later developed a rule directing Medicare to select the lowest price from a basket of similar countries and make that the maximum amount the agency would pay for 50 drugs administered by doctors. A court blocked the rule from being implemented in the last days of the first administration.

Now, according to reports this week, the administration is pushing plans to tie Medicaid and Medicare prices to lower prices charged in other countries.

Linking U.S. prices to those in other countries is opposed by industry groups who say it would leave decisions on medications to the government rather than doctors and patients.

“Government price setting in any form is bad for American patients,” said Alex Schriver, a spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an industry group. He said efforts should be focused on fixing “the flaws in the U.S. system,” including money that flows to intermediaries such as pharmacy benefit managers.

Some critics also warn so-called international reference pricing can be gamed and allows foreign governments to essentially set the value of medicines sold in the U.S.

The Trump administration is expected to announce drug pricing plans as early as next week, according to a report. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

After US talks, Andrew Bailey says Britain must do everything it can to improve trading relations with bloc

• Business live – latest updates

The governor of the Bank of England has said that the UK now needs to do everything it can to rebuild its long-term trade relationship with the EU, after a breakthrough agreement with the US to reduce some of Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Andrew Bailey said that, while he would not pass judgment on the UK’s exit from the EU in early 2020, reversing the trade impact of Brexit would be “beneficial”.

China’s strong export growth in April, despite sky-high U.S. tariffs, will give Beijing a boost as its officials head to trade talks this weekend.

Hey all
I hope everyone is doing well

We have a 72V 6kW 70-pole PMSM. We recently purchased a sine-wave motor controller from Golden Motors (EZkontrol motor controller model: EZ-B144400) and it was not able to run the motor. It finished the “self-learning” and even during that it wasn’t able to drive the motor with enough power. After the self-learning phase, upon giving throttle, the motor would just rotate very slowly, and produce a lot of noise. Their team couldn’t really help much. We can’t really do much with the controller either, there’s no firmware support - they just have an android app with a few parameters exposed. I will attach a document with all the parameters so you can have an idea.

Our motor is not damaged of course, it runs fine with open-loop ESCs such as the FLAME ESC. We are assuming that these off-the-shelf controllers are built specifically for the more popularly used 4-pole brushless motors. We have an old 48V 4-pole BLDC and the EZkontrol motor controller from Golden Motors was able to run it easily, on the very first go.

We concluded that it could be to do with the high pole-pairs of our motor - 35, i.e. 70 poles, that caused this incompatibility.

Now I am looking into VESC-based ESCs and the Flipksy 75200 Pro seems quiet promising. I have this lingering doubt though, if even that may fail. With the EZkontrol controller, we still don’t exactly know what didn’t work and given how it’s just a black box at this point, there’s no way to find out either.

I hope someone here can give some helpful suggestions. Here are the motor details:

1. Battery DC voltage: 72 V
2. Continuous Power: 6.0 kW
3. Peak Power: 8.5 kW
4. Max. Speed: 1000 RPM
5. Peak shaft torque: 190 Nm
6. Stall Torque: 250 Nm
7. Line Resistance: 294.6 mOhms
8. Line Inductance: 0.739 uH
9. Back-EMF Constant (Peak Line-Line): 214 V/kRPM
10. No. of Poles: 70
11. Ld: 0.396 mH
12. Lq: 0.369 mH
13. Rotor Moment of Inertia: 0.0347 kg.m^2

If someone has ran a high pole-pair motor using a similar VESC-based controller, do share your experience as well!

Here’s a link to the document I have created that lists all the EZ-Tune app parameters. And here’s the EZkontrol controller’s User Manual, for more context.

Thanks for taking the time to read! I hope I get some good insights!
Best Regards!!

CrowdStrike CEO announces 5% of workforce to be slashed globally, citing artificial intelligence efficiencies created in the business

The cybersecurity company that became a household name after causing a massive global IT outage last year has announced it will cut 5% of its workforce in part due to “AI efficiency”.

In a note to staff earlier this week, released in stock market filings in the US, CrowdStrike’s chief executive, George Kurtz, announced that 500 positions, or 5% of its workforce, would be cut globally, citing AI efficiencies created in the business.

Independent Thinking: Can India and Pakistan step back from the brink? Audio john.pollock 9 May 2025

Marion Messmer, Chietigj Bajpaee and Stephen Farrell join the podcast to discuss the cross-border strikes between India and Pakistan.

Tensions between India and Pakistan have surged following a deadly attack in Kashmir and air strikes by India inside Pakistan. With nuclear risks, regional diplomacy, and rising domestic pressures in play, what could prevent this crisis from spiralling further? 

In this episode, Bronwen Maddox discusses what this means for South Asia and the world with Marion Messmer, a senior research fellow with our International Security Programme; Chietigj Bajpaee, the senior research fellow for South Asia with our Asia-Pacific Programme; and Stephen Farrell, our head of News and Comment.

About Independent Thinking

Independent Thinking is a weekly international affairs podcast hosted by our director Bronwen Maddox, in conversation with leading policymakers, journalists, and Chatham House experts providing insight on the latest international issues.

More ways to listen: Apple Podcasts, Spotify.

Previous negative remarks by Pope Leo XIV about ‘homosexual lifestyle’ at odds with papacy of Pope Francis

After years of sympathetic and inclusive comments from Pope Francis, LGBTQ+ Catholics expressed concern on Thursday about hostile remarks made more than a decade ago by Father Robert Prevost, the new Pope Leo XIV, in which he condemned what he called the “homosexual lifestyle” and “the redefinition of marriage” as “at odds with the Gospel”.

In a 2012 address to the world synod of bishops, the man who now leads the church said that “Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel – for example abortion, homosexual lifestyle, euthanasia”.

schwit1 shares a report from Behind The Black: Almost immediately after India's government issued this week new tightened regulations for allowing private satellite constellations to sell their services in India, it also apparently completed negotiations with SpaceX to allow it to sell Starlink in India based on these rules. Business Today reports: "According to sources, the DoT [Department of Transportation] granted the LoI [Letter of Intent] after Starlink accepted 29 strict security conditions, including requirements for real-time terminal tracking, mandatory local data processing, legal interception capabilities, and localisation of at least 20% of its ground segment infrastructure within the first few years of operation. Starlink's nod came amid heightened national security sensitivities, coinciding with India's pre-dawn Operation Sindoor strikes on terror camps across the border in response to the Pahalgam massacre. However, DoT officials clarified that the decision to approve Starlink was independent of these military developments." At the moment SpaceX's chief competitors, OneWeb and Amazon's Kuiper constellation, have not yet obtained the same permissions. This allows SpaceX to grab a large portion of the market share in India before either of these other companies.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Vatican conclave elected Cardinal Prevost as a successor to Pope Francis to lead the Catholic Church.

submitted by /u/Additional-Goal9854
[link] [comments]

He also saw the movie Conclave, plays Words with Friends and is a Chicago White Sox fan.

Alexander Mashinsky, the former CEO of Celsius Network, was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to two counts of fraud, a dramatic fall for the leader of a company once hailed as the "bank" of the crypto industry. From a report: Standing before U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl in Manhattan's Southern District, Mashinsky faced the consequences of what prosecutors described as a sweeping scheme to defraud investors. In December he pleaded guilty to commodities fraud and a scheme to manipulate the Celsius token. His sentencing took place in courtroom 14A at 500 Pearl Street -- a venue that has seen several crypto executives-turned-felons. Mashinsky's legal troubles began in 2023 when he was arrested on charges of securities, commodities, and wire fraud, just as Celsius reached a $4.7 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission -- one of the largest in the FTC's history.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This blog has now closed. Our live updates coverage on Pope Leo XIV’s first full day in office has moved here.

Historically, some of the conclaves were really drawn out: in 13th century, they needed three years, over 1,000 days, to choose Gregory X.

There was also one that ended on the first day, when Julius II in 1503 was elected after just 10 hours.

Researchers say AI could give every developing country a vital early warning system of extreme events

Weather forecasting has gradually been getting more and more sophisticated. It has also got far more important as the climate gets more unpredictable and extreme events threaten to cause massive economic damage and loss of life. So an early warning system is vital.

Ever larger computer systems making millions of calculations over many hours are now part of the daily forecasting in most developed countries. Sadly large parts of the world, many very vulnerable to dangerous climate events, do not have the money, personnel or computing power to develop the 10-day forecasting system they need.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) announced Thursday he will introduce legislation requiring retailers to disclose how...

The post Democrats Introduce Bill Requiring Retailers to Show Price Impact of Trump’s Tariffs appeared first on News Facts Network.

Construction is set to begin on two seven-story apartment buildings at the University of Delaware’s STAR Campus, fulfilling the university’s longtime goal of bringing a residential component to the ever-growing science and technology campus.

