Federal investigators have also determined that the suspected gunman, 31-year-old Cole Allen, fired his shotgun, the sources said.
I’m in a bit of a tricky spot, any help would be appreciated. Right now I own 3 boards (2 pints and an XR). All 3 are have been well taken care of and ridden regularly, but I’m starting to want more power. On top of that, I recently got married and my wife is starting to get into the sport. She absolutely hates the pints (too small), and we often end up fighting over the XR. Currently, wifey is ok with the power and speed limitations of the XR. But that could change in the future.
In an ideal world, I’d probably sell all 3 and get 2 X7 LRs, but financially that isn’t an option. As of now, I’m planning on selling the 2 pints and keeping the XR for her. I’d probably get the X7 LR for me and VESC the XR as she get more confident.
I’d love some feedback on if that is the best use of my time and money. For context, I’m 6’1, 185 lb and my wife is 5’6, 145 lb.
NAACP, ACLU and Democratic politicians decry 6-3 supreme court decision as ‘a profound betrayal of the civil rights movement’
The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to hold interest rates steady on Wednesday after a key policy meeting, likely the last chaired by central bank chief Jerome Powell, a frequent target of president Donald Trump’s ire.
Policymakers will weigh the risks of surging energy prices and snarled supply chains due to the US-Israel war on Iran, with analysts widely expecting a third pause in a row as the effects of the conflict ripple through the world’s largest economy.
Continue reading...The singer is accused of killing 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
A United Airlines flight from San Francisco reported a close call with a drone as it was approaching to land in San Diego, authorities said.
USS Gerald R Ford to sail home after 10-month spell including role in Maduro capture and Middle East war
The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, will be heading home following a record-setting deployment of more than 300 days that included participating in the war against Iran and capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, two US officials said Wednesday.
The Ford will be leaving the Middle East in the coming days and returning to its home port in Virginia in mid-May, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to detail sensitive military movements. The Washington Post reported the development earlier.
Continue reading...The U.S. government has charged the governor of Mexico's Sinaloa state and nine other current and former Mexican officials with drug trafficking and weapons offenses in a federal indictment.
As part of his four-day trip to the U.S. to commemorate America's 250th birthday, King Charles III took part in a series of events in New York City.
Vote comes on same day the US supreme court rolls back a key provision of the Voting Rights Act
The Florida legislature approved a new congressional map intended to maximize Republicans’ advantage in the state as part of the national redistricting battle that Donald Trump launched before this year’s midterms.
The vote came just two days after the governor, Ron DeSantis, unveiled his proposal and the same day the US supreme court rolled back a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The decision could make it harder for Democrats to challenge Republican efforts to redraw congressional districts in ways that limit the influence of voters of color.
Continue reading...President Trump said Wednesday he is considering reducing the number of U.S. forces in Germany, amid a spat with Germany's chancellor and the NATO alliance over Iran.
US president’s threat comes after Germany’s Friedrich Merz suggests Trump team is being outplayed in its negotiations with Iran
The US may reduce its number of troops deployed in Germany, Donald Trump has announced, days after the country’s chancellor said America was being “humiliated” by Iran.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, the US president said his administration was “studying and reviewing the possible reduction of troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time”.
Continue reading...The war with Iran is now in its ninth week, and Congress is concerned about the reduction of global munition stockpiles and the ability to restock them.
The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier is expected to leave the Middle East in the coming days, a U.S. official confirmed to CBS News.
New court document made public in case of singer charged with murder and sexual abuse of Celeste Rivas Hernandez
Prosecutors described in a new court document how D4vd, who has been charged with the murder and sexual abuse of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, allegedly fatally stabbed her to prevent the teen from speaking out about the abuse.
The singer, whose legal name is David Anthony Burke, killed Celeste to protect his music career, prosecutors said in a brief. He met Celeste when she was 11 and began a “sexual relationship” with her when she was 13 and he was 18, according to the document.
Continue reading...The defendants are accused of having partnered with the powerful Sinaloa Cartel to “distribute massive quantities of narcotics” in the United States.
Susan Hutson accused of malfeasance and other crimes that enabled 2025 mass escape from Louisiana jail
The sheriff of New Orleans was hit on Wednesday with a sweeping 30-count indictment alleging malfeasance and payroll fraud amid an outside investigation into her office that was prompted by a massive jailbreak nearly a year earlier.
The indictment against sheriff Susan Hutson, whose duties include operating the New Orleans jail, was brought by Louisiana state attorney general Liz Murrill. It came days before Hutson was set to leave office, bringing a sudden and sharp conclusion to a tenure that began in 2022 with promises of sweeping reform.
Continue reading...President Donald Trump has imperiled civilians across the globe in an unprecedented fashion, outpacing his record of civilian harm during his first term in just the first 15 months of his second, according to experts. The spike in civilian casualties comes as Trump wages wars across the world from Africa to South America and as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth repeatedly brushed off questions by members of Congress on Wednesday about civilian casualties, the U.S. military’s adherence to the laws of war, and the Pentagon’s coordinated campaign to erode civilian harm mitigation efforts.
Trump has embroiled the U.S. in more than 20 military interventions, armed conflicts, and wars during his five-plus years in the White House, including a furious blitz during his second term. In March, for example, the United States made war on three continents over three days, conducting attacks in Africa, Asia, and South America. During that span, the U.S. also struck a civilian boat in the Pacific Ocean.
On Wednesday, Hegseth repeatedly dismissed congressional concerns about civilian harm and respect for the laws of war in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. “The Department of War fights to win,” Hegseth replied when asked if he stood by his statement that the U.S. would afford enemies “no quarter” — a war crime.
“Secretary Hegseth has presided over an expansion in U.S. military operations that has caused devastating civilian harm globally, from Yemen, Iran, and Somalia to extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean and Pacific,” said Annie Shiel, U.S. director at the Center for Civilians in Conflict. “This is against the backdrop of a serious reduction in the United States’ capacity and will to prevent civilian harm, including statements from administration officials threatening civilian infrastructure and decrying ‘stupid rules of engagement,’ and the slashing of U.S. military offices and staff tasked with preventing civilian harm.”
The U.S. has killed more than 2,000 civilians across the world during Trump’s second term from Latin America to Africa to the Middle East. “This is unprecedented in terms of the sheer number of theaters where harm to civilians has been reported within such a short space of time,” Megan Karlshoej-Pedersen, a policy specialist with Airwars, a U.K.-based organization that tracks civilian harm across the world, told The Intercept, referencing attacks in the Caribbean Sea, the Pacific Ocean, Iran, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen.
“This is unprecedented in terms of the sheer number of theaters where harm to civilians has been reported within such a short space of time.”
“Even excluding Iran, we saw that at least 381 civilians were killed by the Trump administration so far, with harm recorded across seven different theaters,” Karlshoej-Pedersen, who is also the co-founder of the Civilian Protection Monitor, explained. “Even if the Trump administration is only responsible for a proportion of those deaths, it looks as if the first year-plus of this Trump administration has been even more deadly for civilians than his whole first term,” she said.
Adding in the 1,700 civilians killed in Iran, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, pushes the death toll — and the overall threat to civilians — to a historic level.
Other counts of civilian casualties in Iran push the death toll even higher. “U.S.–Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 2,362 civilians, including 383 children, and injured over 32,314 civilians, according to official figures,” Raha Bahreini, a regional researcher with Amnesty International’s Iran Team told The Intercept and other journalists during a press briefing. This includes an attack on the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school that killed at least 175 people, most of them children.
The preliminary findings of a U.S. military investigation revealed by The Intercept and other outlets determined that the United States conducted the attack on the elementary school in Minab, contradicting assertions by Trump that Iran struck the school.
“The girls’ school that got hit in the first days of this war, there is absolutely no question at this point what happened. We made a mistake,” said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, on Wednesday. “We identified this target based on earlier charts. And yet, two months after it happened, we refused to say anything about it, giving the world the impression that we just don’t care.”
The Pentagon has deflected questions on the Minab attack for almost two months. “This incident is currently under investigation,” Hegseth’s office told The Intercept on Wednesday, while the war secretary said the same to members of Congress, refusing to answer questions about the attack.
“U.S. authorities must ensure that the investigation they announced into the unlawful strike on Minab school is impartial, independent and transparent,” said Bahreini, adding that America “must also repudiate all threats to commit war crimes and other crimes under international law and commit publicly to full respect for international humanitarian law, particularly the prohibition of directing attacks at civilians and civilian objects.”
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump threatened to commit genocide in Iran, ahead of warnings of a wave of attacks on civilian infrastructure. After backing off, Trump lobbed new threats on Truth Social on Wednesday. “Iran can’t get their act together,” Trump wrote, above an AI-generated image of himself, donning sunglasses and carrying an automatic rifle, with explosions going off in the background. The caption of the image reads, “No more Mr. Nice Guy!”
During his testimony on Wednesday, Hegseth lobbed his own bellicose threats. “The days in which these narco-terrorists — Designated Terrorist Organizations — operated freely in our hemisphere are over,” he said. “We are tracking them. We are killing them.” Under Operation Southern Spear, the U.S. military has conducted 55 attacks on so-called drug boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific Ocean, destroying 56 vessels and killing more than 185 civilians since last September. The latest strike, on April 26 in the Pacific, killed three people. The Trump administration claims its victims are members of at least one of 24 or more cartels and criminal gangs with whom it claims to be at war but refuses to name.
The casualties in Yemen include an attack on an immigrant detention center last year, killing and injuring dozens of Ethiopian civilians, according to an investigation by Amnesty International. “The Trump administration’s Yemen campaign, and this attack in particular, should have set off alarm bells for anyone invested in how the U.S. military operates, and the amount of care or disdain it shows for civilian life,” said Kristine Beckerle, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. “One year on, not only has there been no discernible progress towards justice and reparation, but we’re still lacking basic information about what happened in the Yemen attack, why it happened and what steps if any the U.S. military has taken to address it.”
When it comes to the Trump administration’s neglect for civilian harm, experts say Yemen was the canary in the coal mine. Airwars tracked reports of at least 224 civilians in Yemen killed by U.S. airstrikes during the Trump administration’s campaign of air and naval strikes — codenamed Operation Rough Rider — against Yemen’s Houthi government in the spring of 2025. This nearly doubled the civilian casualty toll in Yemen from U.S. attacks since 2002, meaning that almost as many civilians were reportedly killed in 52 days as the previous 23 years of airstrikes and commando raids. The Yemen Data Project put the death toll at 238 civilians, at a minimum, and another 467 civilians injured.
Hegseth spent Wednesday defending the Pentagon’s civilian harm mitigation machinery in the face of evidence that he has consistently taken steps to undermine it.
“I know that there is no country on Planet Earth that takes more measures to ensure that civilian harm or civilian casualties are minimized than the United States of America and this War Department. And that is a fact,” he told the House Armed Services Committee. But Hegseth has gutted the Pentagon offices responsible for civilian harm mitigation and fired the Air Force’s and Army’s top judge advocates general to avoid “roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief.” Distinguished former JAGs and members of Congress have repeatedly spoken out about Hegseth’s efforts to undermine the independence of military legal counsel and subvert military justice.
The Intercept also found that U.S. Southern Command is unable to cope with the volume of civilian casualty reports stemming from the military mission to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, according to two government officials. Instead, the Pentagon itself is accepting reports directly.
On Wednesday afternoon, Rep. Jill Tokuda, D-Hawaii, raised the issue of the war secretary’s cuts to Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response efforts. “You eliminated the department’s civilian harm reduction staff,” she said, then asking, “Would you not agree something failed because almost 200 children died in Iran as a result of our bombing?”
Hegseth replied, “You’re insinuating something where an investigation is not complete.”
The post Hegseth Brags of a Deadlier War Machine as U.S. Unleashes “Devastating Civilian Harm Globally” appeared first on The Intercept.
A federal judge denied Sam Bankman-Fried's request for a new trial, calling his claims of DOJ witness intimidation "wildly conspiratorial" and unsupported by the record. Judge Lewis Kaplan said (PDF) the FTX founder's motion appeared tied to a pre-indictment plan to recast himself as a Republican victim of Biden's DOJ in hopes of gaining sympathy, leniency, or even a Trump pardon. Ars Technica reports: Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2024 for "masterminding one of the largest financial frauds in American history," US District Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in his order. He was convicted on all charges, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, commodities fraud, and money laundering. There is already an appeal pending in another court, the judge noted. But Bankman-Fried filed a separate motion for a new trial, claiming that there were "newly discovered" witnesses and evidence that might have helped his defense, if Joe Biden's Department of Justice hadn't intimidated them into refusing to testify or, in one case, lying on the stand. He also asked for a new judge, wanting Kaplan to recuse himself. However, Kaplan pointed out that "none of the witnesses" were "newly discovered." And more concerningly, Bankman-Fried offered no evidence that the witnesses could prove the "wildly conspiratorial" theory the FTX founder raised, claiming that their absence at the trial was a "product of government threats and retaliation," the judge wrote. Bankman-Fried's theory is "entirely contradicted by the record," Kaplan said. He emphasized that granting Bankman-Fried's request "would be a large waste of judicial resources as it could require another judge to familiarize himself or herself with an extensive and complicated record." Additionally, all three witnesses that Bankman-Fried claimed could give crucial testimony in his defense were known to him throughout the trial, and he never sought to compel their testimony. And the "self-serving social-media posts" of one witness who now claims that he lied when testifying against Bankman-Fried -- "Ryan Salame, who pleaded guilty" -- must be met with "utmost suspicion," Kaplan said. "If one were to take Salame at his current word, he lied under oath when pleading guilty before this Court," Kaplan wrote. Even if taken seriously, "his out-of-court, unsworn statements could not come anywhere close to clearing the bar to warrant a new trial," Kaplan said, deeming Salame's credibility "highly questionable." Further, "even if these individuals had testified for Bankman-Fried, his protestations that one or more of them would have supported his claims that FTX was not insolvent and that his victims all were compensated fully in the bankruptcy proceedings are inaccurate or misleading," Kaplan concluded. In the order, Kaplan's frustration seems palpable, as there may have been no need for him to rule on the motion at all after Bankman-Fried requested to withdraw it. But the judge said the ruling was needed after Bankman-Fried waited to file his withdrawal request until after the DOJ and the court wasted time responding and reviewing filings, the judge said. Troublingly, Bankman-Fried's request to withdraw his request without prejudice would have allowed him to potentially request a new trial after the appeal ended. Based on the substance of the filing, that risked wasting future court resources, Kaplan determined. To prevent overburdening the justice system, Kaplan deemed it necessary to deny Bankman-Fried's motion and request for recusal, rather than allow him to withdraw the filing without prejudice.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Another update may help iPhone users switch quickly between photo, video and portrait modes.
Spirit Airlines only has enough available cash to continue operations for a matter of days, not weeks, and talks for a government-backed rescue of the no-frills carrier have stalled, sources say.
Elon Musk alleges that OpenAI reneged on a promise to operate as a nonprofit dedicated to human progress.
Report calls for tough action to combat ‘escalating and unsustainable burden’ of liver-related problems in Europe
Governments in Europe should impose much higher taxes on alcohol and unhealthy food to tackle the continent’s 284,000 deaths a year from liver disease, experts say.
Taxes on those products should rise sharply enough for the money raised to cover the huge costs they place on health services, the criminal justice system and social services.
Continue reading...Results suggest radiotracer maraciclatide can ‘light up’ condition on scan and reduce need for investigative surgery
A non-invasive scan for endometriosis has shown promising results in a trial, boosting hopes for far quicker diagnosis.
The trial, which included 19 women with the condition, suggests that an experimental radiotracer, called maraciclatide, can “light up” endometriosis on a scan. The current need for a surgical investigation is seen as a major obstacle to timely diagnosis, with women in England typically waiting nearly a decade.
Continue reading...Amazon confirms in a surprise announcement that its annual sales extravaganza is coming earlier this year. Here's the scoop on what we've learned so far.
PocketOS was left scrambling after a rogue AI agent deleted swaths of code underpinning its business
It only took nine seconds for an AI coding agent gone rogue to delete a company’s entire production database and its backups, according to its founder. PocketOS, which sells software that car rental businesses rely on, descended into chaos after its databases were wiped, the company’s founder Jeremy Crane said.
The culprit was Cursor, an AI agent powered by Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 model, which is one of the AI industry’s flagship models. As more industries embrace AI in an attempt to automate tasks and even replace workers, the chaos at PocketOS is a reminder of what could go wrong.
Continue reading...Fed chief Jerome Powell said he will remain as a governor on the central bank's board after his term as chair ends on May 15.
Far-right Republicans in the House, including many members of the Freedom Caucus, revealed the price of their support for a controversial surveillance law this week: a ban on the unrelated and hypothetical possibility that the U.S. government might one day issue digital currency.
Twenty Republicans who opposed a procedural vote earlier this month flipped their position on Wednesday to allow a vote on a three-year extension of the law that allows government agents to search Americans’ communications without a warrant.
Not all the Republicans voted for the final version of the bill, which passed 235–191, but they were crucial in giving Johnson a hand on an initial procedural vote.
The final bill drew the support of dozens of Democrats, who backed it despite the polarizing central bank digital currency ban. One of the most prominent backers was Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, who gave a floor speech in support.
“We are spending some time now talking to those who want a bill that shows you can have both security and liberty.”
Now that it includes a digital currency ban, however, the House version of the law faces dim prospects in the Senate. The upshot of Johnson’s maneuvering may be that the Senate has the final say on surveillance reforms.
Longtime privacy champion Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told The Intercept that the versions of reauthorization on the table — one a three-year “clean” extension offered by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and the other the House version with the digital currency ban — were both “deeply flawed and unacceptable.”
Instead, he is pitching colleagues on requiring a warrant before government agents can search through foreign surveillance databases for the communications of Americans.
“We are spending some time now talking to those who want a bill that shows you can have both security and liberty,” Wyden said, “and they are not mutually exclusive.”
The high-stakes deliberations are happening against the backdrop of a looming deadline to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which underpins much of the National Security Agency’s global surveillance apparatus.
The law authorizes much of the most valuable surveillance populating intelligence agency reports. It has also been abused hundreds of thousands of times by officials at the FBI to scour through Americans’ communications.
Johnson tried and failed to secure an extension of the law with minor tweaks earlier this month. Conservatives joined Democrats in opposing that push, and Congress ultimately wound up passing a short-term extension of the law that expires Friday.
The deadline is manufactured, many reformers say. A secretive intelligence court has already granted the government yearlong orders allowing it to continue scooping up information from private providers.
The Senate was set to hold its own vote on the surveillance bill Tuesday but wound up postponing it. In a floor speech, Wyden chalked the delay up to skepticism from senators about the bill in its current form. He called for discussions about reforms.
The nature of those negotiations remained up in the air Wednesday. Some senators said it was possible that Congress would pass another short-term extension of the law.
On Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who caucuses with the Democrats, told The Intercept, “The last thing I heard is that there was going to be another extension to give us more time to figure it out and get the House to decide what they want to do.”
Wyden and other reformers have long pushed for a warrant requirement before government agents can search NSA databases for information on Americans. They say the need for reform is only more urgent now that artificial intelligence has made combing through those databases easier than ever.
They are pushing back against long-held skepticism from members of Congress who contend that requiring agents to get a court order would be too unwieldy in practice.
In an email to colleagues, for example, Himes, of the House Intelligence Committee, said that he would vote to reauthorize FISA “because it is essential to keeping our country and our constituents safe from terrorists, cartels, spies, state-sponsored hackers, and other national security threats.”
Himes said on the House floor later that the process leading up to the vote on Wednesday was flawed.
“We are where we are, and it is a binary choice. And allowing this authority to expire, which I think we are close to, is not an option,” he said.
“The reality is we are further along in real reform than we have been since I have been in public service.”
Wyden expressed optimism, citing the bipartisan coalition that has so far stymied President Donald Trump’s demand for a clean extension.
“The reality is, we are further along in real reform than we have been since I have been in public service,” he said.
Whatever version of the law the Senate settles on, it likely will not involve a central bank digital currency ban. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has already described that idea as “dead on arrival.”
“That’s messing around with a very important national security issue,” King said of the ban.
Still, the ban gave Johnson a crucial boost in securing House passage of his own version of the FISA law. The ban on government-issued digital currency took aim at a boogeyman of the far right that is nowhere close to becoming reality.
For years, conservatives have fretted over the idea that the U.S. Federal Reserve could launch a digital currency that could be traded electronically. Currently, there is no way for ordinary Americans to exchange money through electronic means without the help of a private intermediary, such as PayPal or Visa. A central bank digital currency would give people an option to pass money without the for-profit companies involved.
The Federal Reserve never came close to implementing a digital currency under President Joe Biden, however, and one of Trump’s first acts upon taking office was to issue an executive order aimed at banning research into them.
While conservatives have raised concerns that a central bank digital currency could allow the government to surveil Americans’ every transaction, the issue is distinct from the foreign surveillance law that lays out the NSA’s powers.
Before the bill reached the floor, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, unsuccessfully attempted to strip out the central bank digital currency ban during a House Rules Committee hearing on Tuesday.
“Republicans are obsessed with random, fringe issues,” McGovern said, “instead of doing literally anything to bring down the cost of living.”
The post Mike Johnson Used Crypto Catnip to Get Freedom Caucus Support for Domestic Spy Law appeared first on The Intercept.
From cameras to batteries to displays, here's how all the specs stack up.