With construction of the new Newark Free Library set to begin soon, New Castle County officials are already looking ahead to what could be the next major project: building a new library in the Glasgow area.

Washington needed an off-ramp, but the group can still imperil the global economy.

Trump’s outreach to Putin has shifted Russian opinion—but failed to end the war.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday announced the Trump administration will begin discharging transgender service...

The post Trump admin moves to oust 1,000 trans people from the military after Supreme Court ruling appeared first on News Facts Network.

The Trump administration’s efforts to deport unwanted immigrants to countries including Libya, Ukraine and Rwanda has similarities to a failed British plan.

Connections are tight, not sure that’s the problem

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday its well-known "billion-dollar weather and climate disasters" database "will be retired," a move that will make it next to impossible for the public to track the cost of extreme weather and climate events. The weather, climate and oceans agency is also ending other products, it has recently announced, due in large part to staffing reductions. NOAA is narrowing the array of services it provides, with climate-related programs scrutinized especially closely. The disasters database, which will be archived but no longer updated beyond 2024, has allowed taxpayers, media and researchers to track the cost of natural disasters -- spanning extreme events from hurricanes to hailstorms -- since 1980. Its discontinuation is another Trump-administration blow to the public's view into how fossil fuel pollution is changing the world around them and making extreme weather more costly. [...] The database vacuums loss information from throughout the insurance industry, among other public and private sources. According to the database, there were 403 weather and climate disasters totally at least $1 billion in the United States since 1980, totaling more than $2.945 trillion. As of April 8, there had not been any confirmed billion-dollar disasters so far in 2025, but it lists four events as having the potential to make the tally, including the Los Angeles-area wildfires in January. Between 1980 and 2024, there were nine such disasters on average each year, though in the past five years, that annual average has jumped to 24. The record for one year was 28 events in 2023. "What makes this resource uniquely valuable is not just its standardized methodology across decades, but the fact that it draws from proprietary and non-public data sources (such as reinsurance loss estimates, localized government reports, and private claims databases) that are otherwise inaccessible to most researchers," Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications for and co-founder of First Street, a climate risk financial modeling firm, told CNN via email. "Without it, replicating or extending damage trend analyses, especially at regional scales or across hazard types, is nearly impossible without significant funding or institutional access to commercial catastrophe models."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Carla Hayden has been the Librarian of Congress since 2016. She was the first woman and African American to hold the position.

Almost five dozen criminal cases will no longer be prosecuted because they were tainted by rampant corruption in a northern Alabama police department.

"He's Sox, and then the radio announced Cubs, and that's not true," the pope's older brother, John Prevost, told CBS News Chicago.

American faithful celebrated the announcement of Cardinal Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV, the first pontiff from the United States. The Chicago native is also a Peruvian citizen and lived for years in Peru, first as a missionary and then as an archbishop

• ‘Deep dish eucharist’: internet reacts to US pope with jokes and Chicago pride

• Chicago reacts to hometown Pope Leo: ‘Like the Cubs winning the World Series’

• ‘The pope is Peruvian’: elation in country where pontiff served as bishop

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for May 9.

Hints as to what postures Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, might take on some of the most controversial issues roiling the U.S. may come from his recent activity on social media​.

This blog is now closed. You can read our latest story here

The winners and losers of Trump’s first tariff war strongly suggest that bankruptcies and farm consolidation could surge during his second term, with major corporations best placed to benefit from his polices at the expense of independent farmers.

New analysis by the non-profit research advocacy group Food and Water Watch (FWW), shared exclusively with the Guardian, shows that Trump’s first-term tariffs were particularly devastating for farmers in the Maga rural heartlands.

A federal court ruled Thursday that Alabama’s Republican-controlled legislature intentionally discriminated against Black voters when...

The post Federal Court Rules Alabama’s Congressional Map Intentionally Discriminated Against Black Voters appeared first on News Facts Network.

President Donald Trump abruptly fired Carla Hayden, the nation’s first Black and first female Librarian...

The post Trump Removes Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden Following Conservative Criticism of “Woke” Library Content appeared first on News Facts Network.

Alibaba Group researchers have developed "ZeroSearch," a technique that enables large language models to acquire search capabilities without using external search engines during training. The approach transforms LLMs into retrieval modules through supervised fine-tuning and employs a "curriculum-based rollout strategy" that gradually degrades generated document quality. In tests across seven question-answering datasets, ZeroSearch matched or exceeded the performance [PDF] of models trained with real search engines. A 7B-parameter retrieval module achieved results comparable to Google Search, while a 14B-parameter version outperformed it. The cost savings are substantial: training with 64,000 search queries using Google Search via SerpAPI would cost approximately $586.70, compared to just $70.80 using a 14B-parameter simulation LLM on four A100 GPUs -- an 88% reduction. The technique works with multiple model families including Qwen-2.5 and LLaMA-3.2. Researchers have released their code, datasets, and pre-trained models on GitHub and Hugging Face, potentially lowering barriers to entry for smaller AI companies developing sophisticated assistants.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Buoyed by supreme court ruling, Pentagon will remove as many as 1,000 service members. Key US politics stories from Thursday 8 May at a glance

“No More Trans @ DoD,” Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, posted after the supreme court allowed the Trump administration’s ousting of transgender troops to go forward. As of Thursday, the orders have been issued to identify and involuntarily force trans people out of service.

Department officials have said it is difficult to determine exactly how many transgender service members there are, but medical records will show those who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, show symptoms or are being treated. Those troops would then be forced out.

Pentagon will give other trans service members 30 days to self-identify while it enforces recently approved ban

The Pentagon is removing the 1,000 members of the military who openly identify as trans, and giving those who have yet to openly identify as transgender 30 days to remove themselves, according to a new directive issued on Thursday.

The memo is fueled by Tuesday’s supreme court decision allowing the Trump administration to enforce a ban on trans military members. The defense department has said it will follow up by going through medical records to identify others who have not come forward.

Hints and answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 228, for May 9.

Residents – Catholic and non-Catholic – celebrate a ‘moment of joy’ as native son Robert Prevost becomes new pontiff

As white smoke billowed from the Vatican in Rome, yellow papal flags whipped in the crisp Lake Michigan breeze in front of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Academy on Chicago’s North Side.

Screams of “Habemus Papam!” echoed throughout the cafeteria at the Catholic school on Thursday afternoon, when news broke that Chicago’s Robert Prevost had become Pope Leo XIV.

It's slick, comfortable and clever, but you pay a premium for it.

President Trump on Thursday attacked a law signed by President Joe Biden aimed at expanding high-speed internet access, calling the effort "racist" and "totally unconstitutional" and threatening to end it "immediately." The New York TimesL: Mr. Trump's statement was one of the starkest examples yet of his slash-and-burn approach to dismantling the legacy of his immediate predecessor in this term in office. The Digital Equity Act, a little-known effort to improve high-speed internet access in communities with poor access, was tucked into the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that Mr. Biden signed into law early in his presidency. The act was written to help many different groups, including veterans, older people and disabled and rural communities. But Mr. Trump, using the incendiary language that has been a trademark of his political career, denounced the law on Thursday for also seeking to improve internet access for ethnic and racial minorities, raging in a social media post that it amounted to providing "woke handouts based on race."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We got this XRV growler and decided to give FloatHub a try. Here's our unfiltered experience

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle No. 432 for May 9.

Was that a gunshot? A new AI update to the Arlo home-security subscription service aims to alert its customers to worrisome sounds.

The new pope, formerly Robert F. Prevost, has a mixed voting history, casting ballots in both GOP and Democratic primaries.

The 2025 papal conclave at the Vatican ended with the election of American-born Cardinal Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV. Here's what to know about him.

The Department of Health and Human Services will effectively block the payout of overdue bonuses to many of its laid-off​ employees, multiple health officials say.

President Donald Trump on Thursday named Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as interim U.S. Attorney...

The post Jeanine Pirro Tapped as Interim U.S. Attorney for D.C. in Latest Move From Trump’s Fox News Pipeline appeared first on News Facts Network.

Immigrants make up a higher share of business owners than of the population and the workforce.

My Bluetooth stopped working. Can anyone walk me through the process of replacing it on the Little FOCer v3.1? Is that the chip that has the incorporated IMU as well and is there programming involved other than the normal float package?

The Fox News host will serve as the top prosecutor in the nation's capital for the time being.

Acting U.S. attorney Ed Martin was a "Stop the Steal" activist and he defended Jan. 6 rioters.

Announcement makes UK the first country to agree deal with US since Trump imposed sweeping tariffs in April

• Aston Martin and Rolls-Royce share prices soar as manufacturers welcome US tariff cuts
• Analysis: new UK/US trade deal is a relief for Starmer but doubts, and tariffs, remain
• US politics live – latest updates

The UK and US have agreed a “breakthrough” trade deal slashing some of Donald Trump’s tariffs on cars, aluminium and steel and that the prime minister said would save thousands of British jobs.

Keir Starmer said it was a “fantastic, historic day” as he announced the agreement, the first by the White House since Trump announced sweeping global tariffs last month.

The election of a first North American pontiff came after the death of the first Latin American pope and signaled a relinquishing of papal authority from Europe.

About a year ago, we talked about the fact that Android 15 became page size-agnostic, supporting both 4 KB and 16 KB page sizes. Google was already pushing developers to get their applications ready for 16 KB page sizes, which means recompiling for 16 KB alignment and testing on a 16 KB version of an Android device or simulator. Google is taking the next step now, requiring that every application targeting Android 15 or higher submitted to Google Play after 1 November 2025 must support a page size of 16 KB.

This is a key technical requirement to ensure your users can benefit from the performance enhancements on newer devices and prepares your apps for the platform’s future direction of improved performance on newer hardware. Without recompiling to support 16 KB pages, your app might not function correctly on these devices when they become more widely available in future Android releases.

↫ Dan Brown on the Android Developers Blog

This is mostly only relevant for developers instead of users, but in the extremely unlikely scenario that one of your favourite applications cannot be made to work with 16 KB page sizes for some weird reason, or the developer refuses to support it or some even weirder reason, you might have to say goodbye to that applications if you use Android 15 or higher. This is absurdly unlikely, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens to at least one application.

If that happens, I want to know which application that is, and ask the developer for their story.

Robert Prevost’s election as pope stunned many Catholics skeptical that an American would ever be elevated to that role.

The Trump administration filed an emergency appeal Thursday asking the Supreme Court to allow it...

The post Trump Seeks to Revoke Legal Status of 532,000 Migrants, Urges Supreme Court to Override Lower Ruling appeared first on News Facts Network.

Trusts having to ‘think the previously unthinkable’ to make savings demanded by new NHS England boss

Hospitals in England are cutting staff, closing services and planning to ration care in order to make “eye-watering” savings demanded by NHS bosses.

Rehabilitation centres face being shut, talking therapies services cut and beds for end-of-life care reduced as part of efforts by England’s 215 NHS trusts to comply with a “financial reset”.

47% were cutting services and another 43% were considering doing so.

37% were cutting clinical posts and a further 40% may follow suit.

26% were closing some services and 55% more may do so.

A new Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 cover brings a "sleek yet strong design," according to Samsung.

In an interview with "The View," former President Joe Biden said he took some responsibility for President Trump's 2024 win because he was "in charge."

by Vernal Coleman and Eric Umansky

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

Democratic House members on Thursday blasted the Trump administration’s moves to shrink the Department of Veterans Affairs and demanded more transparency from its leaders after a ProPublica investigation revealed widespread disruptions across the agency’s health care system.

“There are real-life dangerous impacts for veterans,” said Rep. Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, citing the news organization’s work.

This week, ProPublica reported on dozens of emails sent from staff at VA hospitals and clinics across the country to headquarters warning how cuts could, and in some cases are, degrading the agency’s ability to provide for the roughly 9 million veterans who rely on it.

Hiring freezes and other edicts from the White House have left medical providers scrambling and short-staffed amid an ever-shifting series of policy moves, including the cancellation of contracts with companies that maintain cancer registries, the emails said. Staffers at VA centers in Pennsylvania warned the cuts were causing “severe and immediate impacts,” including to “life-saving cancer trials.”

“Enrollment in clinical trials is stopping,” one wrote, “meaning veterans lose access to therapies.” Staffers at the hospital warned more than 1,000 veterans would lose access to treatment for diseases ranging from metastatic head and neck cancers, to kidney disease, to traumatic brain injuries.

On Thursday, the House members, several of whom are veterans, demanded VA leadership provide more details on how cuts are affecting such work, in which service members often receive treatment they would not otherwise have access to.

“We all want to cut waste, fraud and abuse, but what we see today is when you cancel a contract, it means the end of a clinical trial that’s going to save someone’s life,” Rep. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire said.

Notably, Deluzio, an Iraq War veteran whose Pittsburgh-area district includes a VA facility, and other lawmakers said they had learned about the impact for the first time from ProPublica’s reporting. On Thursday, they accused agency Secretary Doug Collins of stonewalling their efforts to find out what positions have been laid off, what contracts have been canceled and what future cuts will look like.

“We want the country to understand that this administration is hiding what they are doing, not just from us and the Congress, but from veterans and the American people,” Deluzio said.

“And the worst part is, we don’t know if anyone has died,” he added.

President Donald Trump has long said his administration will prioritize veterans and not compromise their care.

The disruptions at the VA have come even as the department has laid off just a few thousand staffers — a small fraction of the employees it said it ultimately plans to remove. Collins has said the agency is developing plans with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to cut at least 70,000 employees — a number that he has underscored is a “goal.” “Could be more, could be less,” he told lawmakers this week.

On Thursday, in a post on X, Collins pushed back on criticism, calling ProPublica’s reporting “misleading” and saying it was based on “some outdated reports from the internal system VA uses to quickly identify and fix issues across the department.”

In a statement, VA press secretary Pete Kasperowicz said that Collins was working to fix a “broken bureaucracy” that has long had problems with patient safety and access to care, among other issues. “Unfortunately, many in the media, government union bosses and some in Congress are fighting to keep in place the broken status quo,” he said. “Our message to Veterans is simple: Despite major opposition from those who don’t want to change a thing at VA, we will reform the department to make it work better for Veterans, families, caregivers and survivors.”

Kasperowicz previously told the news organization that the issues in Pennsylvania have been resolved, though locals there with knowledge of the issues said that’s not the case and that the impact is ongoing. Kasperowicz also said in regard to the contracts to maintain the cancer registries that there had been “no effect on patients.” He added that the VA is moving to create a national contract to administer them.

According to some providers, even the temporary disruptions have hurt the care of veterans. One clinical trial to treat veterans for opioid addiction was hobbled by temporary layoffs. “We couldn’t give veterans a tool that could save their lives,” said Ellie Gordon, the CEO of the startup Behavior, which is testing biosensors to alert veterans to the risk of relapse.

Collins touted the cuts in a sometimes-contentious hearing on Tuesday before the U.S Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

“We’re going to maintain VA’s mission-essential jobs like doctors, nurses and claims processors, while phasing out non-mission essential roles like interior designers and DEI officers,” he said in an opening statement. The funds saved will be rerouted into direct health care and benefits for veterans, he added.

Some Republicans at the hearing defended the administration’s proposed cuts. “The VA has become a bloated bureaucracy,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who represents Alabama. “I think most of us will agree with that.”

But Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., pushed back on Collins’ statements, saying that laying off such a large portion of the staff will inevitably involve letting go of health care workers, like nurses and doctors. “You cannot slash and trash the VA without eliminating those essential positions which provide access and availability of health care,” he said. “It simply cannot be done.”

Others at the hearing took Collins to task for a lack of transparency. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, admonished the secretary for refusing to provide a list of the 538 canceled contracts since his appointment. Collins said he would provide the information, but only after it’s finalized.

“We’re looking at every step we can, but also, I’m not going to play it out in a public arena,” he said.

J. David McSwane contributed reporting.

A three-judge panel permanently blocked Alabama from using a state-drawn map that they said flouted their directive to draw a plan that was fair to Black voters.

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple has "made progress" on a chip for a product that could rival the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. The company is also reportedly working on glasses that use augmented reality. The Verge reports: The chip is apparently based on the chips Apple uses for the Apple Watch, though the company has removed parts and is being designed in such a way that it can handle the "multiple cameras" that the smart glasses might have, Bloomberg reports. Apple wants mass production of the chip to start by the end of 2026 or sometime in 2027, so the glasses themselves could come out within that timeframe. [...] Apple is developing chips for camera-equipped Apple Watch and Airpods as well, and the goal is for those chips to be ready "by around 2027," Bloomberg says. The company is also developing new M-series chips and dedicated AI server chips, per the report.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.

The national average price of a gallon of regular gasoline is still over $3, and no state has an average price below $2.60. But since mid-April, President Donald Trump has falsely claimed, repeatedly, that gasoline prices “hit $1.98 a gallon” in multiple states. Now we may know his source.

Before publishing our April 24 story about the president’s inaccurate claims of much lower gasoline prices, we asked the White House for supporting evidence. Officials didn’t provide any.

After Trump made the $1.98 gasoline claim again, on social media May 2, CNBC reported that Trump was likely referring to the trading price for RBOB, a form of gasoline called reformulated blendstock for oxygenate blending. That price isn’t what drivers pay at the pump.

“When asked by CNBC whether the president was referencing RBOB, Trump administration officials pointed to the contract’s recent price action [dropping below $2 per gallon],” Spencer Kimball, a CNBC energy reporter, wrote in a May 5 article.