Canonical's plan to add AI features to Ubuntu has sparked pushback from users who are concerned it could follow Windows 11's AI-heavy direction. "After Canonical's announcement earlier this week that it's bringing AI features to Ubuntu, replies included requests for an AI 'kill switch' or a way to disable the upcoming features," reports The Verge. Canonical says it has no plans for a "global AI kill switch" but it will allow users to remove any AI features they don't want. From the report: In his original post, [Canonical's VP of engineering, Jon Seager] said the upcoming AI features will include accessibility tools like AI speech-to-text and text-to-speech, along with agentic AI features for tasks like troubleshooting and automation. Canonical is also encouraging its engineers to use AI more and plans to begin introducing AI features in Ubuntu "throughout the next year." In a follow-up comment, Seager clarified that, "my plan is to introduce AI-backed features as a 'preview' on a strictly opt-in basis in [Ubuntu version] 26.10. In subsequent releases, my plan is to have a step in the initial setup wizard that allows the user to choose whether or not they'd like the AI-native features enabled." Ultimately, he said, "All of these capabilities will be delivered as Snaps to the OS, layered on top of the existing Ubuntu stack. That means there will always be the option of removing those Snaps." Users who prefer to avoid AI entirely could switch to other distros like Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, or Zorin OS. "These distros have some similarities to Ubuntu, but may not necessarily adopt the new AI features Canonical is rolling out," adds The Verge.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Like mentioned, I ordered a set of tech rails ice blocks to lower my GT because I just don’t like the top heavy-ness of it. I used to have a pint X and it was honestly more fun to ride besides the lack of range and always riding push back. In the curves, it easily beats the GT. Sometimes the GT feels like a chore to handle.
Anyway, I’m going to install ice blocks on my GT in hopes to make it handle a little better and inspire more confidence in the corners.
Is there anything I should know? Will lowering the GT improve the handling in the way I hope?
Detroit automaker expects big financial boost from refund of tariffs struck down earlier this year by the Supreme Court.
A powerful surveillance authority that the U.S. government uses to spy on foreigners cleared the House on Wednesday.
The astronauts joined president in Oval Office for a press conference, and it wasn’t long before he praised himself
Donald Trump hosted the crew of the historic Artemis II lunar flyby mission at the White House on Wednesday.
The four astronauts – commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen – joined the president in the Oval Office for a celebratory meeting and press conference.
Continue reading...A seventeen-second video shows a dark-haired man rapping his pale knuckles gently below the tinted windows of a silver minivan. He stands back, shoving his hands into the pockets of his puffer coat, his boyish face twisted into a severe expression. The car drives off, and the camera pans to follow it down the suburban Minneapolis road. No words are spoken.
Splashed across the screen, a bright red and white caption reads, “ICE was circling a local elementary school. I knocked on their door to have a conversation, but they ran away instead.”
The man is Matt Little, 41, a former mayor and state senator from nearby Lakeville seen as the front-runner to replace outgoing Democratic Rep. Angie Craig in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional district.
He’s staking much of his campaign on one of the most politically salient issues in the Twin Cities. In a series of videos pinned to his campaign Instagram under the name “GET ICE OUT,” Little documents himself at protests and in encounters with immigration enforcement agents. “When I’m elected to congress,” wrote Little in a January post, “we will hold ICE accountable.”
Not everyone in his district is buying it.
“For me, it smells like, ‘I’m going to try to use this to bolster my chances in a time of crisis,’” Paul Peterson, a local ICE rapid responder, told The Intercept. “Never let a good crisis go to waste, right?”
In his mostly suburban Minneapolis district, Little’s top political issue is at once highly motivating and highly fraught. As 3,000 federal agents descended on Minnesota for “Operation Metro Surge,” killing Alex Pretti and Renee Good and wounding or abducting scores more, Minnesotans who had not so much as lifted a protest sign a year ago joined ICE rapid response networks. Given the gravity of agents’ often unpredictable violence, many saw their work as putting their lives on the line.
Democratic politicians are eager to turn engaged protesters and observers into door-knockers and voters. Nationwide examples point to a proof of concept: Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka’s approval ratings skyrocketed after he was arrested for trespassing while monitoring an immigration detention facility. Brad Lander, then a New York City mayoral candidate who is now running for Congress, saw his star rise after his arrest outside of a Manhattan immigration court. Illinois congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh finished second in a crowded primary after generating high-profile headlines for her federal indictment over a protest outside an ICE processing center near Chicago. (Baraka’s charges were dropped days after his arrest, and on Wednesday, federal prosecutors said they planned to dismiss felony charges against Abughazaleh. Lander rejected a deal to drop his charges last year and said he’d prefer to go to trial.)
“That was kind of personal for me because my wife is an immigrant.”
In the area around Minneapolis, the surge was “surreal,” Little told The Intercept in a joint interview with his wife, Coco. “It was kind of all-encompassing there for many months. We knew we had to be out there. That was kind of personal for me because my wife is an immigrant.”
The Intercept spoke with nearly a dozen people involved in ICE rapid response networks in and around the Minneapolis suburbs, including in leadership positions, several of whom felt that Little was “cosplaying” as an observer and overstating his activism for political clout. Others speculated that the outrage was manufactured to ruin his chances at the nomination.
There’s an inherent tension between enraged protesters who take matters into their own hands, outside of official political channels, and politicians who want to harness their rage into electoral energy. It raises the question of who gets to wear the mantle of resistance and blurs the line between when politicians are supportive — and when they’re extractive.
“There are many different legitimate ways for politicians to amplify our movements, like resistance to ICE,” said Justin Hansford, executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard Law School, “but how they do it is of the utmost importance.”
In the suburbs of Minneapolis, the question of “how” would eventually tear a small community in half.
Jessica Vinar carries with her the hallmarks of progressive Minnesota politics. She’s a teacher, wearing a school lanyard adorned with pride pins, political buttons, and a small 3D-printed whistle, the preferred ICE-alerting tool seen on residents’ keychains and in small bowls at cafe entrances across the city.
In a bustling coffee shop in the heart of Minneapolis’s South Side, Vinar recounted the events of February 17, when she joined a group watching the roads for blacked-out SUVs in the once-sleepy Minneapolis suburb of Savage. An online ICE-monitoring website had reported multiple federal agents armed with weapons and clad in tactical gear.
Vinar learned that one of her companions was congressional candidate Matt Little, and the others were journalists from the New York Times. Dashcam videos from the scene shared with The Intercept show Little standing with two other people next to a dark gray car that appears to be his, and one white SUV, which he identifies as ICE’s. “There’s two more down that way,” Vinar tells Little in the video. He responds: “All right, will you hang out here with us for a little bit?”
There’s a six-minute gap in the dashcam video, when Vinar’s car is off and she’s standing outside. Vinar said she watched as the journalists photographed Little interacting with ICE agents and standing outside of a home. Then, “I hear him say something like, ‘I’m gonna see if they’ll chase me,’” Vinar recalled. “And they all pile into his vehicle, and they drive off.”
The day’s events received coverage in the New York Times and The Intercept, and Little confirmed this version of the events. But Vinar and Little disagree on what happened next.
In Vinar’s telling, she was left standing outside, alone, with an ICE vehicle behind her. When she gets back in her car and turns the camera back on, Little’s gray SUV is gone, and three other cars she identified as ICE’s are present. Masked people who appear to be federal agents drive past Vinar in the white SUV, waving and recording her. Then Little returns, following the white ICE vehicle as it drives past Vinar’s car a second time. The whole thing is over in a matter of minutes.
Little, who said he has not seen the dashcam video himself, told The Intercept that he thought the only ICE vehicle in the area had pulled out to follow him when he left, so he didn’t believe he’d left Vinar with the agents by herself. Vinar claims he did know and notes that, as captured in her video, she told him. Little told The Intercept that he believed that the additional vehicles she’d mentioned had left.
Several rapid responders in the area told The Intercept they have a strict protocol to never leave another observer alone with ICE, though one said people do get left alone from time to time. (Several activists spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from federal officials.)
Peterson, who patrols for rapid response throughout the wider region and was in the chat, said he “isn’t politically involved,” and did not know who Little was ahead of the incident. “I don’t care about the theatrics of it,” he said, “[but] he put one of my people at risk, and that’s not OK.”
The incident blew up across an intricate network of Signal chats, the local rapid response groups’ digital, decentralized town square. Was Little “trying to be helpful,” one chat member posed to The Intercept, or, as some suspected, “was Matt just staging a photo op?”
In a message reviewed by The Intercept, one person accused Vinar of changing her story after realizing it was Little. In Vinar’s initial message, she said that ICE agents had followed Little and circled back to harass her; she then clarified that Little had left the scene with agents still present. Another observer wrote that Little was claiming Vinar’s story was “typical last-minute misinformation.”
Little told The Intercept he “can only speak from” his own experience, but he and his wife are framing the activists’ anger as a manufactured political play. Vinar caucused for his opponent, state Rep. Kaela Berg, at a convention following the incident, Little added in a written statement after his interview. Pointing to his wife, he wrote, “Coco believed and still believes this is being spread as a political attack.”
Coco also reached out to Savage resident Mark Kloempken and his wife, whose home was at the center of the February 17 incident. Kloempken said he was enjoying the day’s mild weather, unconcerned about the ICE agent parked by his driveway.
“I’m waving to them and saying ‘hi,’” he said. “They seem friendly. They’re not a big deal.” Kloempken left to get some lunch, playing “Ice, Ice, baby,” as he drove off.
“[She] hates that I did that,” he said, indicating his wife, who asked to remain anonymous when they spoke to The Intercept over Zoom from their Savage home.
The couple had met Little a week prior to the incident. They said the politician was handing out whistles in their neighborhood when he offered to take Kloempken’s wife along with him to an immigration raid on a nearby apartment building.
“I’m old,” she told The Intercept — meaning, she’s not in any of the Signal groups. But she believes that Little was not being performative. “The day I went on that impromptu ride with him, there were no pictures, no photos taken of anything,” she said, adding, “he had me film what was going on so that he could drive.”
She said Little instructed her not to go out alone. “You always have to have two people,” she recalled him saying.
At what point do politicians’ shows of solidarity become performative, or even counterproductive? It’s a question that has troubled Hansford of Howard Law for years.
Hansford, 45, got his start in activism in earnest in Ferguson, Missouri, shortly after police officer Darren Wilson shot an unarmed Black teenager, Michael Brown, igniting a firestorm of activism across the country. Over the years, Hansford has worked closely with politicians and movement organizers on shaping policy and finding common ground.
“If you look up ‘extractive’ in the dictionary, it will be a picture of Nancy Pelosi with kente cloth on.”
Those relationships can end up being exploitative, said Hansford, pointing to the aftermath of the protests against police brutality after the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. In 2020, after Democrats harnessed the energy of Black Lives Matter and other mass mobilization efforts to win a trifecta in the White House, the Senate, and the House, they failed to pass any of the signature legislation that movement leaders were calling for, instead favoring stunts like an infamous photo of Democratic leadership kneeling in red and green Ghanaian kente stoles.
“If you look up ‘extractive’ in the dictionary, it will be a picture of Nancy Pelosi with kente cloth on,” said Hansford.
Still, “it’s smart for [Democratic] candidates to tap into the energy around ICE,” said Nina Smith, a political communications strategist and former senior adviser to Stacy Abrams. “Their constituents are being harmed and impacted by this financially, mentally, and at times physically. So they have to talk about this issue.”
In Minnesota, activists did point to examples of politicians who were quietly protecting the community without looking for a political moment. Many cited Aurin Chowdhury, a 29-year-old Minneapolis City Council member who speaks with the exasperation of someone who is as tired of the political establishment as she is committed to challenging it. By the time the federal occupation had ended, Chowdhury had been tear-gassed several times and became a mainstay in anti-ICE activities throughout the city.
“When you have masked men and guns occupying your city by the thousands, killing people, taking children, separating them from their families, terrorizing pregnant women — that reality becomes right in front of your face,” Chowdhury said. “It felt impossible to just sit at my computer and answer emails, or try to hold, like, a constituent meeting.”
Tucked away in a quiet corner of city hall, Chowdhury seems aware of how easily popular movements can be used for individual political gains.
“Just listen to what people are saying.”
“I worry that that’s something that can happen when the struggle of people is co-opted by high-level Democratic leaders who are seen as elites and are only willing to take incremental steps versus, like, actually addressing the heart of the issue,” she said. She urged Democratic party leadership to worry less about questions like “What is the message? And how do we get the American people on our side?”
“Maybe it’s just listen to what people are saying,” Chowdhury said, “and be bold and take risks.”
Matt Little is polite. He says “whoa” with a Midwesterner’s elongated O-sound, revealing more surprise than irritation when met with a new accusation.
He has spent most of his adult life on the political scene. He was elected to serve on the Lakeville City Council in 2010, when he was 25 years old. Two years later, while in law school, he became the youngest mayor in Lakeville’s history, defeating heavy outside spending from the Koch brothers’ super PAC Americans for Prosperity with a large war chest largely from labor unions. After one term as mayor, he was elected to the state Senate as a member of the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party representing Lakeville, Farmington, and southern Dakota County, where he also served one term before he was unseated by Republican Zach Duckworth.
As a congressional candidate, Little has positioned himself as a standard-fare progressive, focusing his campaign on largely local issues like affordability and “getting ICE out of Minnesota.” His website boasts a section on an “Anti-ICE Bill of Rights,” which calls for a series of reforms, including banning federal agents from wearing masks and cutting ICE funding to pre-Trump levels. Little has not joined calls from other progressive candidates to “Abolish ICE” — instead calling to “replace” the agency with a different federal immigration agency.
Not unlike in his mayoral campaign over a decade prior, Little received endorsements from several labor unions, including the Minnesota Postal Workers Union and National Nurses United.
Little says that he’s “only posted a small margin” of the work he’s done on ICE and seemed confused by accusations that he was chasing clout. He sent The Intercept a list of roughly a dozen instances over the last six months where he claims he responded to ICE activity — some of which were documented on his social media.
“When you are in a leadership position in the community, and you have a platform to highlight the awful things that ICE is doing. You should use it,” he told The Intercept.
In addition to his political work, Matt Little is a practicing attorney with a personal injury firm called Little Law. In 2021, he represented Kami Sanders, then on the local school council, in a case where she accused a school board member of campaign finance violations. In February, she called him to ream him out.
“It would be super helpful if you would get your ass out here and actually help us,” she recalls telling Little over the phone, adding, “and leave your camera crews at home!”
Sanders is one of the older activists in the network of rapid responders. She has salt-and-pepper hair, vibrant and commanding eyes, and a face worn with decades of political work. She didn’t grow up in Minnesota, and instead carries a prominent East Texas accent and a homegrown personality to match. She answers questions by telling long, profanity-laced stories that crescendo into fiery one-liners like, “You can go fuck yourself until the cows come home.”
In the southern suburbs, four Minnesota state senators established one of the first rapid-response networks in the area and later designated themselves as the sole administrators of the group’s Signal thread — an unusual format for Minnesota anti-ICE resistance. According to Sanders, who administers the Dakota County Signal group, which includes Lakeville, while many elected officials were valuable participants in rapid response activities, power imbalances among some leaders and residents quickly created a rift within the network.
“They would only dispatch in the areas that they were elected,” said Sanders. “That feels political to me.”
Still, she credits them for showing up and for not publicizing their involvement for political gain. Sanders said she cannot say the same for Little.
“There are other politicians in this who actually have been boots on the ground and are not using it. I mean, one of his opponents has been boots on the ground, and you never hear her talk about it,” said Sanders, referring to Berg.
The fact that the congressional candidate received coverage in the country’s premier mainstream newspaper appears to have further riled some of the activists. “When the New York Times article came out,” said Peterson, “everybody was kind of like, wait, do you guys see him around here? Because I sure haven’t.”
Peterson, a former military member, police officer, and longtime Republican from Kentucky, espoused a persistent suspicion of American politics. He said the occupation of the Twin Cities prompted a shift in his political beliefs — just not the sort that you can vote for. His deep skepticism of politicians extends to Little, whom he accused of “grifting” off the movement.
By March, Little’s campaign was in crisis management mode. At a meet-and-greet at a crowded local restaurant, dodging plates of chicken fingers and quesadillas, Little admitted that he had “some apologies to make.”
“I got incredibly defensive,” Little said, his hands hovering by his heart as he spoke, “and I thought it was just a political attack. It became very clear to me from conversations today and yesterday that there was no political motivation.”
Supporting Vinar’s version of the story, he added, “It also became very clear to me that ICE was still in the neighborhood. And had I communicated better with observers that were there, I would have known that.”
A month later, however, Little is adamant that he led “the only remaining ICE vehicle away” from the house that day.
“If [Vinar] is saying that ICE drove by that house again after I left, then yes, I believe her and have told her that directly and multiple times,” he wrote in a statement to The Intercept on Monday. “But when I left, there were no ICE vehicles remaining.” He added that he was frustrated Vinar had not released her videos from the scene.
“If this isn’t about politics, then just release the full dash cam video so everyone can see what actually happened,” Little wrote.
“It is campaign season,” his wife said in the couple’s joint interview. Coco, who is active in the rapid response Signal chats and has been heavily involved in her husband’s campaign, said that Vinar “probably was very concerned on that day because of what happened, but I think some are definitely using it for political gain.”
“I hate to see her being used this way,” Coco added.
Vinar said she was originally hesitant to speak out for fear of dividing the movement. But she couldn’t stomach the idea of the months of fear and work she and her friends had done in the district to be co-opted.
“It feels like he’s using residents here as props,” she said. “And that doesn’t speak well to anyone, but it really doesn’t speak well to someone who is promising to represent us in our government.”
Correction: April 29, 2026, 6:23 p.m. ET
This story has been updated to clarify which of Little’s confrontations with ICE on February 17 received media coverage.
The post ICE Watchers Worry Democrats Are Trying to Co-Opt Their Movements For Votes appeared first on The Intercept.
Actor and presenter broke his hip, right leg, pelvis and ribs when he gave a talk at CogX festival at O2 Arena in 2023
Stephen Fry is suing two companies that organised a tech conference where he was injured in 2023 after falling off the stage, high court documents show.
The actor and presenter broke his hip and had multiple breaks in his right leg, pelvis and ribs when he attended the CogX festival at the O2 Arena, where he delivered a talk on artificial intelligence on 14 September 2023.
Continue reading...Previous rumors suggest that the company behind ChatGPT could have several different devices in the works.
Next month is all about soccer and Soulslikes on PS Plus.
After a gunman sought to breach the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, some lawmakers said Secret Service agents foiled his plot even though their agency is currently unfunded during a partial government shutdown.
The day after the April 25 dinner, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., posted on X, "Secret Service remains unpaid. Left-wing leaders call for violence against conservatives. And the media acts like this is all normal."
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., echoed the point about Secret Service pay, posting on X, "Democrats have REFUSED to pay Secret Service agents for over 70 DAYS. The very agents that put their lives on the line to protect others and keep our nation safe. The Democrats need to give up this RIDICULOUS political stunt and FULLY FUND DHS."
These statements mislead about Secret Service agents’ pay. Although agents might not get paid typically under a government shutdown, the Trump administration reallocated money authorized under President Donald Trump’s 2025 signature tax and spending law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
"Under normal circumstances, a shutdown would result in some employees not receiving their normal appropriated salaries, but the administration has other resources at their disposal," said Dominik Lett, a budget policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute.
Tim Scott’s office did not respond to inquiries for this article, nor did Rick Scott’s. The White House referred us to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not respond to inquiries. Neither the Secret Service nor the Department of Homeland Security responded, either.
A funding lapse, often called a government shutdown, happens when money Congress has appropriated for federal agencies runs out without lawmakers passing a new funding bill.
In 2025, the government experienced a record 43-day shutdown. During this earlier shutdown, federal workers generally were not paid. Once that shutdown ended, most of the federal government returned to fully funded status — with one exception, the Department of Homeland Security.
Democrats have been unwilling to vote to fund the department without changes to immigration enforcement policy; Republicans have been unwilling to support some of the changes Democrats are seeking. So the two parties remain in a standoff. This has meant that the department and all its subsidiary agencies, including the Secret Service, are currently unfunded.
In traditional government funding standoffs, employees working for unfunded departments might be asked to work, but they cannot be paid until funding is restored. (By law, workers in this situation are eventually given their full back pay.)
The current Homeland Security funding lapse has proceeded differently.
On April 3 — after widespread news coverage of long airport security lines because of a lack of pay for federal security screeners — Trump signed an executive order that reallocated federal money so Homeland Security employees, including the Secret Service, could be paid.
The money came from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which provided about $140 billion for DHS agencies Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection outside of the normal congressional appropriations process. In effect, the administration shifted money from border security to other areas, including the Secret Service.
"Those funds are currently being used to pay all DHS salaries, including non-law enforcement (Secret Service) personnel, until (the funds) are exhausted or (fiscal year 2026) DHS appropriations are enacted," the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, wrote April 28.
While Secret Service employees are receiving their standard pay, they have felt a monetary pinch in other ways from the shutdown, according to Susan Crabtree, national correspondent for RealClearPolitics who has written extensively about the Secret Service.
Crabtree posted April 25 on X that, based on conversations with Secret Service employees, many "have been under financial stress" because they’ve used their government credit cards to cover job-related costs that may not be immediately reimbursed. Government credit cards are tied to personal credit scores, so unpaid balances can affect personal credit ratings.
Tim Scott said the "Secret Service remains unpaid" during the current partial government shutdown.
The Trump administration shifted money from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to DHS, including to pay Secret Service employee salaries.
We rate the statement False.
Graham Platner’s comments about rape more than a decade ago are the subject of a new ad attacking the Democrat trying to oust U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, in a nationally watched contest.
"Graham Platner blames Maine’s women for getting raped because he says they get f----- up drunk," the April 26 ad by Pine Tree Results PAC says. (A similar ad from the PAC makes the same claim.)
The attack echoes previous ads by Maine Gov. Janet Mills, Platner’s main rival in the June 9 Democratic primary. The winner will face Collins, the 30-year incumbent.
The PAC supports Collins, according to Federal Election Commission filings, and opposes Platner, an oyster farmer, veteran and political newcomer. Recent polls show Platner has a double-digit lead over Mills, a two-term governor who has served in public office for decades.
The PAC ad’s account of what Platner said differs slightly from what Platner wrote on a Reddit forum, and it doesn’t capture his apology.