We contacted the White House to confirm the report, but we received no reply.

RBOB is an unfinished gasoline product that is “intended for blending with oxygenates,” such as ethanol, “to produce finished reformulated gasoline,” according to the Energy Information Administration. Before it’s mixed to make gasoline that goes in vehicles, RBOB is traded as a commodity.

For example, contracts for RBOB futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange sold for between $1.96 per gallon and $1.99 per gallon for a few days in April, down from about $2.11 when Trump took office on Jan. 20.

EIA says: “In addition to trading physical quantities of petroleum products, market participants can also use futures contracts to buy or sell gasoline and distillate for future delivery, or to hedge or speculate on future price movements.”

Prior to Trump’s inauguration, the RBOB trading price on the NYMEX was most recently below $2 per gallon in December, when Joe Biden was president. As of May 7, the price was roughly $2.06.

But the cost for RBOB is considered to be a kind of wholesale price. It excludes state and federal taxes, as well as other manufacturing, distribution and marketing costs that go into determining the final fuel price that consumers see at gas stations.

“It does not come anywhere near explaining what consumers are paying,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, which tracks fuel prices, told CNBC about the RBOB trading price. 

“It would be irrelevant to the consumer to know what the price of RBOB is because they’re not paying the wholesale price of RBOB,” he said. 

If Trump has been referring to the price for RBOB all along, he has misled the public by comparing it with previously high gasoline prices paid by drivers. (Trump has also misleadingly referred to wholesale prices, instead of retail prices, when claiming that the cost of eggs is down significantly.)

“Prices are down at tremendous numbers for gasoline,” Trump said in a “Meet the Press” interview that aired May 4. “It went up to $3.90, even $4. And in California, $5 and $6. Right? Okay. I have it down to $1.98 in many states right now.”

We’d also note, as we’ve written before, that presidents don’t control gasoline prices, as Trump’s comment suggested. The price is mainly determined by the cost of crude oil, which is set on the global market based largely on supply and demand.

Furthermore, for consumers nationwide, the average price of regular grade gasoline was $3.15 per gallon the week ending May 5, according to EIA data. That was up from about $3.11 per gallon when Trump began his second term earlier this year. Prices had been as high as $5 a gallon in 2022.

As for individual states, AAA said the lowest average price on May 7 was roughly $2.65 per gallon in Mississippi.

GasBuddy figures show similar national and state average prices.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, P.O. Box 58100, Philadelphia, PA 19102. 

The post The Possible Source of Trump’s False $2 Gasoline Claim appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Vice-president says US will seek to de-escalate but cannot force either nuclear power to ‘lay down their arms’

JD Vance has said that the US will not intervene in the conflict between Pakistan and India, calling fighting between the two nuclear powers “fundamentally none of our business”.

The remarks came during an interview with Fox News, where the US vice-president said that the US would seek to de-escalate the conflict but could force neither side to “lay down their arms”.

It's a 49-inch desk-hogging QD-OLED at an attractive price but I'm also generally underwhelmed by it.

The students of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Academy, who earlier this week held a mock conclave, were overjoyed Thursday when Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected the new pope.

In a recent interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince warned that AI is breaking the economic model of the web by decoupling content creation from value, with platforms like Google and OpenAI increasingly providing answers without driving traffic to original sources. He argued that unless AI companies start compensating creators, the web's content ecosystem will collapse -- calling most current AI investment a "money fire" with only a small fraction holding long-term value. Search Engine Land reports: Google's value exchange with content creators has collapsed, Prince said: "Ten years ago... for every two pages of a website that Google scraped, they would send you one visitor. ... That was the trade. ... Now, it takes six pages scraped to get one visitor." That drop reflects the rise of zero-click searches, which happen when searchers get answers directly on Google's search page. "Today, 75 percent of the queries... get answered without you leaving Google." This trend, long criticized by publishers and SEOs, is part of a broader concern: AI companies are using original content to generate answers that rarely/never drive traffic back to creators. AI makes the problem worse. Large language models (LLMs) are accelerating the crisis, Prince said. AI companies scrape far more content per user interaction than Google ever has -- with even less return to creators. "What do you think it is for OpenAI? 250 to one. What do you think it is for Anthropic? Six thousand to one." "More and more the answers... won't lead you to the original source, it will be some derivative of that source." This situation threatens the sustainability of the web as we know it, Prince said: "If content creators can't derive value... then they're not going to create original content." The modern web is breaking. AI companies are aware of the problem, and the business model of the web can't survive unless there's some change, Prince said: "Sam Altman at OpenAI and others get that. But... he can't be the only one paying for content when everyone else gets it for free." Cloudflare's right in the middle of this problem -- it powers 80% of AI companies and a 20-30% of the web. Cloudfaire is now trying to figure out how to help fix what's broken, Prince said. AI = money fire. Prince is not against AI. However, he said he is skeptical of the investment frenzy. "I would guess that 99% of the money that people are spending on these projects today is just getting lit on fire. But 1% is going to be incredibly valuable." "And so maybe we've all got a light, you know, $100 on fire to find that $1 that matters." You can watch a recording of the interview and read the full transcript here.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lai Ching-te says ‘message of history is clear’ as Taiwan for first time officially commemorates end of second world war

Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, has compared his nation to the European countries heading for conflict with Nazi Germany in the 1930s, in a punchy speech commemorating the end of the second world war in Europe.

“Eighty years after the end of the European war, the message of history is clear. Today, 80 years later, we share the same values ​​and face similar challenges as many of the democracies that participated in the European war,” Lai said to a group of foreign dignitaries gathered in Taipei.

Pope Leo XIV has been known as the “Latin Yankee” in Rome for the decades he worked in Peru, ministering to the dispossessed and marginalized.

Leo XIV celebrated as second Latin American pope having spent many years in Peru’s church

• Pope Leo XIV – live updates

The election of Pope Leo XIV has been celebrated across Latin America, where many hailed him as the second pontiff from the region, after his Argentinian predecessor, Francis.

The news prompted particular elation in Peru, where he lived and worked for more than 20 years and was granted citizenship in 2015. In the capital, Lima, the bells of the cathedral rang in celebration.

In his first appearance from the Vatican balcony, Leo XIV briefly switched from Italian to Spanish to address the faithful “from my beloved diocese of Chiclayo, in Peru”, where he served as bishop for more than a decade.

President Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have both said numerous trade agreements could come as soon as this week.

Charles says sacrifice of second world war heroes must not be in vain

King Charles called for a renewal of “global commitments to restoring a just peace where there is war, to diplomacy and to the prevention of conflict”, as the UK marked the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day.

Westminster Abbey was the focal point for national commemorations with a service of thanksgiving weaving poignant reminders of wartime deprivation and loss with the hopes for the future that historic day had promised.

The themes of Pope Leo XIV's speech seemed to suggest he would have continuity with his predecessor Pope Francis.

The CEO of the private prison firm CoreCivic told investors on a Thursday call that his company has a value proposition for the federal government: American prison profiteers are less likely to draw legal challenges than foreign alternatives — an apparent reference to the infamous El Salvador prison housing immigrants who were illegally deported from the U.S.

CoreCivic is among the biggest players in the immigration detention business — and they’re looking to capitalize on contracts for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities under President Donald Trump.

Even as the companies celebrated profit opportunities on earnings calls this week, however, pushback is building in communities tapped to host their lockups.

Newark, New Jersey’s mayor rallied protesters outside a newly reactivated facility in his city. Leavenworth, Kansas, sued CoreCivic for reopening a facility there. Leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area are girding themselves for a fight against the use of an Air Force base for deportation. And two House representatives from Florida recently criticized conditions in ICE facilities in their state.

The Trump administration’s aggressive deportation push has spurred an increase in immigration detention. ICE facilities throughout the country are at or over capacity, and the federal government is making desperate attempts to expand its detention network. According to federal contracting documents, the agency wants to spend billions more for immigration detention.

“Unprecedented Opportunity”

The pushback is growing — but so is the Trump administration’s determination to feed the deportation pipeline. A tally by The Intercept shows that, since Trump took office, at least 10 facilities owned or operated by the two largest private prison companies — CoreCivic and GEO Group — have had their contracts created, renewed, or modified to detain immigrants. Other private prison companies and federal contractors have signed contracts for further immigration detention, including an expansion of tent detention facilities.

“These companies are working with ICE to spend money that they haven’t even been given yet.”

On an earnings call Wednesday, GEO Group CEO J. David Donahue sounded a cautious but optimistic note about what is to come under Trump. He said the ongoing budget reconciliation discussions in Congress were a “key element” in how much and how fast ICE can build up its privately run detention capacity.

“The bottom line right now is that private prison companies are waiting with bated breath for Congress to give ICE $45 billion through the reconciliation process,” said Setareh Ghandehari, the advocacy director at Detention Watch Network. “It’s horrific and we’ve been sounding the alarm about this for months — but right now that alarm is blaring and it’s clear how closely these companies are working with ICE to spend money that they haven’t even been given yet.”

Outside of detention, the company hopes to bulk up the number of people covered by an electronic surveillance contract called the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program from a current number of 185,000 to “millions if called upon,” Donahue said.

“This is a unique moment in our company’s history,” he said, “and we believe we are well-positioned to meet this unprecedented opportunity.”

“Ready to Brawl”

On a quarterly earnings call Thursday, CoreCivic executives touted their steps to reopen two separate facilities: one in California City, California, and a facility in Leavenworth, Kansas. What they did not mention was the growing opposition from local officials in Leavenworth.

In late March, the city of Leavenworth filed a lawsuit against CoreCivic to try to prevent its use of one of their facilities to detain immigrants. Despite Leavenworth being surrounded by penitentiaries, the conservative city is concerned about the detention of immigrants at the Midwest Regional Reception Center.

For nearly 30 years, CoreCivic operated the facility, primarily holding pre-trial detainees in the custody of U.S. Marshals. Conditions were so bad that a federal judge called it “an absolute hell hole.” The facility was shuttered in 2021 by the Biden administration when it curtailed the federal government’s use of private prisons.

Under the Trump administration, ICE’s rush to expand detention capacity led to a “letter agreement” with CoreCivic, authorizing the private prison company to begin revamping the Leavenworth facility so they could quickly begin detaining immigrants. This agreement is not a formal contract but covers a six-month period while CoreCivic works to “negotiate and execute a long-term contract,” the company said in a document distributed to shareholders.

In its lawsuit, the city of Leavenworth claims that CoreCivic did not engage with the proper permit process with the city to begin operating the detention center. In the process of making that central claim, the city lawsuit drags CoreCivic and the prior conditions at the facility.

The fight over private immigration detention is playing out along similar lines in New Jersey, as local officials battle the White House. In 2021, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law barring immigration detention in the state. CoreCivic sued — with the Biden administration’s support — and a federal judge ruled in favor of the company. Last week, an appeals court finally heard arguments for the case.

Related

Denver’s City Council, Led by Democratic Socialist, Stuns For-Profit Prison Operators by Nuking Contracts

Despite the ongoing litigation, ICE extended a detention center contract to CoreCivic. GEO Group also got in on the action earlier this year, when ICE gave it a contract to run the Delaney Hall facility in Newark. In response, the city of Newark sued GEO Group, in an attempt to stop the facility from opening. The lawsuit is ongoing, with GEO Group saying it’s an attempt by New Jersey officials to “cripple federal immigration enforcement in the state.”

This week, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka joined advocates to protest the proposed GEO Group facility, prompting a company spokesperson to dismiss him as an “open-borders politician.” Immigrant advocates thanked Baraka, who is running for governor.

“Imposing the reopening of a detention center in a city and state that has gone lengths to protect New Jersey communities is a form of federal overreach,” Li Adorno, of the group Movimiento Cosecha New Jersey, said in a statement. “The battle in the courts has begun to spill into Newark’s toxic corridor and the gritty scrappy city is ready to brawl.”

Growth Trends

Even as the local opposition multiplies, private prison executives told investors on two calls this week that they remained certain the second Trump era will be good for them.

To win more contracts, they will have to vie against several alternative options that have been floated by Trump’s inner circle, ranging from proposals for tent cities at the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, that is already being used at the invitation of El Salvador’s strongman President Nayib Bukele.

Damon Hininger, the CEO of CoreCivic, told investors Thursday that he thinks his company will win out against alternatives.

“Private sector beds are the least likely to be legally challenged, particularly relative to some international options,” he said.

Still, company officials made clear that they are hedging their bets. Executives on a Thursday quarterly earnings call said they were ready to partner with the government should it follow through with a scheme to hold immigrants on U.S. military bases across the country, even if it involved a more limited role as a transportation contractor.

“We’ve got the capability to provide something very quickly that they’re anticipating on some of these military reservations,” Hininger said.

The company is also deploying resources nationwide to closed facilities for general upkeep for further ICE expansion, with company executives interested in pitching their facilities in Colorado, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.

The past few years have provided many opportunities for private prison companies — including under the Biden administration. During President Joe Biden’s last year in office, his administration extended at least 14 ICE jail contracts with private prison companies and sought options to expand the immigration detention network.

With company executives predicting more contracts to come this week, immigrant rights activists decried the celebration of profits from immigration detention.

Ghandehari, the Detention Watch Network official, said, “It’s frankly disturbing to hear people so giddy about making money off of the caging and abuse of their fellow human beings.”

The post Private Prison CEO on ICE Contracts: We’re a Better Deal Than El Salvador’s CECOT appeared first on The Intercept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: RIP, 486 processor. You've had a long run since Intel released you back in 1989. While Microsoft stopped supporting you with the release of Windows XP in 2001, Linux kept you alive and well for another 20+ years. But all good things must come to an end, and with the forthcoming release of the Linux 6.15 kernel, the 486 and the first Pentium processors will be sunsetted. Why? Linus Torvalds wrote recently on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), "I really get the feeling that it's time to leave i486 support behind. There's zero real reason for anybody to waste one second of development effort on this kind of issue." Senior Linux kernel developer Ingo Molnar put Torvalds' remark into context, writing, "In the x86 architecture, we have various complicated hardware emulation facilities on x86-32 to support ancient 32-bit CPUs that very very few people are using with modern kernels. This compatibility glue is sometimes even causing problems that people spend time to resolve, which time could be spent on other things." "This will be the first time Linux has dropped support for a major chip family since 2012, when Linux stopped supporting the 386 family," notes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols. "Moving forward, the minimum supported x86 CPU will now be the original Pentium (P5) or newer, requiring the presence of the Time Stamp Counter (TSC) and the CMPXCHG8B (CX8) instruction. These features are absent in the older 486 and early 586 processors, such as the IDT WinChip and AMD Elan families." That said, you can continue running Linux on Pentium CPUs, but you'll have to "run museum kernels," as Torvalds pointed out in 2022 when he first floated the idea of ending support for 486.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There have been 13 previous popes named Leo, the last elected in 1878. Previous Leos have been reformers, a possible sign of what the new pontiff hopes to emulate.

Fire department leaders on Thursday forcefully pushed back against a proposal to put speed bumps on Main Street, arguing that doing so would slow down emergency responses and put Newarkers in danger.

The announcement should mean tariffs won't impact prices on its smart ring.

Investors hope the U.S.-U.K. trade agreement is a preiude to more deals, although Wall Street analysts say to expect more volatility.

Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has touted corporate and foreign U.S. investment announcements as proof he is ushering in "the golden age of America."

On Jan. 21, Trump said that before he’d finished the "first full business day" of his second term, the U.S. had "already secured nearly $3 trillion of new investments." 

On April 2, he said, "It looks like we’re going to have about $6 trillion of investments." Six days later, Trump told National Republican Congressional Committee Dinner attendees that the investment total was "now revised up to about $7 (trillion)." 

During an April 30 News Nation town hall, Trump speculated that "it could be more than $8 trillion."

On May 4, Trump told NBC’s "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker, "I think we probably have close to $9 trillion of investments coming into this country." 

On May 6, Trump told reporters, "I think the real number could be $9 (trillion) or $10 trillion."

Finally, on May 8, Trump said, "We have now close to $10 trillion — think of that, $10 trillion" in investments. "We’re talking about essentially two months."

That’s far beyond the figures the White House has released publicly.

We tallied the White House’s public lists of investments; they amount to $2.1 trillion in corporate investments, or at most $5.1 trillion when including promised investments from countries. Experts cautioned that the promised corporate investments are not guaranteed to materialize in full, or during Trump’s presidency, and some of them would have occurred regardless of who was president. 

Trump isn’t the first to overstate new investments on his watch. President Joe Biden said in 2024 that his bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act had attracted $640 billion in private investments; economists told PolitiFact that Biden’s numbers were based on what companies had announced, which is not the same as dollars already spent. 

Roman V. Yampolskiy, a University of Louisville professor and a specialist in artificial intelligence, which dominates the promised investments Trump cited, said, "Historically, large-scale investment announcements often overpromise and underdeliver. There is a performative element to them, especially in politically charged contexts. They function as political theater as much as economic commitment."

White House lists do not match Trump’s words

Since Trump’s inauguration, the White House has publicized investment announcements from three countries and roughly 60 companies on its website, including in a "non-comprehensive running list." Many of the highest-dollar corporate announcements were in March and April.

Corporate announcements in the White House’s lists total approximately $2.1 trillion worth of U.S. investment. 