The ad cites two sources for Platner’s rape remarks: Reddit in 2013 and an October 2025 Bangor Daily News story. The local news outlet wrote about his posts multiple times that month.
In the Reddit thread with a header "shorts that prevent you from being raped." Platner, then 29, commented:
"Holy f---, how about people just take some responsibility for themselves and not get so f----- up they wind up having sex with someone they don't mean to? Men and women, you make a choice to consume enough of a substance to lose your self control. So if you don't want to be in a comprising situation, act like an adult for f---- sake." (He misspelled "compromising" and spelled out the expletives.)
The post continued: "Rape is a real thing, if you're so worried about it to buy Kevlar underwear you'd think you might not get blacked out f----- up around people you aren't comfortable with."
The Washington Post found the since-deleted Reddit post.
The attack ad echoes the essence of Platner’s comment but editorializes with "Maine’s women"; Platner’s comment did not mention a particular state, and he called out both "men and women" for choosing to abuse substances.
Although the ad uses the present tense, saying Platner "blames," he has repeatedly characterized the comment as reflective of beliefs he does not support today.
In October, Platner said he was "deeply sorry" for his remarks in a five-minute video in response to a news report about the Reddit post. Platner said that when he reads the old post, he sees "words and statements that I abhor. I also see the trajectory of my life."
Platner said he made the comments shortly after he got out of the Army and had post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Platner, who also served in the Marines, fought overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I went on the internet to post stupid things and get in fights and find some form of community in some way, some outlet for my feelings, for my rage, for my isolation," Platner said.
He said that he stopped posting on Reddit a few years ago and that his life changed when he moved back to his hometown, started a business and fell in love.
"I don't want you to judge me on the dumbest thing I ever wrote on the internet," Platner said. "I would prefer if people could judge me on the person I am today."
He reiterated in March that he was "horrified" by his past remarks after Mills issued an ad about them. He said that what he wrote does "not in any way reflect who I am today or the beliefs that I hold."
The Pine Tree Results PAC said it was spending $2 million on the ad in an April FEC expenditure report. The PAC has raised about $12.7 million.
The largest donors are from Texas, New York, Massachusetts and Florida. Top donors include:
Stronger America PAC, which is affiliated with former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
Lexington Fund, a dark money network linked to conservative activist Leonard Leo.
National groups are investing in the Maine race because it is one of a few contests in which Democrats have a chance of flipping a seat. Collins was first elected to the Senate in 1996.
Politico reported that the PAC is airing TV and digital ads. The PAC’s treasurer did not respond to our questions.
An ad said that "Graham Platner blames Maine’s women for getting raped because he says they get f------ up drunk."
In a Reddit thread about a video discussing shorts to prevent rape, Platner commented: "Rape is a real thing. If you’re so worried about it to buy Kevlar underwear you’d think you might not get blacked out f----- up around people you aren’t comfortable with." He called out men and women for their choices in using substances.
The post was not directed at women in Maine. And although the ad uses present tense, Platner said it does not reflect his current views. He apologized for the remark several times since it resurfaced during his campaign.
We rate this statement Half True.
PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this fact-check.
You must have a GM car from 2022 or newer, and already have the Google built-in operating system -- it can't be retroactively installed.
HAYI has taken responsibility for a string of incidents targeting Jewish sites, but investigators say the latest claim may be opportunistic rather than state-backed
It took just over an hour after the horrific knife attack on two British Jewish people in Golders Green, north London, for an Iran-linked terror group, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI), to make a claim of responsibility on a Telegram channel.
Counter-terror police are aware of the initial posting – a brief statement accompanied by the group’s logo – put online at 12.23pm and a follow-up 40 minutes later showing a violent attack at a bus stop.
Continue reading...People with meniscus tears who underwent surgery had poorer knee function and worse osteoarthritis after 10 years than those who did not
A common knee surgery for cartilage damage does not benefit patients and may lead to worse outcomes, a 10-year trial suggests.
The study tracked outcomes for patients treated for a meniscus tear, who were given a partial meniscectomy, one of the most common orthopaedic surgeries. Their trajectories were compared with patients who had randomly been assigned to receive “sham surgery”, in which no procedure was carried out.
Continue reading...Joby Aviation has completed demonstration flights of its electric air taxi over New York City, testing real routes between JFK and Manhattan helipads as it prepares for a future commercial service. The company says its eVTOL could turn a 60- to 120-minute airport trip into a flight of under 10 minutes, though commercial launch still depends on FAA certification. Electrive reports: To launch operations in New York City, Joby acquired Blade Urban Air Mobility last year. Blade already enables helicopter flights for affluent travelers between Manhattan and airports such as JFK or Newark in just five minutes, avoiding up to two hours of traffic and typical airport hassles. Joby aims to replace this service with quiet, electric air taxis as soon as possible, transitioning Blade's existing customers to the new technology. However, introducing a new aircraft into commercial service requires a years-long certification process, overseen in the US by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Joby is now in the final phase of FAA certification. Following a series of demonstration flights in the San Francisco Bay Area, the company has tested its air taxi in New York City on real flight routes and under real-world conditions. During these tests, Joby demonstrated the acoustics and performance metrics critical for entering the urban air taxi market. During these demonstration flights, Joby's air taxi took off from John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and landed at various helipads across the city, including Downtown Skyport and the helipads at West 30th Street and East 34th Street in Midtown, where Blade Air Mobility's premium passenger lounges are located. These locations represent some of the commercial routes Joby plans for New York [...]. Fun fact: Joby's eVTOL aircraft are over 100 to 1,000 times quieter than a conventional helicopter, operating at roughly 55-65 dB during takeoff and landing compared to 90+ dB for helicopters.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Some social media users seized on footage from the April 25 White House Correspondents' Association dinner to investigate the shooting that disrupted the event, but using artificial intelligence to review the video caused more confusion, not less.
An unedited video from the dinner first appeared online in the hours after the shooting when President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social low-quality security footage of a person running through a security checkpoint at the Washington Hilton hotel as Secret Service agents rushed behind him with guns drawn.
Cole Tomas Allen has been charged in the incident with attempted assassination.
Others used AI to enhance the video Trump shared, and some reshared the edited version without context.
An April 26 Facebook post shared the edited footage with a caption that said, "Unedited raw security footage of the WHCD front entrance to the lobby where the suspect ran through."
Conservative commentator Benny Johnson, also shared the edited clip in an April 26 X post, garnering more than 2 million views. Later that day, Johnson noted in a follow-up post that the video had been enhanced with AI.
Other X users shared the footage without specifying it had been enhanced using AI.
The edited version, first shared by X user "Seth Weathers," was not accurate. Weathers specified that he enhanced the security footage with AI since the original quality was low. Weathers also added that the AI "made up some things to fill in the gaps."
(Screenshot of the AI-enhanced footage highlighting irregularities with red circles)
Here are some irregularities we found while analyzing the AI-enhanced footage that are not in the original video:
Two agents are kneeling down in front of each other while the suspect runs in the opposite direction.
The agent standing in the middle of the frame first appears wearing a cap but it later morphs into what looks like a beanie.
When the suspect enters the footage, his body has a big white box on top of it that disappears as he passes the security checkpoint.
The agents’ uniforms have random letters that do not reflect a Secret Service division officer’s uniform.
There’s a blurry black blob in the middle of the checkpoint that sometimes looks like part of the furniture, and other times looks like an agent kneeling down in a tux.
We rate claims this video is "unedited raw security footage" from the dinner False.
Related: Fact-checking falsehoods after shooting in hotel hosting correspondents’ dinner Trump attended
Related: Column: Why a correspondents’ dinner at a White House ballroom could endanger press freedom
The happiest place on Earth is now relying on facial recognition technology to verify the owners of tickets and passes.
The New York City mayor said in a press conference that, if he ever spoke with King Charles III on another occasion, separate from a meeting at the 9/11 memorial on Wednesday, he would suggest he 'return' the Koh-i-Noor diamond. The diamond, one of the most famous in the world, has been part of the British crown jewels since the 1849 annexation of Punjab. India claims the diamond was stolen and has repeatedly demanded its return
Continue reading...Microsoft is continuing its efforts to release early versions of DOS as open source, and today we’ve got a special one.
We’re stoked today to showcase some newly available source code materials that provide an even earlier look into the development of PC-DOS 1.00, the first release of DOS for the IBM PC. A dedicated team of historians and preservationists led by Yufeng Gao and Rich Cini has worked to locate, scan, and transcribe the stack of DOS-era source listings from Tim Paterson, the author of DOS.
The listings include sources to the 86-DOS 1.00 kernel, several development snapshots of the PC-DOS 1.00 kernel, and some well-known utilities such as CHKDSK. Not only were these assembler listings, but there were also listings of the assembler itself! This work offers rare insight into how MS-DOS/PC-DOS came to be, and how operating system development was done at the time, not as it was later reconstructed.
↫ Stacey Haffner and Scott Hanselman
It’s wild that the source code had to be transcribed from paper, including notes and changes. You can find more information about the process on Gao’s website and Cini’s website.
Two days after an armed man tried to enter the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt cited rhetoric from Democrats that she said is “inspiring violence” against President Donald Trump and other Republicans. But several of the statements she quoted were stripped of their original context, a point that House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries made in a rebuttal.
In prepared remarks in the April 27 press briefing, Leavitt called out a number of congressional Democrats, and a late-night television host, for “hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed” at Trump. On April 25, security prevented the armed man from accessing the WHCA dinner, which the president and top administration officials attended. After Leavitt’s briefing, the man was charged with attempting to assassinate the president.
For example, the press secretary said: “As the first lady of the United States pointed out this morning, just two days prior to the shooting, ABC’s late-night host, Jimmy Kimmel, disgustingly called first lady Melania Trump an expectant widow. Who in their right mind says a wife would be glowing over the potential murder of her beloved husband?”
Later, Leavitt said she had “a whole host of examples” of “despicable statements” from Democratic lawmakers that she could share. “Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, just this April, this month, said we are in an era of maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time,” she said.
She continued: “Gov. Josh Shapiro said heads need to roll within the administration. Sen. Alex Padilla said people are, quote, ‘dying because of fear and terror caused by the Trump administration.’ Sen. Elizabeth Warren, President Trump is making the country look like a, quote, ‘fascist state.’ Sen. Adam Schiff saying President Trump using a dictator playbook. Sen. Ed Markey calling President Trump a dictator, saying that this administration’s actions are authoritarianism on steroids.”
And finally, reading off more quotes, she said: “Gov. JB Pritzker, never before in my life have I called for mass protests, disruptions. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. You have Rep. Pressley saying we’ll see you in the streets. Rep. [LaMonica] McIver, a Democrat representative on Capitol Hill, we will not take this shit from Donald Trump. He thinks he’s a dictator. We are at war.”
But Jeffries, the House minority leader, responded to Leavitt in his own April 27 press conference, calling her a “stone-cold liar” and claiming that the Democrats’ statements were “all taken out of context.”
Some, but not all, of the remarks she highlighted were presented without the context that shows them in a different way than Leavitt presented.
We’ll start with the statements by Jeffries, Kimmel, Shapiro, Padilla, Pritzker and Pressley that lacked important context.
On April 21, the day that Virginia residents voted to allow the state’s congressional district lines to be redrawn — potentially giving Democrats more seats in Congress next year — Jeffries posted about the election results on X.
“House Democrats have crushed Donald Trump’s national gerrymandering scheme,” Jeffries wrote, referring to Trump advising GOP state lawmakers in Texas and other Republican-run states to redraw their congressional district maps to give Republicans an advantage in the midterm elections this fall. After listing several ways that Democrats have stopped or negated those Republican efforts, Jeffries wrote: “Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.”
He expanded on his social media post the following day in a press conference celebrating the outcome in Virginia.
Jeffries said: “We are in an era of maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time. And we are going to keep the pressure on Republicans at every single state in the union to ensure, at the end of the day, that there is a fair, national map. Because we believe that it’s the people who should decide who’s in the majority in the next Congress – not Donald Trump and MAGA extremists.”
In an April 27 press conference in which he also condemned political violence, Jeffries responded to Leavitt quoting him without the fuller context about the back-and-forth over redistricting.
“The notion that any of us are concerned with so-called criticism from these phony Republicans as it relates to anything that has been said — certainly as it relates to the comment related to maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time, in connection with the redistricting battle that Republicans launched — I stand by it,” Jeffries said. “You can continue to criticize me for it. I don’t give a damn about your criticism.”
Jeffries noted that the “maximum warfare” phrase didn’t originate with him. It “came from the White House in the summer of 2025 when they started this redistricting battle,” he said.
He was referring to an August 2025 New York Times article that quoted an unnamed “person close to the president” who told the newspaper that “maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time” was the “White House’s political strategy” on redistricting.
On Thursday, April 23 — two days before the WHCA dinner — ABC’s late-night host, Jimmy Kimmel, included a segment on his show in which he performed a comedic roast similar to what is traditionally done at the correspondents’ dinner. The show spliced in footage of some administration officials facetiously suggesting they were in the audience.
Following a couple of jokes alluding to Trump’s age in that segment, Kimmel said, “And of course our first lady, Melania, is here. So beautiful — Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”
Both the president and first lady responded on April 27 with social media posts calling for Kimmel to be fired. Trump described Kimmel’s statement as a “call to violence.”
Likewise, Leavitt said at the press briefing the same day, “Who in their right mind says a wife would be glowing over the potential murder of her beloved husband? … This kind of rhetoric about the president, the first lady and his supporters is completely deranged and it’s unbelievable that the American people are consuming it night after night after night.”
But the context of the statement suggests that Kimmel was making a joke about the age gap between the two. Melania Trump turned 56 on April 26, which Kimmel mentioned, while Donald Trump — the oldest person to be inaugurated as president — is 79 and has a birthday coming up in June.
Kimmel responded to the criticism during his show on April 27, saying that the statement was “obviously” a joke about their age difference. “It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am. It was not — by any stretch of the definition — a call to assassination.”
The Federal Communications Commission issued an order on April 28 expediting a review of eight local broadcasting licenses held by ABC — a move that critics saw as retaliation from the Trump administration against Kimmel’s broadcaster.
In a January interview with progressive podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen, Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, said that “heads do need to roll, certainly, within the administration” while calling for Kristi Noem, then the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, to be fired over tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis.
After Cohen asked about the possibility of Noem being held accountable through impeachment by Congress, Shapiro said, “As it relates to Noem, she should be fired. The president should fire her. If he doesn’t, I think Congress needs to act.” Acknowledging that impeachment was unlikely, Shapiro said that even a growing number of Republicans appeared to “understand that she is way in over her head and that her directions, and the president’s directions, are violating people’s constitutional rights and undermining who we are.”
Later, when Cohen noted that Noem had been quoted saying that she was simply following instructions from the White House, Shapiro criticized her for not pushing back on “unconstitutional” immigration enforcement orders.
“Yeah, I mean it confirms what we were just talking about a moment ago, which is this is a directive that was sent by the president or [White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Adviser] Stephen Miller or [Vice President] JD Vance to Noem, and Noem didn’t stop and say, ‘Hey, this is unconstitutional, I’m not doing it.’ Instead, she plowed forward and now Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti are dead,” Shapiro said, referring to Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two U.S. citizens who were killed in January by immigration officers in Minneapolis.
Shapiro then said, “People have been disappeared in the community. American civil rights have been violated. None of this is acceptable. Heads do need to roll, certainly, within the administration. But most importantly for the good people of Minnesota and across this country, this directive needs to end. The mission needs to be terminated.”
A 57-year-old farmworker from Michoacán, Mexico, named Jaime Alanís died after falling off of a greenhouse roof during an ICE raid in Ventura County, California, in July.
The day after his death, Dana Bash — who was anchoring CNN’s “State of the Union” — asked Sen. Padilla of California, “We learned overnight that a migrant farmworker died after he fell from a roof during ICE raids in Ventura County in your state. Have you been able to talk to the family?”
Padilla answered [emphasis ours]: “I haven’t spoken with the family directly, but I have been in touch with President Teresa Romero of the United Farm Workers union. I have known her for a long time. We’ve been in touch over the last several days. She’s been with the family and other families of people that are literally terrorized and traumatized based on what ICE is doing.
“Again, if all they’re doing is going after serious violent criminals, that’d be one thing. But because of these artificial quotas established by — whether it’s Donald Trump or Stephen Miller or somebody in the administration — it’s causing ICE to get more aggressive, more cruel, more extreme, and these are the results.
“It’s people dying because of fear and terror caused by this administration. It’s not just undocumented immigrants. There’s lawful immigrants that are being rounded up. There’s United States citizens that are being detained. There are military veterans that are being detained.”
Leavitt quoted the portion of his answer in bold as an example of “Democrat elected officials calling for war against the president of the United States and his supporters.”
In an April 2025 speech at a New Hampshire event, Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, said that “these Republicans cannot know a moment of peace,” while calling for Democrats to “fight” and protest against Trump administration policies on immigration and more.
More than 26 minutes into his almost 30-minute speech, the governor said: “Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box. They must feel in their bones that when we survive this shameful episode of American history with our democracy intact because we have no alternative but to do just that, that we will relegate their portraits to the museum halls reserved for tyrants and traitors.”
When some Republicans said at the time that Pritzker’s comments could be seen as a call for violence, he told reporters that interpretation was “ridiculous” and not his intent.
“I called for people to take out their megaphones and their microphones, to stand up on soapboxes and get to the ballot box in order to defeat the people who are trying to take so many things away from the American people,” he said. “That has nothing to do with violence.”
In the first year of Trump’s second term, Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts attended rallies and called on citizens to demonstrate against some of the administration’s policies.
At a February 2025 rally against the administration’s cuts to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Pressley said, “We are going to litigate, legislate, agitate, and resist because you are worth it. So we will see you in Congress, and the courts, and in the streets.”
The same month, at a rally protesting Elon Musk’s access to the Treasury Department, Pressley said, “We will match their energy with unprecedented organizing, mobilizing, agitating. We will see you in the courts, in Congress, in the streets.”
Leavitt summarized her call to action as, “we’ll see you in the streets,” and cited it as another example of “Democrat elected officials calling for war against the president of the United States and his supporters.”
This isn’t the first time that Pressley’s calls for citizens to demonstrate against government policy have been cast by conservatives as an example of Democrats inciting violence. In 2021, we wrote about a viral meme that had cited her comments regarding postal funding as a call for violence.
Sens. Warren, Schiff and Markey did, respectively, use the terms “fascist state,” “dictator playbook” and “authoritarianism on steroids” to refer to Trump, his administration or certain policies.
Leavitt criticized such characterizations, saying, “Those who constantly falsely label and slander the president as a fascist, as a threat to democracy and compare him to Hitler to score political points are fueling this kind of violence.”
And Rep. McIver said at the February 2025 rally outside the Treasury Department that “we are at war” while criticizing the Department of Government Efficiency and Musk, the former head of DOGE and a major Trump campaign donor, for being given access to sensitive Treasury data. “Anytime a person can pay $250 million into a campaign and then be given access, full access to the Department of Treasury of the United States of America, we are at war,” McIver said.
Whether those remarks amount to “inspiring violence,” as Leavitt said, we’ll leave for readers to judge. But we would note that the politicians did not explicitly promote violence.
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 Providing Context for Leavitt’s Examples of ‘Violent Rhetoric’ appeared first on FactCheck.org.
When Apple unveiled the Vision Pro, almost three (!) years ago, I concluded:
If there’s one company that can convince people to spend $3500 to strap an isolating dystopian glowing robot mask onto their faces it’s Apple, but I still have a hard time believing this is what people want.
↫ Thom Holwerda at OSNews (quoting myself is weird)
MacRumors’ Juli Clover, today:
Apple has all but given up on the Vision Pro after the M5 model failed to revitalize interest in the device, MacRumors has learned. Apple updated the Vision Pro with a faster M5 chip and a more comfortable band in October 2025, but there were no other hardware changes, and consumers still weren’t interested.
[…]Apple has apparently stopped work on the Vision Pro and the Vision Pro team has been redistributed to other teams within Apple. Some former Vision Pro team members are working on Siri, which is not a surprise as Vision Pro chief Mike Rockwell has been leading the Siri team since March 2025.
↫ Juli Clover at MacRumors
VR – what the Vision Pro is, whether Apple’s marketing likes to say it or not – has proven to be good for exactly two things: games and porn. The Vision Pro has neither. It was destined to be a flop from the start, as nobody wants to strap an uncomfortable computer to their face that does less than all of the other computers they already have, and what it does do, it does worse.
I do wonder if this makes the Vision Pro the most expensive flop in human history. Has any company ever spent more on a product that failed this spectacularly?
Robo-vacuum maker Dreame pushes its EV hypercar concept to the limit with a pair of solid-state rocket boosters mounted to the chassis. Yes, really.
Decision gives mapmakers in Republican states power to crack districts into pieces and dilute votes into oblivion
The Voting Rights Act was a political peace compact written in John Lewis’s blood.
The Callais v Landry decision by the US supreme court, which set aside much of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, whitewashed that blood from history, along with that of thousands of other Americans who fought segregationist white supremacists at lunch counters and bus stations and courthouses for political equality.
Continue reading...My folks gave me an offering for a grand off of a new OW, if I got a new one it'd be the ADV2. I currently have a pint x with a dead battery that i'd VESC if repaired. Would you all recommend a 1200$ ADV2 or for me to put money into my existing wheel.
Note: I have not been able to kill more than 50% of the battery on the pintx EVER. range is no issue. Just speed and torque.
Double note: on my old Eskate I was scared to go over 20 mph. I am 6 years older than I was but that's how fast I was able to go. I'd ADORE, being able to go 25.
Republicans hold a 217-212 majority in the House, but they could lock in more seats if reapportionments go their way
Republicans and Democrats have been engaged in a political tug of war in legislatures, courts and the ballot box to narrow the battlefield of 2026 before a single vote is cast.