The White House separately has cited commitments from the United Arab Emirates to invest $1.4 trillion over the next 10 years; from Japan to "boost" its investment in the U.S. to $1 trillion; and from Saudi Arabia to invest $600 billion in the U.S. during Trump’s presidency. Combined with the corporate announcements, these bring the total to about $5.1 trillion, $4.9 trillion short of Trump’s figure.

But the $5.1 trillion total has caveats. For example, the White House said "Japan announced a $1 trillion investment in the U.S." But the article it linked said in 2023, Japan’s U.S. investment was $783.3 billion and Japan would "boost" that to $1 trillion. That’s an increase of $216.7 billion rather than a new $1 trillion investment. That would put the total value of newly pledged U.S. investment at about $4.3 trillion. 

Trump’s second term White House tally of U.S. investments 

This spreadsheet was last updated with the White House’s investment tallies as of noon ET, May 8.

The White House figures can’t easily be used for apples-to-apples comparisons. Some of the investments are planned over Trump’s four-year term, others over five years or a decade. In one case — ADQ and Energy Capital Partners’ planned $25 billion investment — it isn’t limited to U.S.-based projects.

The White House declined to detail additional investments. A spokesperson pointed to federal Bureau of Economic Analysis data that shows a 22% increase in business investment in the first quarter of 2025, calling it a historic increase.

However, experts cautioned this increase was shaped by businesses stocking up on inventory before Trump’s tariffs take effect and said the increase is unlikely to be sustained. 

Many of the announcements are aspirational, experts say

Experts told PolitiFact that each of the five biggest investments on Trump’s list warrants some caution, because they might not reach Trump’s cited dollar amounts or were not solely prompted by Trump’s policies.

"Many of these announcements, particularly those in the AI and semiconductor sectors, appear to be, at least in part, aspirational in nature," Yampolskiy said. "They serve a signaling function: to attract investor attention, shape policy discourse, and secure favorable regulatory or funding environments."

The five largest company investments collectively account for 82% of the dollar value on the White House’s corporate list.

Stargate

Stargate is an artificial intelligence collaboration among OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank, announced during a Jan. 21 White House event. The White House values the investment at $500 billion.

The company’s official announcement says $100 billion will be invested "immediately" and that it "intends to invest" a total of $500 billion over the next four years, a goal repeated by Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son at the White House event.

"Whether that much will ultimately get spent remains to be seen," wrote John Higgins, chief economist at Capital Economics, an international consulting firm. 

Enrique Dans, who studies technology and policy at Madrid’s IE Business School, said the $500 billion figure is "astronomical — roughly 2% of U.S. gross domestic product — and lacks clear documentation." 

At the White House event, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, "We wouldn’t be able to do this without you, Mr. President." But Altman had been discussing plans for a $100 billion investment 10 months before Trump won his second term, The Washington Post reported, including an Abilene, Texas, data center which began construction in summer 2024.

"AI investments have been on a global trajectory driven by technological maturity and competitive pressure, especially from China," Dans said. "Any U.S. president would have seen a surge."

NVIDIA

NVIDIA, another AI company, said it plans to invest up to $500 billion on U.S. infrastructure over the next four years. Previously, NVIDIA manufactured most of its chips in Taiwan. 

"It is unlikely Nvidia would have moved any production to the U.S. if it was not for pressure from the Trump administration," Gil Luria, an analyst with the financial services firm D.A. Davidson, told Reuters. However, Luria added, "The half a trillion number is likely hyperbole."

Dans said that although tax cuts from Trump’s first term have benefited the company’s focus on U.S.-based efforts, "the core growth likely would have occurred anyway," regardless of the president.

Apple

On Feb. 24, days after Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, met with Trump, the consumer electronics giant announced it plans to spend "more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years." 

Analysts have expressed skepticism that this represents new investment. Dans called the investment "simply more of what (Apple) already does," from "day-to-day activities with thousands of suppliers in all 50 states to the operation of its domestic data centers, as well as its investments in Apple TV+ and other projects already manufactured in the country."

In a note to investors, David Vogt, an analyst with the Swiss-based bank UBS, wrote, "Call us a skeptic. … We believe (the figure) lacks substance." 

IBM

IBM announced April 28 plans to invest $150 billion in the U.S., including more than $30 billion in research and development on U.S-based manufacturing of mainframe and quantum computers.

This is "not clearly Trump-related," Dans said. "IBM’s strategy pivots have been underway since the 2010s."

Luria said, "While we believe IBM will continue to invest in the emerging area of quantum technology, the bombastic figure is more likely a gesture towards the U.S. administration," Reuters reported.  

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which makes semiconductors for computing and electronics, has pledged to spend $100 billion in the U.S. Analysts said this number is the most well-supported among the investments that Trump cites. Although bringing semiconductor production back to the U.S. began during Trump’s first term, it was "greatly accelerated by" Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act, which prompted years of investment before Trump’s second term, Dans said.

Over the past five years, the company has spent at least $65 billion on fabrication facilities near Phoenix, funded in part by $6.6 billion from the CHIPS and Science Act. 

Overall, Dans said, "Trump might deserve some partial credit for setting a more aggressive tone on economic nationalism and supply chain reshoring, and for lowering the corporate tax reform, which did affect repatriation and some investment decisions. But most of these trends — the AI boom, the semiconductor reshoring, the cloud computing infrastructure — are long-term structural shifts that predate Trump and will continue regardless of who is in office."

Our ruling

Trump said, "We have now close to $10 trillion, think of that, $10 trillion" in investments. "We’re talking about essentially two months."

The White House has pointed to investment announcements totaling $5.1 trillion, including $2.1 trillion from companies and the rest from countries. 

That’s at least $4.9 trillion short of Trump’s figure, and these announcements represent future spending, some of which is planned over four years, five years or a decade. 

Experts said many of the dollar amounts are aspirational and that the investments announced might never be fully reached. They also said some of this investment would have occurred regardless of who was president.

We rate the statement False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

This live blog is now closed. You can read our latest reporting on the Kashmir crisis here:

• India claims to have thwarted Pakistan missile and drone strikes
• ‘There will be war’: fear and defiance across border

The Pakistan Aviation Authority has announced that operations at Karachi airport will be suspended until midnight, Reuters reports. It has just gone past 6pm in Karachi.

Reuters is also carrying comments from India’s foreign secretary, who has said that any further escalation would be escalation by Pakistan, and would be responded to. Pakistan would, he said, be responsible for the consequences if India infrastructure was targeted.

Some users wonder whether new pope has had Chicago’s favorite liqueur Malört while others reference The Bear

• Pope Leo XIV – live updates

The internet exploded with humor and Chicago pride on Thursday following the historic announcement that Robert Francis Prevost, a 69-year-old American clergyman from Chicago, has been named the new pope.

Now known as Pope Leo XIV, Prevost has become the first clergyman from the United States to lead the Roman Catholic church, ending the Vatican’s longstanding opposition to the idea of a US pontiff.

I’ve “launched” the Mac Themes Garden! It is a website showcasing more than 3,000 (and counting) Kaleidoscope from the Classic Mac era, ready to be seen, downloaded and explored! Check it out! Oh, and there also is an RSS feed you can subscribe to see themes as they are added/updated!

↫ Damien Erambert

If you’ve spent any time on retrocomputing-related social media channels, you’ve definitely seen the old classic Mac OS themes in your timeline. They are exquisitely beautiful artifacts of a bygone era, and the work Damien Erambert has been doing to make these easily available and shareable, entirely in his free time, is awesome and a massive service to the retrocomputing community.

The process to get these themes loaded up onto the website is actually a lot more involved than you might imagine. It involves a classic Mac OS virtual machine, applying themes, taking screenshots, collecting creator information, and adding everything to a database. This process is mostly manual, and Erambart estimates he’s about halfway done.

If you have classic Mac OS running somewhere, on real hardware or in a virtual machine, you can now easily theme it at your heart’s content.

A federal judge has allowed key parts of a class action lawsuit against Delta Air Lines to proceed, stemming from massive flight disruptions caused by CrowdStrike's faulty Windows update in July 2024. The Register reports: Delta blamed its reliance on Microsoft software and the CrowdStrike incident for its woes. However, according to the plaintiffs in the action (PDF), both companies offered the airline assistance, which Delta turned down. Customers of the Atlanta-based carrier affected by the delays and cancellations claim they struggled to secure refunds and compensation from the airline. The plaintiffs allege that "although Delta offered reimbursement of eligible expenses through their website and app, Delta failed to clarify that the customer would only be receiving a partial reimbursement." "Furthermore, Delta did not disclose to its customers that acceptance of the partial reimbursement would release any legal claims the customer may have against Delta until after the customer 'click[ed] on the button to accept the partial reimbursement.'" The action concerns both US domestic and international travel. The former is covered by US Department of Transportation rules, which require airline agents to "inform customers of their right to a refund ... before making an offer for alternative transportation, travel credits, vouchers, or other compensation in lieu of refunds." The latter claims come under the Montreal Convention, which is designed to be a single, universal treaty to govern airline liability. Delta, which estimated its operational losses at around half a billion dollars due to the outage, sought to dismiss the complaint. While the US District Judge, Mark H. Cohen, granted the airline's motion to dismiss some of the claims, he permitted others to proceed. These were Count I (breach of contract based on failure to refund) and Count XII (violation of the Montreal Convention).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

About two-thirds of the staff that provides free examinations for the deadly disease, which one study says affects 1 in 5 longtime miners, was recently fired.