Normally, redistricting only occurs after the US census counts residents in each state every 10 years. A demand from Donald Trump to lock in more Republican-leaning districts in Congress, together with a changing legal landscape around partisan gerrymandering, set off a chain of mid-decade reapportionments.
Continue reading...Chair planned to exit after inquiry into building renovations but will now oversee ‘remaining steps in the process’
The US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, will remain on the central bank’s rate-setting board after his term as chair ends in May, a contentious move that signals continued uncertainty at the Fed.
Powell made the announcement after the Fed board on Wednesday left interest rates unchanged for the third time this year, despite Donald Trump’s continued demands for rate cuts.
Continue reading...Im going to be refreshing tomorrow as soon as I wake up for available stock. Im thinking black or white. What color do you like best?
Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted Tuesday for allegedly making threats against President Trump.
As defense secretary testifies before House, Trump posts AI-generated image of himself with weapon and caption: ‘NO MORE MR. NICE GUY’
Pete Hegseth denied that the US-Israel war on Iran, which the Pentagon estimates has cost the US at least $25bn, is “a quagmire” and claimed critics of the operation posed a greater threat to the US than Iran itself.
Hegseth came under pressure to set out Washington’s strategy for the conflict as he appeared before the House armed services committee on Wednesday for a marathon hearing alongside Gen Dan Caine, chair of the joint chiefs of staff. The US defense secretary asked lawmakers to approve $1.5tn military spending – and then described some of those lawmakers as “the biggest challenge” to the war effort.
Continue reading...MacRumors reports that Apple has effectively paused work on Vision Pro after the M5 refresh failed to revive demand. The team has reportedly been reassigned and the company is now shifting focus toward smart glasses instead. From the report: The Vision Pro has been criticized for its high price tag and its uncomfortable weight. The device is over 1.3 pounds, and even with the more comfortable Dual Knit Band that Apple added to redistribute weight, it continues to be hard to wear for long periods of time. The M5 chip added a 120Hz refresh rate, 10 percent more rendered pixels, and around 30 additional minutes of battery life, but the price tag stayed at $3,499, and it ended up not selling well. The Vision Pro has been unpopular since it first launched, and Apple only sold around 600,000 units in total. Insider sources told MacRumors that Apple has received an unusually high percentage of returns, far exceeding any other modern Apple product. [...] If Apple finds a way to create a much cheaper, more comfortable VR headset in the future, the Vision Pro line could be revived, but right now, the company has no plans to launch a new model. Apple has not discontinued the Vision Pro and is continuing to sell the M5 model. Instead of continuing to experiment with virtual reality, Apple is working on smart glasses that will eventually incorporate augmented reality capabilities, but the first version will be similar to the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses with AI and no integrated display.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for April 30, No. 1,776.
As oil tankers largely sit stranded in the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump has boasted about the United States’ role as an oil superpower.
"We are right now producing more oil than Saudi Arabia and Russia combined," he said at an April 23 White House event to announce a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. He made similar statements on March 26 (twice), April 12 (twice), April 13, April 16 and April 17.
He's right, but with a caveat: The United States’ oil production advantage is built on commodities that won’t power vehicles.
Specifically, the United States leads Russia and Saudi Arabia combined when comparing the nations’ crude oil production combined with other liquids such as ethane, propane and butane. This is a common way of making such comparisons, experts told PolitiFact.
Looking only at crude oil — the commodity that is turned into gasoline for vehicles — Russia and Saudi Arabia collectively outpace the U.S. in production.
When we asked the White House for Trump’s evidence, a spokesperson responded, "The United States is the world’s largest oil producer, and thanks to (President Trump’s) energy dominance agenda, oil production has hit record highs."
When we inquired with the Energy Department, a spokesperson shared a screenshot of a summary chart from the federal Energy Information Administration covering the production of crude oil and natural gas liquids. Information in the chart matches what's in the agency's database.
The data in the chart is broad. It includes not only crude oil but also natural gas liquids — which include ethane, propane, butane and others — as well as "other liquids" and "refinery processing gain." "Other liquids" includes biodiesel, ethanol, liquids produced from coal, gas, and oil shale, and other hydrocarbons. Refinery processing gain is not a separate product but rather a technical measurement of the increased volume that results from crude oil and heavy unfinished oils being processed into lighter products.
Adding up all of these categories, the U.S. ranks ahead of Russia and Saudi Arabia combined, 23.6 million barrels per day to 21.7 million barrels per day. It’s worth noting, however, that the United States built its lead on categories other than crude oil. For crude oil, the U.S. produced 13.6 million barrels a day in 2025. That was short of the 19.4 million barrels produced collectively by Russia and Saudi Arabia.
When adding in natural gas liquids, the gap narrows, with 21.1 million barrels a day for the U.S. and 21.6 million for Russia and Saudi Arabia combined.
Using the broad definition is a common way of measuring production, experts said, and these non-crude-oil products are used widely; you can cook on a propane grill, and you can use butane for a camping stove or to light a cigarette.
But at a time when gasoline prices are top of mind for Americans, "you can’t run a car on butane," said Clark Williams-Derry, an energy finance analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
Trump said, "We are right now producing more oil than Saudi Arabia and Russia combined."
He’s right when measuring the combination of crude oil and related liquids. The statement needs additional information because the United States’ lead over Russia and Saudi Arabia is built on the other liquids, not crude oil, and crude oil is at the center of most U.S. discussions about energy production and affordability.
We rate the statement Mostly True.
Best-in-class open omni-modal reasoning model delivers the highest efficiency and accuracy to power agentic workflows such as computer use, document intelligence and audio-video reasoning.
April 29, 2026 — AI agent systems today juggle separate models for vision, speech and language — losing time and context as they pass data from one model to the other.
Credit: NVIDIA
Unveiled this week, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano Omni is an open multimodal model that brings these capabilities together into one system, enabling agents to deliver faster, smarter responses with advanced reasoning across video, audio, image and text. This best-in-class model gives enterprises and developers a production path for more efficient and accurate multimodal AI agents with full deployment flexibility and control.
Nemotron 3 Nano Omni sets a new efficiency frontier for open multimodal models with leading accuracy and low cost, topping six leaderboards for complex document intelligence, and video and audio understanding.
AI and software companies already adopting Nemotron 3 Nano Omni include Aible, Applied Scientific Intelligence (ASI), Eka Care, Foxconn, H Company, Palantir and Pyler, with Dell Technologies, Docusign, Infosys, K-Dense, Lila, Oracle and Zefr evaluating the model.
“To build useful agents, you can’t wait seconds for a model to interpret a screen,” said Gautier Cloix, CEO of H Company. “By building on Nemotron 3 Nano Omni, our agents can rapidly interpret full HD screen recordings — something that wasn’t practical before. This isn’t just a speed boost: It’s a fundamental shift in how our agents perceive and interact with digital environments in real time.”
Nemotron 3 Nano Omni Enables Faster, Leaner Multimodal Agents
Consider an AI agent for customer support processing a screen recording while analyzing uploaded call audio and checking data logs — or an agent for finance tasked with parsing PDFs, spreadsheets, charts and voice notes. Today, most agentic systems accomplish these tasks with separate models for vision, speech and language.
This approach increases latency through repeated inference passes, fragments context across modalities, and adds cost and inaccuracies over time.
By combining vision and audio encoders within its 30B-A3B, hybrid mixture-of-experts architecture, Nemotron 3 Nano Omni eliminates the need for separate perception models, driving inference efficiency at scale. It pairs this efficiency with strong multimodal perception accuracy, enabling AI systems to achieve 9x higher throughput than other open omni models with the same interactivity. The result is lower costs and better scalability without sacrificing responsiveness or quality.
In agentic systems, Nemotron 3 Nano Omni can work alongside proprietary cloud models or other NVIDIA Nemotron open models — such as Nemotron 3 Super for high-frequency execution or Nemotron 3 Ultra for complex planning — as well as proprietary models from other providers, to power sub-agents for agentic workflows such as computer use, document intelligence and audio-video reasoning.
Open and Customizable, Deployable Anywhere
Nemotron 3 Nano Omni is released with open weights, datasets and training techniques — giving organizations full transparency and control over how the model is customized and deployed.
Developers can use tools like NVIDIA NeMo for customization, evaluation and optimization for domain-specific use cases. Because the Nemotron family of models is open, organizations can deploy them in environments that meet regulatory, sovereignty or data localization requirements.
The Nemotron 3 family — including Nano, Super and Ultra models — has seen over 50 million downloads in the past year. Omni extends the family’s capabilities into multimodal and agentic domains.
The model is available on Hugging Face, OpenRouter and build.nvidia.com as an NVIDIA NIM microservice and through a broad ecosystem of NVIDIA Cloud Partners, inference platforms and cloud service providers.
Its open, lightweight architecture supports consistent deployment from local systems like NVIDIA Jetson hardware, NVIDIA DGX Spark and DGX Station to data center and cloud environments.
Source: Kari Briski, NVIDIA
The post NVIDIA Launches Nemotron 3 Nano Omni Model, Unifying Vision, Audio and Language for AI Agents appeared first on HPCwire.
The votes happened hours after the Supreme Court narrowed a section of the Voting Rights Act.
The USS Gerald R. Ford, at sea for 10 months, is in need of repair. Its exit, though, reduces the firepower on hand as Trump presses Tehran to make peace.
Zohran Mamdani said he would not meet UK monarch privately, noting Indian diamond claimed by crown in 1849
In a way, it must be tough being king. One day, you’re lauded by the US president, applauded by Congress and served spring-herbed ravioli and parmesan emulsion on a golden plate.
The next, you’re essentially snubbed by the mayor of New York City, who makes it clear that a) he does not want to meet you, and b) you should return a diamond that your ancestors took from a 10-year-old Indian boy.
Continue reading...Don't deposit a five-figure sum into any of these accounts without knowing the interest-earning potential of each.
Regulators settled suit that claimed a state agency showed political bias against rocket company and its chief executive
California regulators apologized to the SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, this week as they settled a lawsuit that claimed a state agency showed political bias against the rocket company and its chief executive.
As part of the settlement, the California coastal commission acknowledged its members made “improper” statements about Musk’s political beliefs at a 2024 hearing on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch program.
Continue reading...President Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke Wednesday about Ukraine and Iran.
TUSCALOOSA, Ala., April 29, 2026 — The University of Alabama will pursue the establishment of the School of Data Science, the first academic unit of its kind in the state of Alabama focused on artificial intelligence and one of the first dedicated data science schools in the southern United States.
Pending approval by The Board of Trustees of The University of Alabama, this transformative initiative positions UA as a regional and national leader in data-driven research, education and innovation centered on the responsible use of artificial intelligence.
Designed as a convening hub that partners with all 13 UA colleges and schools, the School will serve students from every major and minor, ensuring that data literacy, translational data analytics and artificial intelligence become foundational skills for all UA graduates and a defining strength of the University’s academic mission.
“The School of Data Science represents a historic investment in Alabama’s future,” said UA President Peter J. Mohler. “As the first of its kind in the state, and one of the first in the South, it aligns directly with our goal to position The University of Alabama as a national academic leader. This school will help create the next generation of leaders for Alabama and the nation, ensuring our students are prepared to thrive in a rapidly evolving, data-driven world.”
The School of Data Science will offer undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs that integrate technical expertise with ethical, social and economic considerations. The School will provide foundational and experiential learning opportunities for both beginners and advanced learners, ensuring that students at every stage of their academic journey can develop strong data competencies.
The School will be closely connected to UA’s High Performance Computing and Data Center, one of the state’s most advanced research computing environments. The facility will include high-capacity GPU clusters, petabyte scale storage, and highspeed networking designed to support both campus researchers and statewide collaborations.
By integrating the HPC with the School of Data Science, the University is creating a centralized, interdisciplinary environment where students, faculty, and industry partners can access worldclass computing resources to accelerate discovery and innovation.
The School will also support faculty specializing in quantum computing, an emerging field poised to redefine computation, cybersecurity, materials science, and national defense. This will facilitate collaborations with federal agencies and industry partners nationwide to lead research initiatives, develop new academic programs, and position Alabama as a leader in quantum technologies.
Data science is transforming nearly every sector of society. Through interdisciplinary research, industry partnerships and innovation-driven collaboration, the School will expand the state’s capacity to compete in emerging and critical fields such as healthcare, advanced manufacturing, energy, business and beyond.
The School of Data Science will also serve as a catalyst for economic growth by attracting research funding and investment, supporting innovation and technology sectors, and expanding opportunities for applied research and commercialization. Through talent development and research-driven innovation, the School will enhance Alabama’s competitiveness and position the state as a leader in emerging technologies. It is the latest initiative announcement driven by the University’s Future-Ready Flagship blueprint.
A national search for the School’s inaugural dean will begin in the fall, with the School of Data Science scheduled to officially open in 2027.
More from HPCwire
Source: University of Alabama
The post University of Alabama to Launch State’s First School of Data Science appeared first on HPCwire.
Justices rule in landmark decision Louisiana must redraw congressional map, largely killing major civil rights law
The US supreme court has ruled that Louisiana will have to redraw its congressional map, in a landmark decision that effectively guts a major section of the Voting Rights Act.
In a 6-3 decision along partisan lines, the court rendered ineffective section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the last remaining powerful provision of the 1965 civil rights law that prevents racial discrimination in voting. Section 2 has long been used to ensure minority voters are treated fairly in redistricting.
Continue reading...Mineral Wells officials said at least two major manufacturers were impacted as well.
Sophie Corcoran challenging 10,000 Interns Foundation, which works with people from under-represented groups
An influencer is taking a charity that organises internships for black and minority ethnic people to court because they do not organise schemes for white people.
Sophie Corcoran, a GB News commentator, applied to a programme the 10,000 Interns Foundation was running with the Bar Council. She said she was “shocked to discover that the scheme is restricted to applicants of a particular racial background”.
Continue reading...Nicolas Cage in the Spider-Man universe, plus more Citadel and John Krasinski's return as Jack Ryan this May.
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 writes: California's long-delayed high-speed rail project is now facing renewed scrutiny after state leaders revealed a dramatically higher price tag, now estimated at roughly $231 billion, nearly seven times the original $33 billion projection approved by voters in 2008. The revised figures have reignited talks in Sacramento over whether the project can realistically be completed, how long it will take, and whether the state can continue to fund it at this scale. Senator Strickland pointed to comments from Lou Thompson, former chair of the California High-Speed Rail Authority peer review group, who recently criticized the latest draft business plan. Thompson wrote that the 2026 draft plan "has reached a dead end," arguing that the project has drifted far from its original vision due to escalating costs, delays, and unfunded gaps. Under current projections, assuming funding and construction proceed as planned, service between San Francisco and Bakersfield could begin around 2033, while the full Los Angeles to San Francisco connection could extend to 2040.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Nine justices were hearing Trump administration that it has authority to strip immigrants’ temporary protected status
The US supreme court heard oral arguments on Wednesday over whether the Trump administration can strip the temporary protected status (TPS) of hundreds of thousands of immigrant Haitians and Syrians, under a program that has shielded them from deportation owing to safety concerns in their countries of origin.
During the arguments, justices in the conservative-leaning majority appeared sympathetic to the Trump administration’s attempts to strip humanitarian protections for the Syrians and Haitians in this case.
Continue reading...BARCELONA, Spain, April 29, 2026 — The Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP), the nonprofit international organization bringing at-scale innovations and hyperscale best practices to all, today announced newly approved OCP contributions, new projects, and recently formed alliances to deliver on its Open Data Center Ecosystem for AI vision announced in October of 2025 covering IT as well as physical data center infrastructure and facilities.
The newly approved OCP contributions include:
“These OCP approved contributions address critical problems for AI data centers, several of which were highlighted in an open letter call for collaboration initiated by Google, Meta, and Microsoft last October. The OCP Community, OCP Foundation Team, and the OCP Board of Directors have been hard at work to overcome the challenges from chip to grid of deploying AI Clusters at scale. With no end in sight to the very large AI data center buildout, the collaborations and innovation standardizations within the OCP Community are more important than ever,” said George Tchaparian, CEO at OCP.
To continue the collaborative work, recently launched projects and workstreams covering significant challenges still to be solved:
Open Data Center for AI is focused on solving the most pressing challenges facing the deployment of at-scale AI data center facility infrastructure and operational technology (OT). This includes open data center reference designs, energy and grid solutions, telemetry and management solutions, and power estimation methodologies.
DCF Power Distribution aims to increase power density to enable next generation compute by enhancing energy efficiency and streamline power distribution, including the transition to Low Voltage Direct Current – LVDC (≤1500VDC) distribution architectures for the data center.
Scale-up Networking and Optics Reliability aims to advance Ethernet for scale-up domains in AI systems, re-examining how traffic is sent out across the network switches, including protocol headers, error handling, and lossless data transfer. Improving optics reliability with interoperability becomes critical because even a small failure rate across massive fabrics can cascade into significant interruptions, wasted accelerator hours, and degraded overall system utilization.
AI Computing Continuum aims to accelerate the adoption of scalable, interoperable, and sustainable AI systems beyond traditional hyperscale data centers by defining open, modular infrastructure standards that work across diverse hyperscale adjacent environments—including regional colocation, enterprise on premises, telco points of presence, and industrial sites.
OCP has also formed new alliances adding new dimensions to OCP’s ecosystem with (1) the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and (2) the IOWN Global Forum.
EPRI and OCP aim to accelerate digital innovation and further develop the potential of data centers to serve as flexible resources for the power system.
Current/OS and OCP focused on data center power technology standards and best practices. The alliance between the two organizations will fuse OCP’s expertise in open data center hardware with Current/OS’s open standards for safe, interoperable direct current microgrids. This alliance aims to accelerate the shift from traditional AC-based power to efficient hybrid AC/DC or fully DC-native data center infrastructure.
IOWN Global Forum and OCP are working to deliver a seamless computational infrastructure from centralized to edge deployments. IOWN Global Forum and OCP will work together to develop a roadmap for a multi-site, high-bandwidth, low-latency compute and network infrastructure.
“The need for extreme integration and co-design when designing AI clusters has become an imperative in the push to have a significant performance increment in generation over generation infrastructure. The move by the OCP Foundation to expand its Community footprint to cover from chip to grid is in perfect sync with the market and an important focus to deliver innovations needed for next generation AI data centers,” said Ashish Nadkarni, GVP/GM, Worldwide Enterprise Infrastructure at IDC.
About OCP
The Open Compute Project (OCP) brings at-scale innovations and hyperscaler best practices to all, spanning technology domains from the data center to the edge, and the technology stack from silicon, to systems, to site facilities and services. The international OCP Community is made up of organizations and people from hyperscale, neocloud and cloud data center operators, communications providers, colocation providers, diverse enterprises, and technology providers. With The OCP Tenets of Openness, Impact, Efficiency, Scale and Sustainability, the OCP Foundation engages with industry ecosystems, our growing membership, and educates thousands of engineers and industry leaders, every year. Across many projects and initiatives, the OCP Foundation and its Community are meeting the AI Data Center market evolution today and shaping the future. Learn more at: www.opencompute.org.
Source: OCP
The post Open Compute Project: Delivering an Open Data Center Ecosystem for AI appeared first on HPCwire.
Damn, Daniel. Merry Chrysler. Road work ahead? Uh, yeah, I sure hope it does.
PM chairs Cobra meeting after condemning ‘appalling antisemitic attack’; man with ‘history of serious violence and mental health issues’ arrested
Specialist officers from Counter Terrorism Policing are leading the investigation and working with police to establish the full circumstances and any links to terrorism, the Met said in a statement.
Head of counter terrorism policing Laurence Taylor said:
Whilst I must stress this investigation is at an early stage, we are working quickly to understand exactly what happened.
Thank you to those who were in the area at the time and supported the response to this terrible incident.
Our thoughts are with the victims of this horrific attack. We are grateful to officers who swiftly Tasered and arrested the suspect before he could cause further harm.
We are aware of the significant distress and concern this incident is likely to cause in the face of a number of incidents in the local area. A suspect is in custody, and investigators are considering all possible motives.
An investigation is under way and a man has been arrested following a stabbing incident in Barnet.
At 11:16hrs on Wednesday 29 April, officers responded following reports of people stabbed in Highfield Avenue.
Continue reading...I have someone selling a ow+ XR for $600. Sent me pics of the app saying 323 miles. I had a pint x last year and got rid of it due to it being too small for me and the constant foot fatigue. A)is this a good deal and B) is this board a better fit for me? Reference is I’m 6’5, 260lbs, size 12/13 shoes. Any input greatly appreciated.
An army survey of the seabed uncovered the 16th-century merchant ship by chance in waters off the coast of France.
Indictment claims ex-FBI director’s social media post last year of shells arranged into ‘86 47’ was threat against Trump
James Comey made a brief appearance in court on Wednesday after the justice department indicted him over a social media post in a renewed bid to prosecute one of Donald Trump’s longtime political adversaries.
The former FBI director was indicted in North Carolina on Tuesday over a photograph he posted last year of seashells arranged in the numbers “86 47” – a message the justice department says amounts to a threat against Trump, the 47th US president.
Continue reading...Greek politicians, as they gear up for next year's national elections, are considering steps beyond banning children from social media.
Cole Allen allegedly started planning the attack at the White House Correspondents' Dinner three weeks ago, a new court document filed by prosecutors says.
Housing secretary and housing minister latest to criticise idea, which has also been ruled out by No 10
Senior ministers have poured scorn on the idea of freezing private sector rents for a year, less than 48 hours after the Guardian revealed Rachel Reeves was considering it.
Steve Reed, the housing secretary, and Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, became the latest government figures to criticise the idea, which has since been ruled out by No 10.
Continue reading...Blockade threat in vital strait and Trump’s stance lift crude, pushing pump prices to highest level since 2022
Average US gas prices have hit a new high at $4.23 a gallon, their highest since 2022 and a record since the start of the war with Iran, according to the motor club AAA.