Companies are already moving to hike their prices as U.S. tariffs bite, a move economists say is likely to drive up inflation.

Donald Trump’s all-caps executive order on policing — “STRENGTHENING AND UNLEASHING AMERICA’S LAW ENFORCEMENT TO PURSUE CRIMINALS AND PROTECT INNOCENT CITIZENS” – is less about policy and more about intent. And that intent is clear: To give Trump direct control over local law enforcement and further shield police from accountability. 

As journalist and author of “Rise of the Warrior Cop” Radley Balko puts it, “It’s a statement of intent and whether or not Trump is able to do a lot of the more pernicious and unconstitutional things he wants to do.” 

The executive order calls for “military and national security assets” to assist in local policing, directs federal resources and protections for state and local law enforcement, and enhances police protections, among other proclamations. But it reflects a deeper ambition. 

“He wants more federal militarized law enforcement under his thumb instead of under the thumb of governors or mayors,” says Balko. “He wants to use them to help with immigration deportations. He wants help with cracking down on protest.” And the concern and fear, says Balko, is that Trump will also “use law enforcement to go after his critics and people he perceives to be his enemies.” 

This week on The Intercept Briefing, Balko joins senior reporter Akela Lacy and host Jessica Washington to break down the Trump administration’s push to federalize local law enforcement and “unleash” police who already face minimal meaningful restraint.

“We’re really getting to the point where law enforcement officers have almost no accountability at all,” says Balko, who writes the newsletter The Watch. He adds, “All of this is based on a premise that isn’t true, which is that we’re in some sort of massive crime wave that’s been sweeping the country.” 

The fearmongering, Lacy notes, is that cities run by Democrats — San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Baltimore — are dangerous. 

But as Balko points out, “When [Trump] took office for the first time he had actually inherited the lowest crime rate of any president since like Eisenhower. And [he] was the first president in 40 years to leave office with a higher homicide rate than when he entered it.” While crime spiked during the pandemic under Trump, Balko continues, “Under Biden it started going down over the last two years of [his] administration and it continues to go down.” 

“The narrative,” Lacy adds, ”is extremely detached from reality.” 

But that narrative serves to justify a sweeping law-and-order agenda. 

“The vision is for police to respond to everything,” says Lacy. It’s a vision for a militarized police force with no accountability under the discretion of the president that “they can deploy to enforce any and every part of their agenda beyond criminal issues, and then further criminalize participation in the public’s sphere and exercise of constitutional rights.” 

Over the last few months, Balko adds, the federal government has increasingly used masked, unidentified agents to snatch people off the streets — not for violent crimes, but for political speech, protests, and civil offenses “in a deliberate effort to evade judicial review.”

“They’re snatching people off the street and taking them to an overseas prison that’s more like a gulag and imposing on them what’s effectively a life sentence with no due process,” Balko continues. “No habeas corpus, no judicial review whatsoever. These are very classic characteristics of a police state.” 

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

The post A Trumped Up Police State Is Coming appeared first on The Intercept.

In what's believed to be a first in U.S. courts, the family of Chris Pelkey used AI to create a video using his likeness to give him a voice.

The next pair of Sony wireless premium headphones will see a series of improvements and AI mics if leaked specs are to be believed.

This is a follow-up to the Samsung NX mini (M7MU) firmware reverse-engineering series. This part is about the proprietary LZSS compression used for the code sections in the firmware of Samsung NX mini, NX3000/NX3300 and Galaxy K Zoom. The post is documenting the step-by-step discovery process, in order to show how an unknown compression algorithm can be analyzed. The discovery process was supported by Igor Skochinsky and Tedd Sterr, and by writing the ideas out on encode.su.

↫ Georg Lukas

It’s not weekend quite yet, but here’s some light reading ahead of time.

The film-maker, whose credits also included many Madonna music videos, died of brain cancer

Director James Foley, whose credits included Glengarry Glen Ross and the Fifty Shades sequels, has died aged 71.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, his death was confirmed by his representative who said he died “peacefully in his sleep earlier this week following a years-long struggle with brain cancer”.

Yeah, I was about to say.
Phase Wires from the motor kill BLE connection, but can also effect LED data wires if they aren’t shielded.

The outlines of the agreement Trump announced Thursday did not amount to the prize the United Kingdom has been seeking.

I believe you can go to your IMU configuration in either motor or app settings and set the pitch to 0 manually

Leo says ‘evil will not prevail’ as he addresses crowd of 100,000 pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s Square

• New pope chosen: latest updates
• Robert Francis Prevost: the moderate, good-humoured first US pope
• Share your views on Pope Leo XIV

Robert Prevost, the first US cleric to lead the Roman Catholic church, has said “evil will not prevail” as he addressed a crowd of 100,000 pilgrims and tourists in his first speech as Pope Leo XIV from the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica.

The stunning election on Thursday of Prevost, who is 69 years old, as the church’s 267th pontiff, ended the Vatican’s longstanding opposition to the idea of a pontiff from the US.

The company is reportedly pulling back on some privacy concerns to give its smart glasses lineup a bigger AI boost.

President Trump will introduce a "most favored nation" plan aimed at cutting Medicare drug prices by linking them to the prices of medication abroad, sources told CBS News.

New York Attorney General Letitia James pursued the civil fraud case against President Trump while he was a presidential candidate.

The pope's name helps indicate what direction he wants to take the church.

Cameron Hamilton, acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), was fired Thursday—just one...

The post FEMA chief fired one day after stating he doesn’t think the agency should be eliminated appeared first on News Facts Network.

The political tug-of-war on student loan policy isn't helping anyone get out of debt.

After gaining attention from Neowin and DistroWatch last week, the sole maintainer behind AnduinOS 1.3 -- a Linux distribution styled to resemble Windows 11 -- decided to reveal himself. He turns out to be Anduin Xue, a Microsoft software engineer, who has been working on the project as a personal, non-commercial endeavor built on Ubuntu. Neowin reports: As a Software Engineer 2 at Microsoft (he doesn't work on Windows), Anduin Xue says he's financially stable and sees no need to commercialize AnduinOS. Explaining the financial aspects of the project, he said: "Many have asked why I don't accept donations, how I profit, and if I plan to commercialize AnduinOS. Truthfully, I haven't thoroughly considered these issues. It's not my main job, and I don't plan to rely on it for a living. Each month, I dedicate only a few hours to maintaining it. Perhaps in the future, I might consider providing enterprise solutions based on AnduinOS, but I won't compromise its original simplicity. It has always been about providing myself with a comfortably themed Ubuntu." In our coverage of the AnduinOS 1.3 release last week, one commenter pointed out that the distro is from China. For some, this will raise issues, but Anduin Xue addressed this in his blog post, too, saying that the source code is available to the public. For this reason, he told lacing the operating system with backdoors for the Chinese government would be "irrational and easily exposed." For those worried that the distribution may be abandoned, Anduin Xue said that he intends to continue supporting it and may even maintain it full-time if sponsorship or corporate cooperation emerges.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

US agency will no longer update major weather database in latest showing of Trump’s influence on climate resources

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) will no longer track the cost of climate crisis-fueled weather disasters, including floods, heatwaves, wildfires and more. It is the latest example of changes to the agency and the Trump administration limiting federal government resources on climate change.

Noaa falls under the US Department of Commerce and is tasked with daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring. It is also parent to the National Weather Service.

Jeffrey Rupnow, 42, was arrested in connection with his teenage daughter, who killed two people in the Abundant Life Christian School shooting, officials said.

On this episode, The Washington Post's Libby Casey, Rhonda Colvin and James Hohmann are joined by religion reporter Michelle Boorstein and Rome bureau chief Anthony Faiola to discuss the papal conclave and the election of the first American pope, Leo XIV. The crew breaks down the process the cardinals followed, then dives into the politics of the conclave: How cardinals make themselves candidates, and how they try to elevate their positions behind the scenes while adhering to the strict traditions surrounding the process. And finally, the crew breaks down whether the cardinals take American politics, or world politics, into account at all when choosing a new leader for the Catholic Church.

Robert Francis Prevost, who was born in Chicago and attended Villanova University, was elected as the new pope on Thursday and chose Leo XIV as his papal name.

NOAA announced that it is decommissioning several databases, including its widely reported annual compilation of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters.