The price of Brent crude, the benchmark that influences the price of gasoline in the US, now stands at $114.60 a barrel, up nearly 25% from the recent low since mid-April. US gas prices a year ago averaged $3.16 a gallon.
Continue reading...Anyone who has used an Android phone with a mobile service plan in the last nine years could be eligible for a payout.
The Federal Reserve is keeping interest rates paused. Here's what that may mean for mortgage interest rates.
England’s higher education regulator must rebuild trust with troubled sector after series of blunders under previous leadership
In its brief and unhappy life, England’s Office for Students has been offered a series of challenges it has largely failed to meet. This week the latest and most embarrassing of those was unveiled when the high court decisively rejected the higher education watchdog’s attempts to fine the University of Sussex more than £500,000 for regulatory failings relating to Kathleen Stock’s time as an academic at Sussex.
Stock quit Sussex in 2021, saying she felt ostracised and targeted for her views on gender identity and transgender rights. Here was the highest profile test case that the OfS had seen: a subject of enormous controversy and sensitivity, involving key issues of academic freedom and freedom of speech. But as we now know from Mrs Justice Lieven’s ruling, in its rush to intervene, the OfS managed to tie together its own shoelaces.
Continue reading...The world must accelerate the shift to renewables, regardless of the economic effects of Abu Dhabi’s decision
Opec appears to be the latest casualty of the Iran war. On Tuesday, the United Arab Emirates announced that it was leaving the oil cartel after 60 years. The loss of a critical member is a blow to the group and its de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, in the midst of the biggest supply crisis in history.
This is a geopolitical decision, not merely an economic one. The UAE has built itself into an increasingly interventionist and unilaterally minded power, not only challenging Riyadh’s dominance but undermining its more cautious approach to regional affairs. The rift has become increasingly public and bitter – with Saudi Arabia bombing what it called a UAE-linked arms shipment in Yemen in December. Abu Dhabi, as the main target of Iranian strikes among the Gulf countries, is also enraged by what it sees as a feeble regional response to the current conflict, and has been privately pushing for counterattacks.
Continue reading...An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: A controversial bill in Colorado that would have undone some repair protections in the state has failed. The bill had been the target of right-to-repair advocates, who saw it as a bellwether for how tech companies might try to undo repair legislation more broadly in the US. Colorado's landmark 2024 repair law, the Consumer Right to Repair Digital Electronic Equipment, went into effect in January 2026 and ensured access to tools and documentation people needed to modify and fix digital electronics such as phones, computers, and Wi-Fi routers. The new bill, SB26-090, would have carved out an exception to those repair protections for "critical infrastructure," a loosely defined term that repair advocates worried could be applied to just about any technology. SB26-090 was introduced during a Colorado Senate hearing on April 2 and was supported by lobbying efforts from companies such as Cisco and IBM. It passed that hearing unanimously. The bill then passed in the Colorado Senate on April 16. On Monday evening, the bill was discussed in a long, delayed hearing in the Colorado House's State, Civic, Military, and Veterans Affairs Committee. Dozens of supporters and detractors gave public comments. Finally, the bill was shot down in a 7-to-4 vote and classified as postponed indefinitely. "While we were making progress at chipping away at the momentum for it, we had still been losing," said Danny Katz, executive director of the local nonprofit consumer advocacy group CoPIRG. "So, we took nothing for granted, and I believe the incredible testimony from the broad range of cybersecurity experts, businesses, repair advocates, recyclers, and people who want the freedom to fix their stuff made a big difference."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Terri Sewell and Shomari Figures are at risk of losing their seats in Alabama’s Black congressional districts after ruling
The lawmakers who represent Alabama’s two Black congressional districts, who are now at risk of losing their seats after the supreme court effectively decimated the Voting Rights Act, said the decision sends the US “backwards”.
The 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v Callais on Wednesday weakens a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, opening the door for Republicans to eliminate majority-minority congressional districts across the south, and representatives Terri Sewell and Shomari Figures stand in the crosshairs.
Continue reading...Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the attacks after two men were stabbed in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood of north London.
Accusation vessel contains grain looted from Russian-occupied territories triggers diplomatic spat between both nations
Ukraine has asked Israel to seize a vessel it claims is carrying grain looted from Russian-occupied territories, triggering a rare diplomatic spat between the two countries.
The dispute spilt into public view this week when president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that “another vessel” carrying grain “stolen by Russia” had arrived at a port in Israel and was preparing to unload.
Continue reading...French driver struck animal while driving at 230 mph
Peta says Grosjean failed to show compassion for death
French racing driver Romain Grosjean has angered animal rights group Peta for “flippant” comments after hitting a bird while testing for next month’s Indianapolis 500.
The driver, who survived a fireball crash during the 2020 Formula One Bahrain GP, described the bird strike at around 230 mph in graphic terms this week.
Continue reading...Matthew Pennycook says ending system must be done slowly to avoid hitting housing supply and legal pitfalls
A ban on new leasehold properties in England and Wales is unlikely to come into force until after the next election, the housing minister has said, as he defended the government’s piecemeal attempts to dismantle the system.
The long-promised end would take years to “switch on”, Matthew Pennycook said, even though the ban of leaseholds on new houses was passed in 2024 and the government intends to pass one on new flats soon.
Continue reading...Narges Mohammadi denied medical leave from prison in spite of sharp decline in health and drastic weight loss, say lawyers
The family of the jailed Iranian Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi say they fear for her life after a sharp deterioration in her health, suspected heart attack and drop in body weight of almost 20kg (44lb).
The 54-year-old human rights activist, who was awarded the 2023 Nobel peace prize while in prison, had been released for health reasons in 2024. She was re-arrested in December 2025 during the memorial service of a fellow human rights activist and is being held in Zanjan central prison, in north-west Iran.
Continue reading...Attorneys, citing new evidence including photographs, also filed a motion to detain Cole Tomas Allen until his trial
Federal prosecutors provided in a filing on Wednesday the most detailed account to date of Cole Tomas Allen’s alleged weeks-long plan to kill Donald Trump, who had joined more than 2,500 members of the Washington press corps for their annual White House correspondents’ dinner.
The motion, aimed at keeping Allen detained and filed by the US attorney for DC, Jeanine Pirro, includes two selfies of the alleged shooter standing in front of a mirror in his hotel room in a black suit, a slight smirk crossing his face. He is kitted out with two firearms and multiple knives tucked into his belt. Prosecutors allege they are the same weapons that were confiscated from Allen after the attack.
Continue reading...Ángel Mateos González due to play for CD Colunga, making him oldest player to take part in official match
At an age when many veteran footballers might prefer to be regaling grandchildren, friends and assorted barflies with slightly embroidered tales of their former sporting prowess, 70-year-old Ángel Mateos González is heading back on to the pitch.
The Spaniard, who retired from competitive football 27 years ago, is due to play in goal for the Asturian team CD Colunga in a fifth-tier match this Sunday. If all goes to plan and he pulls on his gloves, he will reportedly become the oldest player to take part in an official match in Spain.
Continue reading...@lia Thanks for the info! I was actually wondering if you would be willing to print and put it on ebay. I would be more then happy to buy it from you instead. Let me know :D
So you would put silicone around the box opening and not the ports? I've also seen there are a few "mudguards" on printables. X7/X10 doesn't have a cover by the fender deletes I assume like GT/GTS has.
April 29, 2026 — Researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have partnered with scientists from Argonne National Laboratory to develop a pair of complementary advances that make federated learning more secure, flexible and practical for large-scale scientific collaboration without requiring sensitive data to be shared.
Federal AI architecture illustrating federated learning with integrated privacy and traceability controls. Credit: ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy.
Federated learning allows multiple organizations to collaboratively train artificial intelligence models while keeping data local, a capability increasingly important for science domains where data is sensitive, proprietary, regulated or simply too large to move. While the approach protects raw data, it introduces new challenges around privacy guarantees, trust and intellectual property protection. Researchers at ORNL have made significant progress in addressing these challenges through two related studies that together strengthen both data privacy and model accountability in federated systems.
“When we think about federated learning, especially in cross-institutional and cross-domain scenarios, we may expect that the clients or participants have different privacy preservation levels, either by preference or because of policies they’re required to follow. That was one of the main challenges we set out to address,” said Olivera Kotevska, a research scientist in computer science and mathematics at ORNL who co-authored the paper.
The first study introduces GDPFed and GDPFed+, or Group-based Differentially Private Federated Learning, new methods for federated learning when participants have different privacy requirements. In real-world collaborations, such as those spanning national laboratories, universities, industry partners and international facilities, not every participant can operate under the same privacy assumptions. Traditional privacy-preserving federated learning methods must enforce the strictest privacy level across all participants, which can add excessive noise to training and significantly degrades model accuracy.
GDPFed overcomes this limitation by grouping participants according to their privacy needs and applying client-level differential privacy at the group level rather than globally. This approach reduces unnecessary noise for participants with more relaxed privacy requirements while still providing rigorous guarantees for those that need stronger protection.
Building on this foundation, GDPFed+ further improves performance by combining model sparsification, or removing unimportant parameters that would otherwise accumulate noise, with optimal client sampling, which mathematically determines how often each group should participate in training. Extensive experiments show that GDPFed+ consistently delivers higher model accuracy than existing privacy-preserving methods under the same privacy guarantees.
The second study addresses model leakage and accountability. In federated learning, every participant receives a copy of the trained model, creating the risk that a model could be leaked, shared without authorization, or reused outside the collaboration. Existing watermarking techniques either require direct access to model parameters or cannot reliably identify which participant leaked a model.
To solve this problem, ORNL researchers developed TraMark, a server-side method for embedding traceable, black-box watermarks into federated models. TraMark assigns each participant a unique, invisible watermark embedded in a small, carefully isolated region of the model. These watermarks do not affect normal performance but allow the model owner to verify ownership and identify the source of a leak even when the model is only accessible through an application programming interface. Experiments show that TraMark preserves model accuracy while achieving near-perfect traceability across a range of datasets and attack scenarios.
“All the clients have a unique watermark, so it’s easy to trace which update is coming from which client and whether that client is approved in the federation,” Kotevska said. “This is very important in highly collaborative environments, especially when federations are open to new participants.”
Together, the two efforts form a defense-in-depth framework for federated learning. GDPFed and GDPFed+ protect participants’ data and privacy during training, while TraMark protects the resulting models after training by ensuring accountability and intellectual property protection. This combination is particularly valuable for cross-institutional science, where collaborators may have different privacy policies and where trust must be maintained over long-lived, evolving partnerships.
“I think both papers really complement each other,” Kotevska said. “One is about protecting the data and the other is about protecting the model. Together, they make federated learning much more practical for advancing science when data cannot be shared or moved.”
The researchers emphasize that both methods are domain-agnostic and scalable. They can be applied to image, text and scientific datasets; to small collaborations with just a few partners; or to large federations spanning leadership-class computing facilities and international institutions. The software implementations are designed to be reproducible and openly available, lowering barriers for adoption by the broader research community as federated learning becomes an essential tool for advancing science in areas like energy, national security and healthcare.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit energy.gov/science.
Source: Mark Alewine, ORNL
The post ORNL Research Boosts Privacy, Security in Federated AI appeared first on HPCwire.
 | Made a milk crate carrier and saw a Facebook post and remembered about my stool. I will post videos of me being the coolest cat around quite soon I think it will work [link] [comments] |
King Charles surprised President Trump with the bell from the HMS Trump, a World War II-era British submarine, during this week's visit.
BSC contributes to a UCLA-led study by providing simulations from its MONARCH atmospheric model, helping to assess how much heat is retained by airborne mineral dust and to refine its quantification
April 29, 2026 — Atmospheric dust plays a dual role in Earth’s climate: it reflects part of the Sun’s energy back into space, but it can also absorb and re-emit heat, acting like an insulating layer. A new study led by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), with contributions from researchers from other institutions, including the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS), shows that the heat-trapping effect of airborne desert dust is about twice as large as previously estimated by many climate models. The research was published in Nature Communications.
European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-3 imagery. Image credit: EU.
Using satellite observations, aircraft measurements, meteorological data and new climate simulations, the team produced a global estimate of how much heat mineral dust retains in the atmosphere. They found that dust’s heat-trapping effect is equivalent to around 10% of the warming associated with human-emitted carbon dioxide, whereas many climate models have placed it closer to 5%.
The researchers stress that this does not mean climate models are “wrong”, but that they can be made more precise. “Atmospheric dust traps about a quarter of a watt per square meter of heat… comparable to roughly one-tenth of the warming effect produced by the carbon dioxide emitted from all human activities,” said Jasper Kok, UCLA atmospheric scientist and lead author of the study, adding that “current climate models undercount the heating effect of dust by about half.”
Updating models to account for this stronger heat-trapping effect could improve both short-term weather forecasts and long-term climate projections, particularly in regions affected by large dust plumes.
BSC contributed to the study by providing results from simulations performed with MONARCH, an atmospheric model developed at the centre. These simulations helped assess the extent to which current models may be underestimating the greenhouse effect of mineral dust particles and supported the development of an observation-based approach that quantifies dust’s warming effect more accurately.
“This study helps narrow a key quantitative knowledge gap in climate science: understanding whether dust cools or warms our planet,” said Carlos Pérez García-Pando, ICREA and AXA Professor at the Atmospheric Composition group of BSC’s Earth Sciences Department and co-author of the study. “Together with ongoing advances in constraining the shortwave cooling effect of dust, we are getting closer to obtaining a well-constrained estimate of its net direct radiative effect,” he added.
To reach their conclusions, the scientists combined multiple independent sources. Satellite observations provided global information on dust abundance and its effect on Earth’s outgoing heat radiation, aircraft measurements helped characterise the size distribution of dust particles, climate model simulations captured the spatial patterns of dust in the atmosphere, and meteorological data described the temperature structure that determines how strongly dust interacts with infrared radiation.
Atmospheric dust levels changed substantially over the twentieth century, peaking in the 1980s before declining, though remaining above pre-industrial levels. Much of today’s airborne dust originates from major desert regions and from drying lakebeds, where land and water-use changes can increase dust emissions—making dust not only a scientific question, but also a factor that matters for anticipating regional climate impacts and improving risk assessment.
By combining observational evidence with model-based experiments, including simulations from BSC’s MONARCH, the study provides a clearer estimate of dust’s heat-trapping effect and points to concrete ways to further refine climate and weather models. Because dust can also cool the planet by reflecting sunlight, the results highlight the need to better constrain both warming and cooling components to quantify dust’s overall role in Earth’s energy balance.
In addition to UCLA and BSC, the study involved researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, Vanderbilt University, Cornell University, the University of California Merced, the University of Milano-Bicocca, the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, North Carolina State University, JAMSTEC, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and the University of Chicago.
Reference: Kok, J.F., K. Gupta, A., Evan, A.T. et al. Desert dust exerts twice the longwave radiative heating estimated by climate models. Nat Commun 17, 3191 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70952-9.
Source: BSC
The post UCLA, BSC Research Shows Stronger Heat-Trapping Role for Desert Dust in Climate Models appeared first on HPCwire.
SYDNEY CHRISTNER
SYDNEY CHRISTNER
Managing Opinion Editor
One of my favorite parts about traveling is interacting with local individuals. While studying abroad in Sarawak, Malaysia, I had the privilege of meeting a struggling mother-son duo whose story I will never forget.
Catherine, a 32-year-old, suffers from vertigo and a fear of heights. Despite this, she still enjoys exploring and playing with her son, Leo. At 2 years old, Leo is curious and adventurous, enjoying activities like popping bubbles and playing with cardboard boxes.
Catherine and Leo do not live easy lives. While some compassionate advocates support them in overcoming hardships, government welfare and general aid are far from sufficient to help them thrive. Many local people frown upon individuals like Catherine and Leo, lacking empathy and failing to understand why they are entitled to assistance.
Perhaps the reason they lack the attention needed to achieve a better quality of life is because they are not like you and me. They are not human — they are orangutans.
Now housed at Matang Wildlife Centre to receive rehabilitative care, Catherine and Leo face hardships preventing them from living naturally in the wild. Catherine’s vertigo prevents her from climbing, which is an essential skill to survive as a wild orangutan. Since Leo was born to Catherine in captivity, he lacks the experience needed to develop critical wild behaviors.
Although Catherine and Leo entered Matang for biological and circumstantial reasons, others at Matang entered as human exploitation victims. For instance, Selina, formerly known as Shirley, was raised in an unethical zoo where tourists threw cigarettes at her. Curious by nature, she smoked the cigarettes and developed a nicotine addiction before coming into Matang’s care.
Orangutans, like all endangered species, are not just remarkable animals — they are vital to preserving healthy ecosystems and maintaining ecological balances that support all life, including humans.
Protecting them is a global responsibility. Governments must shift practices to better support endangered species populations, and the global public must sustain this support by holding governments accountable.
Rehabilitation centers like Matang work to provide maximum quality of life for those like Catherine and Leo, while also reversing human harm that impacts others like Selina. However, despite Matang’s dedication, the sanctuary lacks the resources necessary to allow every animal to thrive.
The Malaysian government, and other governments around the world, further hinder rehabilitation work by misappropriating funds and overstepping the authority of wildlife experts. Meanwhile, the public remains unaware, failing to recognize why efforts to protect animals on the other side of the globe deserve their time and support.
Governments can most effectively support wildlife rehabilitation efforts through appropriate and strategic funding.
At Matang, government funding has been misallocated, funding large construction initiatives, like a new visitor center, while animal enclosures remain outdated and surrounding wild habitats continue to deteriorate. Although visitor centers can play an important role in tourism, projects of this cost and scale do not significantly enhance the visitor experience at Matang and do little to improve animal care.
Governments must prioritize funding to address more urgent needs that directly improve animal welfare and wild habitat protection. Funding only benefits rehabilitation when it is used in meaningful and impactful ways.
Since government officials often lack specialized expertise to understand complex rehabilitation needs, they should defer decisions about funding and rehabilitative care to the trained conservation professionals employed at these facilities. When governments try to interfere without consulting experts, their involvement becomes an obstacle, rather than a source of support.
While governments must work internally to properly support rehabilitation centers, responsibility does not end there. The general public plays an equally critical role in determining whether centers like Matang succeed.
When the public makes it clear that rehabilitation and animal conservation matter, governments are far more likely to act. If government support falls short, public advocacy can be just as powerful, if not stronger, in driving change.
Individuals can support rehabilitation centers in many meaningful ways. Donations can be made from anywhere across the globe, and for those who do not have the financial means to donate, raising awareness (through social media, for example) brings much-needed attention to these sanctuaries.
Rehabilitation centers also rely heavily on dedicated staff, and volunteering offers both a life-changing personal experience and a meaningful contribution to wildlife care. These facilities seek out volunteers from all over the world who are eager to participate in unparalleled exploration opportunities while making a real difference for endangered species populations.
Even without the ability to donate or volunteer directly onsite, speaking out, sharing information and advocating for wildlife conservation sends a clear message to governments that rehabilitation must be a priority. The public must hold governments accountable when their actions negatively interfere with these efforts.
Staying educated about the harms of illegal pet ownership, unethical zoos and animal-based entertainment is a crucial first step. By choosing not to support exploitative attractions, individuals can stand up to human practices that endanger wildlife.
Endangered animals like Catherine and Leo depend on the choices we make now. Without action, they will never have the chance to live as they should. It is a global responsibility for us all to take proper measures to protect our endangered species before it is too late.
Sydney Christner is the managing opinion editor at The Review. Her opinions are her own and do not represent the majority opinion of The Review staff. She may be reached at sydrc@udel.edu.
The brightness levels of new TVs are now at scorching levels. In this CNET Labs exclusive, we ask, "Is this the only thing that makes them good?"
The Supreme Court heard arguments over the Trump administration's attempt to rescind Temporary Protected Status for 6,000 Syrian and 350,000 Haitian immigrants.
Hashicorp co-founder Mitchell Hashimoto says GitHub's frequent outages have made it "no longer a place for serious work," prompting him to move his Ghostty terminal emulator project elsewhere after 18 years on the platform. The Register reports: "I've been angry about it. I've hurt people's feelings. I've been lashing out. Because GitHub is failing me, every single day, and it is personal. It is irrationally personal," he wrote. The reason for his ire is the service has become unreliable. "For the past month I've kept a journal where I put an 'X' next to every date where a GitHub outage has negatively impacted my ability to work," he wrote. "Almost every day has an 'X'. On the day I am writing this post, I've been unable to do any PR review for ~2 hours because there is a GitHub Actions outage." Hashimoto penned his post a few days before an April 28 incident that saw pull requests fail to complete due to an Elasticsearch SNAFU. Incidents like that mean Hashimoto has decided GitHub "is no longer a place for serious work if it just blocks you out for hours per day, every day." "It's not a fun place for me to be anymore," he lamented. "I want to be there but it doesn't want me to be there. I want to get work done and it doesn't want me to get work done. I want to ship software and it doesn't want me to ship software." The developer says he wants GitHub to improve, but "I also want to code. And I can't code with GitHub anymore. I'm sorry. After 18 years, I've got to go." He's open to a return if GitHub can deliver "real results and improvements, not words and promises." But for now, he's working to move Ghostty to another collaborative code locker. "We have a plan but I'm also very much still in discussions with multiple providers (both commercial and FOSS)," Hashimoto wrote. "It'll take us time to remove all of our dependencies on GitHub and we have a plan in place to do it as incrementally as possible." He's doing the equivalent of leaving a toothbrush at a former partner's house by leaving a read-only mirror of Ghostty on GitHub, and by keeping his personal projects on the Microsoft-owned service. But Hashimoto's moving his day job somewhere new. "Ghostty is where I, our maintainers, and our open source community are most impacted so that is the focus of this change. We'll see where it goes after that," he concluded.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
 | i wanted an easy way to keep the board in place and saw a pint but couldnt know until i tried if the GT would fit and it does !! just took a couple minutes and the sawzall float on friends ill see you on the leaderboard soon, sincerely, Papaw Frawg [link] [comments] |
Justices in unanimous decision revive federal suit brought by anti-abortion ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ in the state
The US supreme court sided on Wednesday with the operator of Christian faith-based anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers” in New Jersey that is trying to impede a state investigation into whether the facilities engage in deceptive practices.
The justices, in a unanimous decision, revived a federal lawsuit brought by First Choice Women’s Resource Centers challenging a 2023 subpoena from the state attorney general seeking information on the organization’s donors and doctors. A lower court had thrown out the lawsuit.
Continue reading...It was a historic day for King Charles, the first British monarch to address a joint session of Congress in 35 years, before enjoying a lavish dinner at the White House.
There were jokes, subtle digs and the supposedly apolitical monarch even appealed to Donald Trump on Nato and Ukraine – but how did the US president react?
Helen Pidd speaks to the Guardian columnist and host of Politics Weekly America, Jonathan Freedland
Continue reading...  | Went to the dump on my Onewheel today and got refused service for not having a county sticker. The guy said I needed a sticker issued to my car. No other way around it. I then made a trip to the country office and ask if the one wheel counted as a vehicle. 🚗 Surprisingly they approved it and issued me a sticker. The people in the office had a laugh about it. About a hour later I returned to the dump with my sticker and dropped off my used oil and coolant! :D [link] [comments] |
Photos show some of the highlights as King Charles III and Queen Camilla with President Trump and first lady Melania Trump during an official state visit to Washington, D.C.
FEMA's disaster relief fund has dropped below $3 billion, triggering Imminent Needs Funding, which means the agency must limit spending to only the most urgent, life-saving needs amid the partial government shutdown.
The day before state lawmakers met for a special session on redistricting, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis revealed his proposed state congressional map, which could set up Republicans to flip as many as four Democratic-held seats.
DeSantis shared the map April 27 with Fox News before sending it to the state Legislature. He said the new map — which would ordinarily be drawn every 10 years after the census — would more fairly represent Florida’s electorate.
"Florida got shortchanged in the 2020 census, and we’ve been fighting for fair representation ever since," DeSantis told Fox News, referring to a census undercount in the state that year. "Our population has since grown dramatically, and we have moved from a Democrat majority to a 1.5 million Republican advantage."
Florida has about 1.5 million more Republicans registered to vote in Florida than registered Democrats now. But he overstates the Democrats’ former party registration edge.
Democrats had about 100,000 more registered voters than Republicans in 2020, the year of the decennial census. Democrats held a plurality, not a majority, of voter registrations, when taking into account people not affiliated with a party or registered with a third party. A plurality means it was the highest of any single category, but not 50% plus one.
In addition, measured by votes — which determine who serves in office, unlike voter registration data — Republicans performed well in Florida long before 2020, controlling the governorship, the Legislature and the congressional delegation for decades and winning the presidential vote starting in 2016.
"Performance in actual elections, not party registration, is consistently the metric used to judge the fairness of district maps," said Barry Burden, a University of Wisconsin political scientist.
DeSantis’ office didn’t respond to PolitiFact’s request for evidence.
In 2020, Florida Democrats led Republicans in registered voters, 5.3 million to 5.2 million. That gap had been narrowing for years. The GOP took the lead in 2021 and hasn’t relinquished it since.
Today, the Republican edge for registered voters is 5.5 million to 4.1 million, close to what DeSantis said.
DeSantis’ two-party focus ignores that 28% of Florida voters are either registered as No Party Affiliation — Florida’s term for independent voters — or belong to a third party, such as Libertarian.
Including those people in the calculation means Republicans account for about 41% of the state’s registered voters, a plurality. The Democrats’ advantage in 2020 wasn’t a majority either.
The last time Democrats held a true majority of Florida’s registered voters was in 1992. Republicans have never held a majority of registered voters in the state.
Voter registration is one of several metrics used to measure comparative party strength.
Political scientists refer to party registration as a "lagging indicator" because it tends to evolve more slowly than voting behavior. This is mainly because it’s time-consuming for voters to change their party registration, but once registered, they can still vote for anyone in the general election.
In Florida, many registered Democrats were voting for Republicans in key offices well before 2020. This same pattern played out in other parts of the South and Appalachia, where Democrats once dominated but have since lost ground to Republicans. Voter registration tallies were slow to reflect this shift.
Because of the loose connection between party registration and voting behavior, political analysts generally focus on electoral results when measuring the impact of a district map.
Measuring voting patterns is especially important in counties where No Party Affiliation ranks as the second biggest "party," said Aubrey Jewett, a University of Central Florida political scientist. In Florida, these include populous Osceola and Orange counties near Orlando, Broward County (Fort Lauderdale), Lee County (Fort Myers) and Pasco (north of Tampa).
The Democratic registration plurality in 2020 didn’t translate into Florida being a Democratic-leaning state.
The last time a Democratic presidential candidate won the state was in 2012, when Barack Obama won 49.9% of the vote. Of the four Democratic presidential nominees to win the state since 1976, only two — Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Obama in 2008 — did so by a majority rather than a plurality of the popular vote. Republican presidential candidates, meanwhile, won Florida nine times from 1976 to 2024.
At the statehouse, Lawton Chiles was the last Democratic governor, elected in 1994. Democrats haven’t held a majority in either chamber of the Florida legislature since the mid-1990s. And Florida Republicans have held a majority of seats in the state’s congressional delegation for decades.
While the GOP’s advantage in Florida has grown since 2020, it would be wrong to say the state was a Democratic stronghold as late as 2020, experts said.
"Florida was a very competitive state with a small Republican lean at the presidential level before the 2020 presidential election," said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a publication of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
DeSantis said Florida has "moved from a Democrat majority to a 1.5 million Republican advantage" since the 2020 census.
Florida has about 1.5 million more Republicans registered to vote in Florida than registered Democrats now. But DeSantis overstates Democrats’ party registration edge in 2020.
Democrats weren’t the "majority" of registered voters — they accounted for 36% once No Party Affiliation and third-party voters were taken into account.
Republicans have performed well in Florida elections going back further than 2020, controlling the governorship, the Legislature and the congressional delegation for decades.
The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. We rate DeSantis’ statement Half True.
Can Mikel Arteta's Gunners claim first blood in Madrid?
Critics say Maryland’s new law banning rapidly change product costs based on consumer data is full of carveouts
Maryland has become the first state in the US to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores.
Maryland’s law bans grocers and third-party delivery services from using a person’s personal data to set higher prices. Wes Moore, the governor, signed the measure into law on Tuesday. “At a time when technology can predict what we need, when we need it, when we’ll pay for it and also – when we’ll pay more for it, and at a time when we’re watching how big companies are then using these analytics against us to make record profits, Maryland is not just pushing back. Maryland is pushing forward because we are going to protect our people,” Moore said at the bill signing ceremony.
Continue reading...Cole Allen was charged Monday in federal court with three counts, including attempting to assassinate the president. The other two charges involved the use and transport of firearms.
The Supreme Court rule 6-3 in a decision that has implications for the scope of the landmark Voting Rights Act.
The company's first book-style foldable is a sleek new device that stacks up to competitors.
Hide your wallet: Motorola's 2026 Razr, Razr Plus and Razr Ultra all come with a higher price. The Razr Ultra has some neat cutting-edge tech if you can get past its $1,500 price.
Tony Isaac shares a report from NPR: Federal survey data shows that the amount of math homework assigned to fourth and eighth grade students, in particular, has been steadily declining for the past decade. Some educators and parents say this is a good thing -- students shouldn't spend six or more hours a day at school and still have additional schoolwork to complete at home. But the research on homework is complicated. Some studies show that students who spend more time on homework perform better than their peers. For example, a longitudinal study released in 2021 of more than 6,000 students in Germany, Uruguay and the Netherlands found that lower-performing students who increased the amount of time they spent on math homework performed better in math, even one year later. Other studies, however, suggest homework has minimal outcomes on academic performance: A 1998 study of more than 700 U.S. students led by a researcher at Duke University found that more homework assigned in elementary grades had no significant effect on standardized test scores. The researchers did find small positive gains on class grades when they looked at both test scores and the proportion of homework students completed. More homework was also associated with negative attitudes about school for younger children in the study. "The best educators figured out a long time ago that we can control what we can control," and that's what happens during the school day, Superintendent Garrett said, not homework. "There has been a shift away from it naturally anyway, and I felt like this made it equitable across our entire school system." "The best argument for homework is that mathematical procedures require practice, and you don't want to waste classroom time on practice, so you send that home," said Tom Loveless, a researcher and former teacher who has studied homework. Ariel Taylor Smith, senior director of the Center for Policy and Action at the National Parents Union, said: "The thing they point to is that it's an equity issue, and not all parents have the same availability and ability to support their students. I would make the argument that if a kid is really far behind in school, that's an equity issue. They need the additional time to practice." Kids, she said, "need more practice ... Sometimes, you do have to practice the boring stuff, like math." "The interesting issue for folks to consider is not should there be more homework, but should there be better homework," said Joyce Epstein, who has studied homework and is the co-director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education. "Better homework in math might be knowing the fact that kids don't have to be practicing for hours, 10 to 20 examples," when they could establish mastery in less time.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
These are the best portable projectors I've tested from Anker, TCL and more -- and I've tested hundreds.
SpaceX's most powerful operational rocket boosted a high-speed ViaSat internet data relay satellite into space to complete a globe-spanning constellation.
Political deadlock has left Iraq’s Kurdistan Region dangerously exposed amid Iran war Expert comment LToremark
The stalemate over government formation is affecting the semi-autonomous region’s ability to deal with the fallout of the Iran war – and eroding its autonomy.
More than 18 months have passed since voters in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq went to the polls in the region’s parliamentary election, but no new regional government has been formed. This deadlock has left the Kurdistan Region dangerously on autopilot as political and economic challenges pile up around it – not least those stemming from the Iran war.
At the heart of this impasse is disunity between the two main parties; the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Their rift prevents the Kurdistan Region from adhering to basic democratic governance, dilutes its ability to project influence, and leaves it increasingly irrelevant in the political calculations of other actors.
If the institutions and political arrangements that undergird the Kurdistan Region as a unified and coherent entity no longer function, it could be heading for a rupture that will only exacerbate the challenges it faces.
Historically, relations between the KDP and the PUK have been characterized by extreme tension, but there have been periods of cooperation too. One such period in the mid-2000s allowed for Kurdish autonomy to be formally established into Iraq’s constitutional framework. This often-messy arrangement between the two parties – sealed by a strategic agreement in 2006 – now appears to be breaking down.
This is because the KDP and the PUK have fundamentally different assessments of their relative political status – and a new generation of leaders in both parties are not willing to compromise.
The KDP believes that it is the ascendent and primary force in Kurdistan, as reflected in its vote and seat totals in both federal and regional elections. It wants to abandon power sharing with the PUK – a view explicitly endorsed by its leader Masoud Barzani – and is also highly suspicious of PUK president Bafel Talabani’s leadership.
The PUK, meanwhile, wants to re-establish itself as the KDP’s relative equal after more than a decade of political aimlessness, factional infighting and challenges from opposition parties. Any government formation deal without substantive power sharing would be viewed as unacceptable. The PUK is also frustrated by the centralization of power around Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Masrour Barzani of the KDP and is seeking assurances this will be addressed.
After months of deadlock over government formation, no political ties remain between the two parties. Meanwhile, this discord is undermining their ability to respond effectively to the serious domestic challenges and geopolitical crises currently facing the Kurdistan Region.
In the wider Iraqi context, the battle between the KDP and PUK over the Iraqi presidency is the most visible recent manifestation of their disunity. Since 2005, the post of president been allocated to the Kurdish bloc under Iraq’s informal ethno-sectarian distribution system. The PUK has held the Iraqi presidency since this system was introduced.
However, over the past two election cycles, the KDP has used its status as the largest Kurdish party to argue that the presidency should no longer automatically go to the PUK, but be subject to intra-Kurdish negotiation. In 2021, this contributed to a year-long delay in federal government formation when it put up its own candidate for the post. There was a similar, albeit shorter, impasse after the 2025 Iraqi election.
If this rift was only about competing for political posts, the issue could be resolved relatively easily. But it has also facilitated the erosion of the Kurdistan Region’s autonomy. Over the past year, the Iraqi federal government has dramatically curtailed the KRG’s ability to manage its financial affairs. For example, federal authorities have taken charge of exporting oil via the pipeline to Turkey that runs through the Kurdistan Region, as part of a September 2025 deal to resume oil exports after a two-year suspension. In March, Masrour Barzani attempted to use the pipeline to gain leverage over the federal government, which was under severe economic stress due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. But he was unable to stand his ground, in part because of lack of support by the PUK and foreign partners. The federal government has also introduced a new country-wide customs system, known as ASYCUDA, that bypasses the KRG and means the Kurdish parties will no longer control revenue collection at the borders with Turkey and Iran.
The parties’ diminished influence in Baghdad is reflected in the Kurdistan Region’s geopolitical position. Despite the strategic importance of its location, bordering federal Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria, it is more at the mercy of other actors than ever before – as demonstrated by the Iran war.
The Kurdistan Region has experienced at least 695 Iranian attacks since the beginning of the war, including 48 since the beginning of the ceasefire, according to local war monitor Community Peacemaker Teams. 22 people have been killed and more than 100 injured, while critical infrastructure and US military and diplomatic facilities have repeatedly been targeted.
Mutual distrust between the KDP and the PUK prevents them from establishing a united front and projecting influence in Washington and Tehran to keep the Kurdistan Region out of the war, and in Baghdad to limit attacks from Iran-backed Iraqi militias. CPT estimates these militia groups are responsible for around 453 attacks on the Kurdistan Region since the beginning of the war. The attacks are primarily motivated by perceptions that the Kurds are aligned with the US, though tensions between Baghdad and Erbil contribute.
The company is also making it easier to search across both Uber and Uber Eats.
Nine people were arrested in raids on the U.K. headquarters of the AROPL religious sect, on suspicion of modern slavery, forced marriage and sexual offenses.
Farage was given £5m by the Thai-based billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 general election
Here is the running order for PMQs.
Nigel Farage was given £5m by the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 British general election, Anna Isaac reports.
Continue reading...Fans in Buffalo, only a few miles from Ontario, filled the silence when a microphone cut out at the start of a match
The Electric City. Nickel City. Queen City. City of No Illusions.
Buffalo, New York, has accrued many nicknames over the years but, in an age of growing tensions between two traditional allies, one among them has taken on extra resonance: the City of Good Neighbors.
Continue reading...Tearful testimony details missed warnings and lack of plan as families oppose reopening of Texas camp
A director of Camp Mystic, the all-girls Christian camp in the Texas Hill Country where 25 campers and two counselors were killed in a flash flood last summer, has offered a tearful apology to victim’s families for the loss of life.
“We tried our hardest that night. It wasn’t enough to save your daughters,” Edward Eastland said, at a joint Texas House and Senate committee panel in Austin investigating the deadly flooding. “I’m so sorry.”
Continue reading...Brown calls for police to look into former prince’s use of public funds and says he had colleague raise issue in 2008
Gordon Brown has revealed he ordered that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor be questioned about incurring “unacceptable costs” as a trade envoy in 2008, as he called for the police to widen their inquiry to include the use of public funds.
The former prime minister said he asked a colleague from the business department to question Mountbatten-Windsor about his travel expenses.
Continue reading...What board do you think is best for me?
- 185lb, size 11 shoe
- 99% street neighborhood riding
- realistically probably not riding more than 10miles in a day
- errand runner and general cruiser
- budget flexible
- I’d prefer out of the box ready options. I have zero vesc or tech experience, not necessarily interested in being a tinkerer. More of a set it and forget it rider
We think XRC will get an update soon?
I currently have an OG Pint (upgraded tire and foot pads) from 2019 with 1,400miles, love it but feels so slow at this point. Haptic buzz comes in so early
TORONTO, April 29, 2026 — Xanadu Quantum Technologies Ltd., a leading photonic quantum computing company, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), one of the largest scientific research centers in the United States, have collaborated to enable cutting-edge research in quantum computing by leveraging Xanadu’s open-source quantum software library, PennyLane, on the Frontier supercomputer, one of the most advanced computing systems in the world.
Credit: ORNL
Users of Frontier and the broader Oak Ridge Leadership Facility (OLCF) community can now utilize PennyLane to write and execute quantum programs directly on the Frontier supercomputer using PennyLane’s high-performance Lightning simulator. This collaboration pushes the limits of quantum computing simulation by merging Frontier’s exascale capabilities, powered by AMD’s CPUs and GPUs, with PennyLane’s accessible programming interface.
In order to prototype, test, and validate larger quantum programs and algorithms, researchers often need supercomputing resources to simulate a large number of qubits. With the ability to run PennyLane on Frontier, researchers can now explore complex problems and identify performance bottlenecks that are not present within smaller simulations. Researchers have a new, powerful set of tools to advance the field of quantum applications development, with fault-tolerant quantum computing on the horizon.
Xanadu has further advanced this work by integrating Message Passing Interface (MPI) with Lightning. MPI introduces the ability to communicate across multiple computational nodes and is a foundational tool for massively-parallelized classical high-performance computing. This integrated feature enables users to cut down on total runtimes and explore novel approaches for distributed computation by coupling Lightning with MPI for quantum simulation. Researchers are now able to easily leverage world-class parallel computing capabilities of AMD-powered hardware at the Frontier supercomputing facility for their quantum computing research.
Xanadu also supported the OLCF community through a comprehensive hands-on workshop. The goal of this workshop was to provide participants with the knowledge to start using PennyLane for quantum programming. In addition to general onboarding, the workshop also taught how PennyLane’s high-performance capabilities could be leveraged with the supercomputing capabilities of Frontier.
“We’re thrilled that PennyLane is now ready for researchers using Frontier to push the limits of quantum computing simulation. PennyLane was designed to provide an accessible user interface, support hybrid classical-quantum programs, and integrate with high-performance simulators – all features that complement Frontier’s classical supercomputer,” said Dr. Christian Weedbrook, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Xanadu.
“By leveraging the exascale performance of Frontier’s AMD-powered systems with Xanadu’s accessible PennyLane software framework, we are enabling the OLCF user community to simulate quantum programs at scale. This capability supports benchmarking of algorithms, investigation of hardware constraints, and preparation for future fault-tolerant quantum applications,” said Michael Sandoval, a high-performance engineer at OLCF and organizer of the PennyLane on Frontier workshop.
As the field of quantum computing continues to accelerate, collaborations between industry and national laboratories are poised to unlock new discoveries in quantum computing and beyond. Xanadu and ORNL stand ready to support the world-class researchers pushing the limits of the field.
About Xanadu
Xanadu is a Canadian quantum computing company with the mission to build quantum computers that are useful and available to people everywhere. Founded in 2016, Xanadu has become one of the world’s leading quantum hardware and software companies. The company also leads the development of PennyLane, an open-source software library for quantum computing and application development.
About ORNL
Oak Ridge National Laboratory delivers scientific discoveries and technical breakthroughs to accelerate the development and deployment of solutions in clean energy and global security, and in doing so create economic opportunity for the nation. ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for DOE’s Office of Science.
Source: Xanadu
The post Xanadu and ORNL Bring PennyLane Quantum Software to Frontier Supercomputer appeared first on HPCwire.
Fishing companies can also access subsidies in loosening of state aid rules to cover fuel and fertiliser price rises
The EU is to subsidise up to 70% of the extra cost of fuel and fertilisers caused by the Iran war for farmers, fishing businesses and road hauliers as part of a package of emergency measures.
Individual companies can claim up to €50,000 each between now and the end of the year with minimum paperwork, a measure the EU hopes will remove what it sees as an existential threat to hauliers and farmers.
Continue reading...About 500 officers deployed as part of operation at headquarters of Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light
Police have raided the headquarters of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light following an investigation into allegations of serious sexual offences, modern slavery and forced marriage.
About 500 officers drawn from across the north-west of England were on the ground on Wednesday morning. Police confirmed nine people had been arrested in relation to the investigation and were being held in custody.
Continue reading...  | Got up this morning and it wouldn’t engage/autolevel/go… any fixes? Just had the wheel replaced (by them) and road for a week with no issues [link] [comments] |
London's mayor says police will increase patrols after an "appalling attack on two Jewish Londoners," amid a "series of shocking antisemitic attacks" in the city.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Humanoid robots are getting a new gig as baggage handlers and cargo loaders at Tokyo's Haneda Airport -- part of a Japan Airlines experiment to address a human labor shortage as airport visitor numbers have surged in recent years. The demonstration, set to launch in May 2026, could eventually test humanoid robots in a wide range of airport tasks, including cleaning aircraft cabins and possibly handling ground support equipment such as baggage carts, according to a Japan Airlines press release. The trials are scheduled to run until 2028, which suggests that travelers flying into or out of Tokyo may spot some of the robots at work. [...] Japan Airlines is interested in testing whether humanoid robots powered by some of the latest AI models can adapt more readily to human work environments -- such as airports -- without requiring dedicated work stations or other significant workplace modifications. The airline's subsidiary, JAL Ground Service, has teamed up with GMO AI & Robotics Corporation to oversee the demonstration. The Japanese companies will test the G1 robot and Walker E robot from Chinese companies Unitree Robotics and UBTECH Robotics, according to The Asia Business Daily. Humanoid robots still typically cost tens of thousands of dollars per unit despite Chinese robotics manufacturers scaling up mass production, although the Unitree G1 robot costs as low as $13,500 for the baseline model. A new video from an apparently staged demonstration in an aircraft hangar shows one of the humanoid robots tottering up to a large, metal cargo container and making a vague pushing gesture. But the cargo container only begins to move once a human worker starts the conveyor belt to move the container toward the aircraft. Presumably, the robots will need to put in much more effective work if they're to prove as productive as human airport workers. Having robots working directly alongside humans will also introduce new safety considerations for airports like Haneda Airport, which is Japan's second-largest airport, with flights arriving approximately every two minutes. The first step in the pilot program will involve identifying which airport areas will be safest for humanoid robots.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Physical phone-blocking devices, powered by NFC wireless technology, are becoming a popular solution for doomscrolling. Brigid Delaney puts one to the test
Wake up, 100 messages from group chat overnight about something – what? another assassination attempt; a village destroyed in Lebanon; the football result in England; the weather in Iran being manipulated; the pesticides causing lung and bowel cancer, so everyone who eats salads is now at risk of cancer; meditate for 20 minutes, then fire up x.com, a place I thought I’d never want to revisit, with its carnival barkers and supplement salesman, and have you seen the Lego thing calling Trump a paedo?, you gotta see the Lego thing, and this is before my first coffee, yet x.com is the coffee and the tea, whatever Elon has done to the For You algorithm is evil genius, it’s like the global collective id, nasty and funny and addictive and compelling – like gawking at a car crash, like soaking in a hot bubble bath of anger, and memes, and geopolitical dramas, and Trump, Trump, Trump – soaking in Trump, and then, For Me (just as Elon promised).