Q: Did President Donald Trump call military nurse Ruby Bradley a “loser,” and were there orders for her service history to be removed from Department of Defense archives?

A: There’s no evidence for these claims. We could find no record of Trump referring to nurse Ruby Bradley, who received 34 medals for her service during World War II and the Korean War. A Pentagon spokesperson told us that there was “nothing deleted and/or taken offline related to Ruby Bradley” and “we have not received any guidance requiring the removal of content” related to her.

FULL ANSWER

Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.

Among President Donald Trump’s early executive actions in his second term was an order titled “Restoring America’s Fighting Force,” which called for the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security to “abolish every DEI office” within their departments, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion programs based on “race and sex preferences within the Armed Forces.”

In the weeks that followed Trump’s order, and a subsequent memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth calling for a “digital content refresh,” the Department of Defense deleted websites and social media pages that highlighted the historic roles of women and some ethnic and racial groups in the military.

The angry blowback from military families, lawmakers and the public in general led to the Defense Department’s reassessment and restoration of some, but not all, of the content. A page about baseball star Jackie Robinson’s military experience was restored, but content about other Black players talking about their military service was deleted, NBC News reported.

Ripples of distrust following the digital purge continue, including an unfounded claim circulating on social media regarding a heroic World War II nurse. We received numerous emails asking about the claim, including one reader who said: “I recently saw a social media post claiming that President Trump called WWII Veteran Ruby Bradley a ‘loser’ for being captured and ‘woke’. Additionally, it claimed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is wiping her military records. Is this true?”

We found no evidence for such claims. We could find no record of Trump referring to Bradley in his social media posts or public remarks. And a Pentagon spokesperson told us in an email, “nothing deleted and/or taken offline related to Ruby Bradley. Also confirmed that we have not received any guidance requiring the removal of content featuring Ruby Bradley. Looks like the rumor is just that.”

In fact, we found a U.S. Army page devoted to women in the Army Medical Department, which included a spotlight on the heroic actions of Bradley, who was taken prisoner by the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II, and returned to combat duty during the Korean War.

According to that webpage, “Maj. Ruby Bradley would remain in service after the war and find herself in combat again in Korea as chief nurse for the 171st Evacuation Hospital. At the end of November 1950, the 171st was ordered to evacuate its patients and withdraw from Pyongyang where it was located. The overall evacuation of Eighth Army from North Korea outpaced the 171st’s ability to clear its area. Bradley was ordered to leave but remained with her patients until all were evacuated. As she boarded a plane to depart the area an enemy shell destroyed the ambulance she had been using to ferry patients to the airfield. Bradley demonstrated bravery under fire in two wars, and by the time she retired from the service in 1963 she had received 34 medals and citations for bravery and was reportedly the most decorated woman in the military.”

Bradley was promoted to colonel before she retired from the military. She died in 2002 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

The reference in the social media posts to Trump calling prisoners of war “losers” harks back to comments he made as a presidential candidate in 2015. Speaking about Sen. John McCain, who was held captive for over five years during the Vietnam War, Trump said that McCain “was a war hero because he was captured. … I like people who weren’t captured.”

“He lost and let us down,” Trump also said, referring to McCain’s failure to win the presidential race in 2008. “I don’t like losers,” Trump said.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, P.O. Box 58100, Philadelphia, PA 19102. 

The post Was Record of Heroic Nurse Wiped from Defense Department Archives? appeared first on FactCheck.org.

by Bianca Fortis

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

Columbia University has agreed to a $750 million settlement with 576 patients of a former doctor who sexually abused them while working at the school.

In 2023, a ProPublica investigation, published with New York Magazine, revealed how Columbia had ignored women, undermined prosecutors and ultimately protected a predator. Obstetrician-gynecologist Robert Hadden worked at the university for 20 years despite decades of complaints about him.

The university had even cleared Hadden to see patients three days after he was arrested when a patient called 911 to report that he had assaulted her during a postpartum exam. University higher-ups had been informed of the arrest but allowed Hadden to continue working for another five weeks. Patients he saw during that time also reported being assaulted.

The latest settlement, combined with payouts from previous cases, means that Columbia will have paid out more than $1 billion to resolve claims of sexual abuse by Hadden. Columbia also said that it has now settled more than 1,000 claims of sexual abuse by Hadden’s former patients.

Hadden was convicted of sex crimes in federal court in January 2023 and is now serving a 20-year prison sentence.

Laurie Kanyok, the patient who called 911, said the settlement is bittersweet. “It’s emotional because it’s been 13 years,” she told ProPublica.

She also said that financial compensation does not amount to justice.

“I’m grateful that I’m involved in this,” Kanyok said. “At the same time, I feel like I want to see people held accountable and not just somebody’s insurance company or checkbook.”

Unlike in other high-profile cases involving sexual abuse by doctors, no administrators from Columbia have been fired or have stepped down as a result of the Hadden case.

In a statement, Columbia acknowledged failing to protect Hadden’s patients. “We deeply regret the pain that his patients suffered, and this settlement is another step forward in our ongoing work and commitment to repair harm and support survivors,” the statement said. “We commend the survivors for their bravery in coming forward.”

The latest settlement puts Columbia on par with the largest payout ever by a university to settle sexual abuse claims. In 2021, the University of Southern California agreed to pay $1.1 billion to survivors of George Tyndall, a university gynecologist who abused thousands of women.

Anthony DiPietro, the attorney who handled most of the Columbia claims, said the lesson from this week’s settlement is clear: Institutions “cannot continue to cover up sexual exploitation and abuse by their doctors because they’re going to be held accountable.”

Weeks after ProPublica’s investigation, Columbia announced that it would set up a $100 million settlement fund for patients who did not want to file civil suits. Survivors have about another week, until May 15, to submit a claim.

As part of the same announcement, Columbia also said it would notify all of Hadden’s nearly 6,500 former patients of the doctor’s crimes and that it would commission an external investigation to examine failures that allowed the abuse to go on for so long.

Asked about the status of that investigation, which was announced a year and a half ago, the university said it is ongoing. Columbia did not give a time frame for the report’s completion.

Newark City Manager Tom Coleman recently received the credentialed manager designation from International City/County Management Association.

Tears of the Kingdom's most important core mechanic, the Ultrahand ability, is confusing and unwieldy. The Switch 2 edition of the game aims to fix that.

Some of Nintendo's best games pushed the Switch to its limits. Switch 2 editions will buff them out with better graphics and improved frame rates.

Pakistan tried to hit Indian-administered Kashmir, Punjab and Rajasthan, according to India, which reported ‘no losses’

India claimed to have thwarted retaliatory missile and drone strikes launched by Pakistan on Thursday evening, which attempted to hit sites in Indian-administered Kashmir, Punjab and Rajasthan.

Residents in Jammu, in Indian-controlled Kashmir, reported missiles and drones over the city and the noise of explosions, amid a city-wide blackout.

Priests are required to report child abuse or neglect to Washington state law enforcement after learning about the crime through confessions.

The Basilisk Mobile and Joro are an ergonomic mouse and keyboard, and the Clio is a gaming chair head cushion with wireless sound.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The US Senate today voted along party lines to kill a Federal Communications Commission program to distribute Wi-Fi hotspots to schoolchildren, with Democrats saying the Republican-led vote will make it harder for kids without reliable Internet access to complete their homework. The Senate approved a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to nullify the hotspot rule, which was issued by the Federal Communications Commission in July 2024 under then-Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. The program would be eliminated if the House version passes and President Trump signs the joint resolution of disapproval. The Rosenworcel FCC's rule expanded E-Rate, a Universal Service Fund program, allowing schools and libraries to use E-Rate funding to lend out Wi-Fi hotspots and services that could be used off-premises. The FCC rule was titled, "Addressing the Homework Gap through the E-Rate Program," and the hotspot lending program was scheduled to begin in funding year 2025, which starts in July 2025. Today's Senate vote on the resolution of disapproval was 50-38. There was a 53-47 vote on Tuesday that allowed the Senate measure to proceed to the final step. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said on Tuesday that "this resolution would prevent millions of students, educators, and families from getting online." Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) called the Republican move "a cruel and shortsighted decision that will widen the digital divide and rob kids of the tools they need to succeed."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cameron Hamilton, FEMA's acting administrator, is leaving the nation's disaster relief agency, after saying he didn't support eliminating FEMA.

Prince Harry and King Charles will need to put past grievances to one side if they are to move on from their estrangement, experts say

For most families, fallouts and squabbles are a regular occurrence. But what happens when those rifts deepen to an estrangement, such as appears to have beset the royal family and the Beckhams, and how can relationships be rebuilt?

According to the following psychologists and psychotherapists, family reconciliation requires both sides taking accountability for their behaviour and not letting past grievances and trauma block efforts to meaningfully re-engage with estranged relatives.