So begins the circuit around my phone, that goes all day and night, around the tiny screen with its icons (when a born-again Christian once told me he had favourite icons, for a long time I thought he meant apps, not pictures of the Virgin Mary). I started to feel like I was in Canberra, on one of those enormous roundabouts, rotating between the icons – not Joseph, not Jesus, but X and WhatsApp and TikTok and even LinkedIn for Christ sakes – round and round from one app to the next, just checking, checking in case something is happening. I watched tiny videos and maybe, occasionally, got distracted by the novel I am meant to be writing, which is due on 31 July. But the novel is boring, just a static Word doc on a screen, it’s not giving; it’s taking hard work. So I spend six minutes with my novel, and then it’s time to go back to my phone, to circle the roundabout visiting all my icons again, like a demented Stations of the Cross, because I can’t focus, I just can’t focus on work right now when there is so much good scrolling to do …
Continue reading...TSA is trying to encourage young travelers to enroll in its PreCheck program before summer travel kicks off.
Pet ownership costs now average thousands of dollars per year, and that's before any medical issues arise.
Accelerated PDE solving will make simulations faster, more energy efficient and more accessible across global industries
TEL AVIV, Israel, April 29, 2026 — LightSolver, a pioneer in laser-based computing for physics-intensive workloads, has announced a strategic financial partnership with Boeing to advance laser-based computing acceleration for complex engineering simulations. The collaboration focuses on improving the performance, scalability, and energy efficiency of critical physics-based modeling that underpins modern engineering design and lifecycle management.
Through this engagement, Boeing is funding the continued development and optimization of LightSolver’s Laser Processing Unit, or LPU, with an emphasis on adapting the technology to real-world engineering requirements such as numerical accuracy, repeatability, and seamless integration with existing high-performance computing environments.
Boeing’s investment is directed toward advancing LPU capabilities for simulation scenarios involving degradation-driven structural effects that influence long-term material performance, asset lifespan, and maintenance planning. These phenomena are determined by large, tightly-coupled systems of partial differential equations (PDEs) that remain computationally expensive to solve using conventional GPU-based infrastructures.
Improving simulation fidelity and turnaround time is increasingly critical for predicting structural behavior, mitigating risk, and controlling lifecycle costs across complex engineering systems. Degradation-driven structural challenges represent a multi-trillion dollar global burden across capital-intensive industries, with independent studies suggesting that a meaningful share of these costs can be mitigated through earlier and more accurate modeling.
LightSolver’s approach introduces a fundamentally different computational paradigm. Rather than approximating physics through digital instruction sets alone, the LPU solves PDEs directly through physical laser dynamics. This enables highly parallel exploration of solution spaces while reducing both power consumption and total cost of computation compared to traditional hardware acceleration approaches.
“Boeing Israel highly values this strategic partnership with LightSolver for bringing together domain expertise and breakthrough laser-based computing—accelerating our ability to predict, design, and sustain safer, more cost-effective systems,” said Ido Nehushtan, Boeing Israel President. “This collaboration is part of Boeing’s broader strategy to identify and partner with Israeli high-tech companies that strengthen the Israel aerospace business and the technology ecosystem that fuels innovation. By partnering with LightSolver, we are combining Boeing’s engineering scale and operational experience with LightSolver’s pioneering expertise to move promising research into practical, deployable tools—a clear example of how targeted investments and meaningful partnerships can translate cutting edge science into real-world impact.”
LPU-accelerated simulation allows engineering teams to iterate faster, explore broader design spaces, and uncover insights earlier in the development lifecycle. Orders of magnitude improvements in simulation speed can shorten validation cycles while lowering the computational overhead associated with large-scale scenario analysis. The technology is designed to operate within hybrid computing architectures, complementing classical processors rather than replacing them.
“Boeing’s engagement represents an important validation of physics-based computing as a practical tool for solving real-world engineering challenges,” said Ruti Ben-Shlomi, CEO and co-founder of LightSolver. “This partnership demonstrates how laser-based acceleration can move beyond research environments and into production workflows where simulation accuracy, scalability, and cost efficiency directly impact business outcomes.”
While driven by Boeing’s engineering priorities, the capabilities from this collaboration should extend across industries that rely heavily on large-scale physics-based modeling, including aerospace, energy, transportation, and infrastructure. The partnership underscores a broader industry shift toward physics-native computing as organizations seek more efficient ways to address complex simulation bottlenecks.
About Boeing
A leading global aerospace company and top U.S. exporter, Boeing develops, manufactures and services commercial airplanes, defense products and space systems for customers in more than 150 countries. Our U.S. and global workforce and supplier base drive innovation, economic opportunity, sustainability and community impact. Boeing is committed to fostering a culture based on our core values of safety, quality, and integrity.
About LightSolver
LightSolver is developing an all-optical, laser-based computing paradigm designed to solve large, complex computational problems at the speed of light. Its proprietary Laser Processing Unit (LPU) harnesses laser interference patterns to address challenges traditionally limited by electronic computing – while operating at room temperature and fitting within a standard rack unit.
Founded in 2020 by Dr. Ruti Ben-Shlomi and Dr. Chene Tradonsky, physicists from Weizmann Institute of Science, LightSolver is backed in part by funding from the European Innovation Council. The company’s multidisciplinary team includes experts in physics, mathematics, and computer science.
Source: LightSolver
The post LightSolver Partners with Boeing to Apply Laser-Based Computing to Complex Simulation Challenges appeared first on HPCwire.
Democrats had filed civil contempt resolution against former attorney general for not appearing for deposition
The House oversight and government reform committee has said that former attorney general Pam Bondi will now appear before the panel on 29 May to answer questions about the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and its release of the Epstein files.
The announcement of the date came shortly after the Democrats on the committee announced that they had filed a civil contempt resolution against Bondi after she did not appear for her deposition earlier this month.
Continue reading...Ursula von der Leyen later due to meet new Hungarian leader who is seeking to unlock EU funds in return for reforms
AFP is reporting that so far, officials in Brussels are hopeful that Péter Magyar – who once served under Viktor Orbán, before turning on his former boss – will genuinely launch a new chapter in ties.
But wary of celebrating too soon, they insist they need to see concrete moves and not just kind words.
“A huge mandate, a strong mandate, a great responsibility!
We know our task: we will bring home the EU funds that Hungarians are entitled to. More soon.”
Continue reading...Three defendants deny plotting arson attack on two homes and a car connected to prime minister in London last year
A series of arson attacks on property linked to Keir Starmer was masterminded by a Russian-speaking contact using the pseudonym “El Money”, a court has heard.
Roman Lavrynovych, 22, and Petro Pochynok, 35, both from Ukraine, and Stanislav Carpiuc, 27, a Romanian national, sat with their heads bent towards interpreters as Duncan Atkinson KC, prosecuting, opened the trial over the arson attacks in May last year.
Continue reading...Senators voted along partisan lines, with Republicans backing Warsh's nomination to lead the Fed and Democrats on the panel opposing him.
A Senate committee advances Trump’s pick as doubts linger over the Fed’s independence and Powell’s future
Kevin Warsh, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve, cleared a key procedural hurdle on Wednesday, opening the way for him to succeed Jerome Powell in coming weeks amid the White House’s unprecedented efforts to exert control over the world’s most powerful central bank.
Warsh’s nomination was approved in a 13 to 11 vote, strictly along party lines with Republicans supporting the nomination, setting up a confirmation vote in the US Senate in the coming days.
Continue reading...HAMBURG, Germany, April 29, 2026 — ISC High Performance is very pleased to announce the ISC Research Poster Award finalists for the 41st ISC High Performance series. The finalists were selected from a total of 30 accepted posters for their scientific excellence, clarity, and significance in advancing high performance computing, artificial intelligence, and related fields.
Poster finalists were selected from a total of 30 accepted posters for their scientific excellence, clarity, and significance in advancing HPC, AI, and related fields.
Here are the nominated posters. The final ranking will be announced during the ISC Research Poster Award Session.
“SpMV for the Cerebras Wafer-Scale Engine,” by Daniel Renschler and Jonathan Schäfer of the High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart, Germany. The poster explores a Sparse Matrix-Vector Multiplication (SpMV) implementation tailored for the Cerebras Wafer-Scale Engine, demonstrating how traditional HPC workloads can be adapted to AI-specialized architectures while identifying key communication bottlenecks and opportunities for future development.
“HADEER: Hybrid AI Driven Engine for Enhanced Reservoirs,” by Youssef Ghazal, Aly Abdelhalim, Amr Nasr, Marwan Elsafty, and Mohamed Nabil of Brightskies Inc., Egypt. The work presents a hybrid AI-driven framework designed to overcome challenges in reservoir modeling and production optimization, enabling more efficient scenario evaluation and scalable, closed-loop optimization for complex subsurface systems.
“NIMBLE: Node-Interconnect Multi-Path Balancing with On-the-fly Orchestration for High Bandwidth GPU Clusters,” by Dhabaleswar Panda and Jinghan Yao of The Ohio State University, USA. The work introduces a runtime system that addresses inefficiencies in modern GPU clusters caused by imbalanced network traffic. By dynamically redistributing communication across multiple paths, NIMBLE improves bandwidth utilization and scalability, achieving up to 5.2× performance gains for imbalanced workloads and delivering notable speedups in large-scale AI training scenarios.
The ISC Research Poster Awards carry cash prizes of €500 for first place, €300 for second place, and €200 for third place, sponsored by Springer, an international publisher in science, technology, and medicine.
This year’s Research Poster Committee is chaired by Tanzima Islam from Texas State University, USA, and co-chaired by Fernanda Foertter of the University of Alabama, USA.
The ISC Research Poster Award session will take place on Tuesday, June 23, during which the finalists will present their work in short talks, followed by the official announcement of the winners. This year, written summaries of the presentations will be published on the event platform using an AI-based transcription tool.
The program continues with the Research Poster Pitch and a Research Poster Reception the following afternoon. Attendees with an Exhibition Pass are welcome to join the reception.
Women in HPC Poster Session
In parallel, ISC will also host the Women in HPC (WHPC) poster session, featuring 13 accepted posters. The WHPC posters provide ISC attendees the opportunity to engage with research and perspectives from across the global WHPC community.
Topics span AI-driven scientific discovery, climate and weather modeling, HPC system optimization, software engineering, and energy-efficient computing. Additional contributions explore agentic AI for HPC management, data provenance, biomedical applications, and education pathways into HPC.
All posters will be on display from Tuesday, June 23, 2:15 pm through Thursday, June 25, 4:00 pm, in Foyer D-G on the 2nd Floor.
More from HPCwire
About ISC High Performance
ISC High Performance is the leading global event for high performance computing, artificial intelligence, data analytics, and quantum computing. It brings together researchers, technology providers, and industry leaders to explore the latest advancements and practical applications shaping the future of computing.
Source: ISC
The post ISC High Performance 2026 Announces Research Poster Finalists appeared first on HPCwire.
Royal Navy chief says unified naval force will deter future Russian threats from the ‘open sea border’ to the north
Britain has agreed to create a unified naval force with nine European countries to deter future Russian threats from the “open sea border” to the north, the head of the Royal Navy has announced.
Gen Sir Gwyn Jenkins said that despite the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, where the strait of Hormuz remains closed after the US-Israeli war in Iran, “Russia remains the gravest threat to our security”.
Continue reading...Article 42.7 had languished in obscurity for decades – until Donald Trump began casting doubt on US commitment to Nato
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Most people have heard of Nato’s article 5. The “one for all, all for one” clause states an armed attack on one member country should be considered an attack on all, requiring member states to come to the victim’s aid – including with “the use of armed force”.
Not so many, till this week, had heard of the EU’s own mutual defence clause, article 42.7 (pdf), which says that if a member state comes under armed attack, the others “shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power”. That’s perhaps because there hadn’t, until recently, been much need for Europeans to consult article 42.7. More than 40 US military bases and 85,000 troops across the EU (and UK) were testament to Washington’s defence commitment to the old continent.
Continue reading...The deposition was announced moments after Democrats said they filed a civil contempt resolution against Bondi.
Bellarmine Chatunga Mugabe also fined after pleading guilty to immigration and firearms-related offences
Two months after an employee was shot in the back at the Mugabe family home in a wealthy suburb of Johannesburg, a South African court has fined and ordered the deportation of Robert Mugabe’s youngest son over two unrelated charges.
Bellarmine Chatunga Mugabe, 28, and his cousin Tobias Mugabe Matonhodze, 33, were initially both charged with attempted murder after the incident on 19 February.
Continue reading...Debt relief companies offer help to overburdened borrowers, but the monthly payments may not go where you think.
Want to buy a home or refinance your current one? Here are the mortgage interest rates to know right now.
Rise in electricity demand in first quarter of 2026 was moderated by record output from rooftop solar
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More datacentres and warmer conditions helped push electricity demand to record highs in the first three months of the year, according to Australia’s Energy Market Operator, while growth in batteries kept average wholesale prices down.
Electricity demand – from households, business and industry – reached record levels of 25GW in Q1 2026, an increase of 1.2% compared with the same quarter last year. Across the grid, this growth was offset by record output from rooftop solar.
Continue reading...Pragmata, Saros and Vampire Crawler bring together aesthetics, responsiveness and creative opportunities in joyous ways that can’t be defined, only experienced
Game feel is one of the most elusive concepts in the glossary of interactive entertainment, at once perfectly clear and difficult to define. Obviously, it refers to what a game feels like to play, but where does that feeling come from? How does it manifest? Or consider it from a different angle. When the chef Samin Nosrat started her career at the renowned Chez Panisse in California, she began to understand that what diners really responded to in their food were four key factors – salt, fat, acid and heat – and how these elements interacted. This idea formed the basis of her bestselling cookbook. It perhaps also inspired a video game audio director to once compare game feel to eating a potato chip: the salt and fat are part of it but so are the crunch and the sensation of the chip dissolving in your mouth (pdf). Game feel is a combination of elements – the responsiveness of the controls, the intuitiveness of the action, the aesthetics of the world and the creative opportunities they engender – all coming together in the right quantities.
I’m thinking about this a lot right now, because three games released in the last few days illustrate the idea of good game feel beautifully. The first is Pragmata, Capcom’s sci-fi action adventure in which you explore an abandoned colony base with the help of a child-like android, who lets you hack robotic enemies, lowering their defences before you blast them to pieces. The hacking mini-game takes place on a grid with nodes that add power-ups to your hack attack. As you progress, you add new types of nodes, as well as new weapons, and the interplay between these elements is complex, multifaceted and fun. This takes place in a linear world filled with hidden areas, so exploration is guided but discovery is possible. You run, jump and glide – it all feels seamless. It is joyous simply to be there.
Continue reading...Meta has a ton of smart glasses, and tethered display glasses from Viture and Xreal are impressive, too. Here’s a quick guide to help you sort through the options, but Google's on deck soon too.
April 29, 2026 — The Hayward fault, part of the larger San Andreas fault system, runs 74 miles through the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. The fault is overdue for an earthquake that could cause extensive damage to such a dense population zone.
In a recent study, published in Seismological Research Letters, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) simulated earthquake scenarios on the Hayward fault and analyzed how the rupture and underground structure affect ground-motion intensity along the fault.
Ground motion simulation of a magnitude 7 earthquake on the Hayward fault using the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory-Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Earthquake Simulation platform.
“Using high-performance computing earthquake simulations, we are interested in learning what the ground motion for a typical magnitude-7 earthquake in the Bay Area could be, so that we can work with engineers to make sure that the infrastructure and buildings in the Bay Area can withstand this motion,” said author and LLNL scientist Arben Pitarka. “With that information, we can also start preparations for retrofitting some of the vulnerable structures.”
According to geological evidence, magnitude-7 earthquakes happen relatively often on the Hayward fault. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates a 14.3% chance of a 6.7 magnitude or larger event by 2034 and a 33% chance before 2043 — making the Hayward fault the most dangerous in the Bay Area.
To prepare for the worst, scientists must understand the seismic hazard in the region. Under a Department of Energy (DOE) project led by LBNL, the team created a simulation platform that includes two major modeling components: one that simulates the generation of seismic waves during the earthquake rupture and another that propagates the seismic waves through the earth.
“Since we don’t know exactly how the rupture will evolve during an expected earthquake — including the overall fault slip, hypocenter location and rupture speed — we rely on a large number of simulations in which we vary several modeling parameters, including those of the earthquake rupture model,” said Pitarka. “These large-scale simulations allow us to reduce the uncertainty in ground motion estimates associated with earthquake rupture.”
The LBNL and LLNL researchers used DOE’s exascale computing infrastructure to simulate 50 magnitude-7 earthquakes on the Hayward fault.
“With this new database, not only can we provide better estimates of the expected ground motion from this type of earthquake, but we can also locate areas that are susceptible to very strong shaking in the San Francisco Bay Area,” said Pitarka.
Locations near the Hayward fault are at high risk, especially those that fall inside a cone-shaped zone along the fault that starts at the epicenter and spreads on both sides of the fault. Due to the pulse-like nature of the ground motion created by the so-called “rupture directivity effect,” that area would experience strong shaking that is far more intense than normal and especially dangerous for tall or flexible buildings. Empirical ground motion prediction models are not well-constrained to account for this effect.
The simulations also revealed other areas that are susceptible to increased ground motion intensity: sedimentary basins and microbasins. For these bowl-shaped depressions in the earth’s shallow crust, such as the Livermore basin, the ground motion is amplified regardless of the earthquake location.
Going forward, the team aims to extend their simulations to model earthquakes on the San Andreas fault, which can produce magnitude 7.5 earthquakes or larger. The bigger the earthquake, the further the ground motion spreads and the more computational power is required to model it. They are also pushing the models to capture seismic waves with higher frequencies, which requires very detailed knowledge of the earth’s subsurface.
Closer to home, LLNL seismologists hope to improve the understanding of seismic hazard at the Livermore site, where a large earthquake on the Hayward fault or a moderate size earthquake on the nearby Greenville fault could cause significant damage to equipment that is sensitive to strong ground shaking.
Source: LLNL
The post LLNL: Simulations Predict Ground Motion for Earthquakes on Bay Area’s Hayward Fault appeared first on HPCwire.
No one has claimed responsibility for flag, which appeared on 120-metre Spire in September
What goes up must come down – unless it’s a Palestinian flag at the top of Dublin’s tallest monument that no one knows how to remove.
The flag appeared on the 120-metre Spire on O’Connell Street last September and for seven months it has defied every proposed measure to take it down. Who installed it and how remains a mystery.
Continue reading...Delegates at event in Cape Verde highlight opportunities from tech while stressing AI is no replacement for talent
Last July, the Nigerian singer-songwriter Fave found herself caught up in a viral moment: an unauthorised version of a track by her featuring an AI choir had been released, quickly becoming an internet sensation. To get ahead of the situation, she recorded her own remix that integrated the AI-assisted song and added it to her discography.
“In my view, [that] was smart and very business aware,” Oyinkansola Fawehinmi, a Lagos-based entertainment lawyer, observed a few months later. “She essentially reclaimed the ‘AI version’ and released it as her own official expression.”
Continue reading...You may soon see the self-driving robotaxis in Oregon's City of Roses.
The State Department has shifted its public image in favor of explicit Christian messaging and iconography and away from secular and multicultural causes, an analysis by The Intercept of the department’s Instagram posts has found.
Posts marking Passover, Good Friday, and Easter in 2026 included explicitly religious messaging, including imagery of Christian crosses and references to “Christ’s sacrifice” and the Resurrection. The Intercept’s analysis, which catalogued of the department’s Instagram posts from 2020 through early 2026, found these posts show a clear change in messaging not only from the Biden years, but also from President Donald Trump’s first term.
“From a digital diplomacy point of view, this looks like more than a change in images. It suggests a shift in how the U.S. government is presenting itself online,” said Corneliu Bjola, a professor of digital diplomacy at the University of Oxford. “In earlier years, posts projected a broad and inclusive image — what you might call ‘the shiny city on the hill.’ The 2026 pattern points to a narrower and more controlled message about strength and authority — ‘fortress America.’”
Long considered the government’s primary diplomatic arm, the State Department historically used its account to highlight a wide range of international, cultural, and religious observances. In 2020, under the leadership of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the State Department used its account to mark holidays and observances including Juneteenth, Chinese New Year, Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, Yom Kippur, and Kwanzaa.
Since Secretary of State Marco Rubio assumed his role, observance-related posts have been limited to Christian and Jewish holidays, including one that featured an impassioned speech by Rubio describing the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The account has not marked major Islamic holidays or other widely observed cultural events that it routinely highlighted in prior years.
Federal agencies have already faced scrutiny over controversial social media posts. The Department of Homeland Security has recently drawn scrutiny for using a neo-Nazi-linked song in a recruiting post, and the Department of Labor has faced criticism for social media imagery depicting an all-white, all-male workforce in a 1950s-style campaign, including a post that read, “One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who you are, American.”
Meanwhile, the State Department has moved away from posts highlighting multiculturalism in the United States and abroad.
Under Pompeo, the State Department made posts highlighting initiatives such as the International Religious Freedom Alliance and women’s empowerment efforts. The account also recognized events such as World Press Freedom Day, World Refugee Day, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and the International Day of Reflection on the Rwanda Genocide, among others.
The range narrows significantly under Rubio. Posts during this period place greater emphasis on borders, sovereignty, and enforcement, alongside a more limited set of cultural and religious observances. In September 2025, the account featured a video of Rubio meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel as the country continued its assault on Gaza in what human rights groups and some international observers have described as a genocide.
In 2025, posts marking observances were limited to a small set of holidays and commemorations, including International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Christmas, and D-Day. Several posts emphasized religious or national themes, including a Columbus Day post that referenced “glory to God and country.”
The posts have also shifted to heavily feature the likeness of President Donald Trump. In early 2026, roughly 40 percent of posts included Trump’s image, a higher share than during either the Biden administration or Trump’s first term. On Tuesday, The Bulwark reported that the State Department is finalizing plans to include President Donald Trump’s image in a redesigned U.S. passport.
Asked why the account no longer marks a broader range of international and religious observances, including major Islamic holidays that had been featured in prior years, a State Department spokesperson said the content reflects the priorities of the current administration.
“Our content reflects the priorities of the current administration, including a renewed focus on seriousness and diplomacy.”
“Obviously, the president is featured prominently in our posts. He sets U.S. foreign policy, and the State Department’s role is to execute and communicate that agenda,” the spokesperson said. “Our content reflects the priorities of the current administration, including a renewed focus on seriousness and diplomacy. Decisions about what to highlight, including observances, are made by communications professionals.”
Rather than highlighting diplomatic events or cultural observances, the account frequently features stylized graphics of Trump and administration officials alongside slogans emphasizing immigration enforcement, national sovereignty and security. Some posts resemble campaign messaging, including phrases such as “Send Them Back” and “This Is Our Hemisphere,” as well as graphics touting policy outcomes like visa revocations.
Former U.S. diplomats and public diplomacy officials told The Intercept the shift marks a break from long-standing norms that have historically emphasized nonpartisan messaging and broad cultural representation in official government communications.
Daniel Kreiss, a political communication scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the shift reflects a broader pattern across government agencies.
“The cultural and religious diversity that represents all of America — and frankly, for the State Department, the world — is no longer being represented, based on your data, in favor of overrepresenting what the administration cares about,” Kreiss said. “It’s sending a key public signal that these agencies are operating faithfully to the president and his coalition.”
The shift, experts say, is not just about what the United States chooses to show the world, but also what it no longer does. In digital diplomacy, what is omitted can be as consequential as what is shown.
The post Marco Rubio Is Rebranding the State Department as Explicitly Christian appeared first on The Intercept.
As organizations generate and retain unprecedented volumes of data, selecting the right approach for backup and archival storage has become a defining architectural decision for IT teams. From AI pipelines and large-scale simulation outputs to high-resolution media, analytics, and regulatory retention requirements, data must be preserved securely, accessed efficiently, and managed economically over decades, not just years.
This has led many organizations to evaluate object-based tape and public cloud storage side by side, examining how each supports long-term data protection and where each fit within modern data architectures. While public cloud offers convenience, advances in tape, particularly object-based tape, are prompting a broader reassessment of how long-term storage should be designed. As AI and HPC workloads continue to scale, these tradeoffs are becoming more visible, and more consequential.
Rather than choosing one over the other, leading organizations are increasingly focused on understanding how these approaches behave at scale and how they can be combined to support sustainable, long-term data strategies.
Data growth continues to accelerate, with global storage demand trending toward zettabyte scale. At these levels, scalability is no longer just a question of capacity, it is a question of operational and economic sustainability.
(NicoElNino/Shutterstock)
Public cloud offers elastic scale and is well suited for dynamic workloads across geographically distributed environments. However, as data volumes accumulate over long retention periods, the cost and complexity of managing that data can increase in non-linear and unexpected ways.
Object-based tape provides a complementary model that aligns more naturally with the economic and operational realities of long-term archive at scale. By combining the density and durability of tape with object-based access frameworks, organizations can manage large-scale archives using metadata-driven access without the constraints of traditional file systems. This allows archival infrastructure to scale alongside modern data environments while maintaining long-term efficiency.
A large percentage of enterprise and research data becomes inactive shortly after it is created. Backup copies, compliance records, experimental data, and historical datasets may need to be retained for extended periods but are accessed infrequently.
This is often described as a “cold data” challenge, but at scale it is more accurately an infrastructure alignment issue.
Public cloud storage tiers can support infrequently accessed data, but retrieval characteristics and associated costs can vary depending on storage class and access patterns. Over time, this variability can introduce both financial and operational uncertainty.
Tape is inherently optimized for this class of data. Once written, it does not require continuous power, making it an energy-efficient option for long-term retention. In large-scale environments, particularly those supporting AI and HPC workloads, this distinction becomes increasingly important, as storage infrastructure competes directly with compute for power and cooling resources.
Public cloud storage is often adopted for its convenience and minimal upfront investment. However, long-term archiving introduces additional cost dimensions that become more visible as data volumes grow.
Charges related to retrieval, API requests, replication, and egress can accumulate over time, making it difficult to accurately forecast total cost of ownership for large, long-lived datasets. In practice, many organizations find that archival costs increase as access patterns evolve or as data is reused in analytics and AI workflows.
(ZinetroN/Shutterstock)
Tape provides a more predictable economic model. Once data is written, storage costs are largely fixed, enabling more consistent long-term planning. For organizations managing multi-petabyte or exabyte-scale archives, this predictability can provide a significant advantage at scale.
One of the most significant developments in tape storage is its integration with object storage frameworks.
Object-based tape allows tape infrastructure to be accessed using the same interfaces and protocols commonly used in cloud and on-premises object environments. With support for standard APIs such as S3-compatible interfaces, applications can interact with archived data without requiring changes to core workflows.
This is a notable shift. Historically, tape existed outside of primary data workflows, requiring separate tools and operational processes. By aligning with object storage models, tape can now participate more directly in modern data pipelines.
In HPC and AI environments, this enables long-lived datasets—such as simulation outputs, checkpoint data, and AI training data—to remain accessible within standard data workflows while being stored on infrastructure optimized for long-term retention.
Protecting backup and archival data has become a central concern as cyber threats continue to evolve.
Cloud environments offer strong security controls, but data stored online remains part of a connected system. As a result, it shares the same exposure to network-based threats, even when protected by multiple layers of software-based defenses.
Tape introduces a different security model. By enabling data to be physically separated from active systems, it creates a physical air gap independent of software controls. This architectural separation provides a level of isolation that is difficult to replicate in always-connected environments.
(Shutterstock)
In practice, many organizations incorporate tape as part of a broader data protection strategy to ensure that critical data remains recoverable under a wide range of failure scenarios.
As data lifecycles extend, organizations are placing greater emphasis on control, visibility, and long-term stewardship.
Public cloud environments may distribute data across regions and abstract infrastructure management, which can introduce challenges related to governance, residency, and long-term cost control. While these models offer flexibility, they may not align with all regulatory or operational requirements.
Tape-based archival, particularly when deployed within controlled environments, allows organizations to maintain direct oversight of where data resides and how it is managed over time. This supports compliance efforts while also providing greater certainty in how long-term data assets are preserved.
As data volumes grow and retention requirements extend, organizations are rethinking how they approach long-term backup and archival storage.
Public cloud remains a critical component of modern infrastructure, particularly for accessibility, elasticity, and distributed workflows. At the same time, object-based tape is redefining how tape fits within contemporary data architectures by aligning long-term storage with modern object-based access models.
The most effective strategies are not built around choosing one approach over the other. They are built around understanding how each technology behaves at scale and aligning it with the appropriate role within the data lifecycle. In that context, archive is no longer just a passive repositor, it is an architectural decision that influences cost, performance, resilience, and sustainability over time.
About the author: Ted Oade is a marketing professional with experience in product marketing and management across various technology companies. Currently serving as the Director of Product Marketing at Spectra Logic since October 2024, Oade previously held roles at Seagate Technology, where leadership spanned global product marketing for an $8 billion portfolio, and X-IO Technologies, focusing on enterprise-class storage solutions. Oade’s career includes positions at Sphere 3D Inc., Tandberg Data, and Quantum Corporation, where responsibilities included driving product strategies, overseeing marketing initiatives, and enhancing profitability. Oade holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing and an MBA in Marketing and Transportation from the University of Colorado Boulder.
The post Re-Architecting Archive at Scale: Object-Based Tape and the Limits of Cloud appeared first on HPCwire.
Colette Delawalla launched Stand Up for Science to push back against the Trump’s cuts to medical and scientific research
Nineteen days into the second administration of Donald Trump, Colette Delawalla reached her limit.
The 30-year-old budding clinical psychologist and mother of a toddler had been eager to finish her dissertation and launch a scientific career dedicated to teaching and research on addiction. Now that plan seemed seriously at odds with where the country was headed. The Trump administration had just announced $4bn in cuts to medical and scientific research. Government scientists had been ordered not to speak at conferences or in public for the time being. The National Institutes of Health was purging grants that conflicted with presidential orders on “gender ideology” and “diversity”.
Continue reading...  | Riding at the local loop & saw these cuties! [link] [comments] |
Today, the Supreme Court is set to consider the Department of Homeland Security's effort to terminate TPS both for Syria and Haiti.
As the country prepares to elect a new president, a fierce debate is raging on how to end the decades-long armed conflict for good
The landmark 2016 peace deal between the Colombian government and the largest insurgent army in Latin America succeeded in some ways: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) agreed to lay down their weapons, and the violence that had racked the country was substantially reduced.
But the deal alone could not end the decades-long armed conflict for good. Subsequent administrations slow-walked the implementation of the settlement, which was rejected by Farc dissidents and other rebel factions.
Continue reading...New lawsuits allege employees urged company to notify authorities months before deadly Tumbler Ridge attack
Families of seven victims of a mass shooting at a secondary school in British Columbia are suing OpenAI and the company’s CEO for negligence after it failed to alert authorities to the shooter’s troubling conversations with ChatGPT.
The lawsuits, filed on Wednesday in a federal court in San Francisco, allege that the violent intentions of the shooter, identified as 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, were well-known to OpenAI. Employees at the company flagged the shooter’s account eight months before the attack and determined that it posed “a credible and specific threat of gun violence against real people”, according to the lawsuit.
Continue reading...With iPadOS 26 and a faster processor, Apple's best iPad is almost my everyday computer now, but casual users should save their money.
CNET experts list the best iPads that suit your needs.
ETHAN GRANDIN
Editor-in-Chief
“No other president could do some of this s—- I’m doing.” President Donald J. Trump on March 9 at a policy dinner.
Back in 1941, Ernst Fraenkel — a German-Jewish lawyer and political scientist in exile — coined the concept of the “Dual State.” It was among the first rigorous attempts to define fascism, not as mere brutality, but as a system.
On one side stood the normative state: formal institutions bound by rules, procedures, courts of law, agencies and constitutional convention.
On the other, the prerogative state: an extra-legal order deriving its authority entirely from the will of the leader, operating above and beside the law simultaneously.
The crucial point Fraenkel made was that dualism was not a flaw — it was the architecture.
The prerogative state doesn’t announce itself, nor does it need to. It operates through the normative state’s own corridors appointing loyalists to regulatory bodies, installing political enforcers inside agencies, and using the machinery of law to dismantle the rule of law itself.
What looks like dysfunction from the outside is, from the inside, a feature. Every institutional norm violated is a test of how much the edifice will absorb before anyone pushes back.
So far, that sounds about on brand, does it not?
None of this is blundering — from the gutting of the federal government, to the dismantling of American soft power, and the conversion of allies into adversaries and adversaries into partners.
It is a state capture, conducted in broad daylight, with a smile and a draconian press conference. The illusion of separation between private power and public governance — the fiction that held this republic’s self-image together for generations — has not cracked, it’s dissolved.
What makes this moment distinct from prior American authoritarianism isn’t ambition. It’s the openness. The prerogative state no longer hides behind the normative one; it shoves it aside on camera.
Mind you, we are also a country at war, albeit we have been for the entire 21st century, in one way or another. What a war removed from the actual consequences does to the psyche is brain-bending.
But war, and the hypermilitarized police forces roaming our republic on the hunt for “illegals,” is one of the most visible sites of the combination of the prerogative and normative states at work.
After all, we must recall that our glorious leader deemed the acts of violence committed on Jan. 6, 2021 as a “day of love.”
What happened to those right-wing militias that took part in the attempted coup? Could they have joined the president’s personal goon squad?
All while men, women and children scream as they are taken away to treacherous camps — named with humor such as “Alligator Alcatraz” — while those in power gloat over the confinement and “desapariciones” of other human beings.
There is also a sizable and unflinching cohort of this country for whom this is not a crisis. For whom this is, in fact, the point.
That cohort, filled with barons of capital and normal everyday Americans, is quite the juxtaposition, as those so-called barons of modern capitalism — Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, to note a few — have purposefully manipulated the public to their whims.
Call it neo-fascism, neo-feudalism or the bluntest term available: authoritarianism. The label matters less than the recognition that it has a constituency. One that is organized, funded and entirely comfortable with where this is heading.
Which raises the question the respectable press still refuses to ask plainly: who, exactly, is making decisions?
Look at the man at the top. The evidence of serious cognitive decline is not a partisan talking point, it is an apparent truth.
What that means, in practice, is that the feeble king on the throne becomes less relevant than the court circling him. JD Vance, Marco Rubio and the architect of ethno-nationalist policy who has outlasted anyone that tried to contain him — Stephen Miller.
These are the men watching the clock. These are the men who understand that the prerogative state’s window is open, and that windows close.
The opposition? Feckless. Absent. Busy triangulating toward a majority it no longer knows how to imagine holding. That absence is notable. In other countries, there would possibly be a “popular front” in attempts to stave off the chauvinistic and reactionary regime — but that is not how the land of the free operates.
Fraenkel wrote his analysis from exile, watching a republic he had believed in consume itself from within. He understood that the Dual State doesn’t require a dictator who is competent, or even fully conscious.
It requires only that the normative institutions fail to defend themselves, and that the people charged with that defense decide, for whatever reason, that it isn’t worth the cost.
We are at that moment. The back is bending and the question remains whether it breaks.
Ethan Grandin is the Editor-in-Chief at The Review. His opinions are his own and do not represent the majority opinion of The Review staff. He may be reached at egrand@udel.edu.
Is there anyone providing modding services in NYC? Specifically looking to VESC my XR.
A few days of joviality will hardly change American foreign policy or guarantee Trump’s ever-erratic affections for long
Continue reading...  | Got my pint s today and ive been waiting 3 hours for it to register, this is what it says in the app [link] [comments] |
OpenAI boss Sam Altman recently apologized after a teen who went on to kill eight people was banned from ChatGPT for violent activities but police were never alerted.
Patrick Vallance says government working with Chinese officials to remove postings from Alibaba after Biobank data breach last week
There have been further listings of confidential health records of UK volunteers on the Chinese website Alibaba since the breach reported last week, and the government is braced for further leaks, the science minister has said.
Addressing a House of Lords debate on the attempted sale of data belonging to 500,000 UK Biobank volunteers, Patrick Vallance said the government had worked with Chinese officials to remove additional postings on the online marketplace.
Continue reading...AI export controls are not the best bargaining chip Expert comment thilton.drupal
US export controls on chips and hardware alone will not prevent China from further developing advanced AI.
The battle for access to advanced US computing chips is well underway. Last week, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee advanced a range of export control bills, which came as the Chip Security Act makes its way through the layers of US legislative process. The act seeks to prevent US chips from being illegally shipped or diverted to foreign adversaries, especially China, by requiring companies to verify that semiconductors used in AI remain in authorized locations.
This policy aims to slow down the progress of Chinese AI and give the US more time to advance domestic AI capabilities. But for the US, its allies and partners, export controls alone will largely fail in this aim. This is not just because the enforcement of export controls has been leaky and undermined by smuggling. It’s because the policy itself is based on a hardware-centric approach to AI capabilities that the technology has since outgrown.
Export controls for AI are based on a core assumption: that chips are the technological ‘chokepoint’ for AI development. This logic suggests that whoever has the best performing chips (and other key hardware components) will advance faster towards the promise of AI supremacy; preventing adversaries from accessing them is therefore a viable tactic to retain the lead.
Historically, this rings true. In the Cold War, US restrictions on early semiconductors supported this assumption because computing power was almost entirely determined by physical hardware. But as AI advances and adapts, increasingly this logic no longer cleanly transfers. Failing to understand this could have broad sweeping implications for national security, strategic competitiveness and the AI race for both the US and its partners.
US partners and allies need a consistent and stable position from Washington to follow. Washington’s policy changes on chip exports have a ripple effect on its allies’ industrial and AI development planning. This is especially true for those deeply involved in the interdependent supply chain such as the Netherlands, Taiwan and Japan.
Unfortunately, Washington’s recent policy has been inconsistent and mercurial. US President Joe Biden’s ‘AI Diffusion Rule’ represented the fullest expression of a technological chokepoint argument: it sought to restrict access to US chips to preserve the US’s decisive first-mover advantage. But President Trump’s second term has seen an erratic approach. He scrapped the AI Diffusion Rule in May 2025 and has since broadly relaxed controls on certain advanced chips, including Nvidia’s H200 AI processors, while putting a 25 per cent tariff on them. Yet meanwhile Congress has pushed to tighten controls through the Chip Security Act.
This has led to the worst of both worlds. These divergent and inconsistent policy positions make short-term and mid-term decision-making deeply uncertain for supply chain partners. At the same time, both administrations share a common blind spot in seeing advanced chips as a geopolitical prize to be either restricted or used as a bargaining chip. Neither administration has fully grappled with AI trajectories beyond current capability.
US chips are indeed financially and technologically valuable, but seeing them as a permanent chokepoint for AI development is outdated for three main reasons.
First, the rapid increase in demand for AI means that export controls are difficult to enforce. Chip smuggling is reportedly widespread. Third countries, such as Malaysia and Singapore, have allegedly been utilized as grey markets for China. This lucrative trade appears to be growing, with many seemingly willing to break the rules for profit. In spyware and cyber proliferation, a similar story has played out – with intermediaries such as brokers and resellers reportedly fuelling the expansion of the sector despite regional export controls and trade bans.
Second, and more critical for long-term AI policy: gains in AI technology are increasingly no longer just based on raw computing power. Instead, frontier AI developers can improve AI models through making algorithms more efficient, improving the way models are designed and implementing inference optimization techniques that enhance model performance. These are all measures that can make AI faster, cheaper and more available on a variety of devices without using an excess of computational power.
AI laboratories based in adversarial countries are adapting around hardware constraints rather than being inhibited by them. For example, the Chinese AI research company, DeepSeek, has developed highly competitive open-weight, frontier models. Evidence does suggest that export controls limit computational resources for Chinese companies. But they did not stop DeepSeek from releasing its high-performing model for far cheaper than US competitors. These innovations were driven by optimizations in memory management and the use of synthetic data rather than access to the most advanced chips.
This isn’t a new story. Similarly, in 2023, Huawei’s Mate60 Pro caught the attention of US national security officials when export controls on 5G failed to prevent its development. These cases are not anomalies but rational market responses to a policy that misunderstands the development of the very technology it seeks to control.
Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Julie Davis is stepping down, but officials deny reports that it follows disagreements with President Trump
Six people were aboard the 145-foot ship, called the Mariana. Divers recovered one crew member's body from the overturned ship.
OneTaste, a company in San Francisco that prosecutors likened to a sex cult, has embarked on a campaign to court allies of President Trump as it seeks pardons for its two convicted leaders, CBS News has learned.
Surveillance footage reviewed by The Post provides the clearest picture yet of the seconds after the alleged gunman bolted through a checkpoint inside the hotel.
San Antonio seal 4-1 series win over Portland
Knicks one game from progressing after win over Hawks
Victor Wembanyama had 17 points, 14 rebounds and six blocks as the San Antonio Spurs eliminated the Portland Trail Blazers and won a playoff series for the first time since 2017.
De’Aaron Fox had 21 points, Julian Champagnie added 19 and Dylan Harper scored 17 for the Spurs, who led by as many as 28 in their 114-95 victory, which secured a 4-1 series win.
Continue reading...Ed Davey attacks Reform calling it ‘Maga franchise’ and says Elon Musk funnels far-right ideas into UK via X
The Liberal Democrats are pushing for a ban on MPs accepting payments from X as part of a proposed wider crackdown on what Ed Davey will call a “serious threat” to UK democracy from Donald Trump’s US and other countries.
Announcing the plan on Tuesday, the Lib Dem leader renewed his attacks on Reform UK – a series of whose MPs have taken money from X – calling it “a franchise of Maga politics” rather than a British political entity.
Continue reading...Ahead of the US’s 250th birthday, the president has launched six mobile museums that celebrate a white, Christian rewriting of the nation’s story
George Washington greets you as you enter the truck. The great man, dressed elegantly in a black velvet coat and white cravat, stares out from the 1796 Lansdowne portrait, the lifesize image of America’s first president painted during his final year in office.
As you step towards the painting, something strange happens. Washington’s outstretched arm begins to move. His lips part. And lo and behold, the legend is talking to you!
Continue reading...Don't worry, it doesn't mean you need to go and buy more.
I’ve noticed that my XR+ seems to slightly lose balance when going over a steep bump or extended incline. Not enough to cause a dismount, but enough that I notice a shift in balance.
I have not done any maintenance to the board over 5 years, no bearings, battery replacement, etc.
972 miles, 5 year old battery. Is this normal, or am I behind on service and putting additional risk on my collarbone?
Bank says it has withdrawn proceedings against former Telegraph owners Aidan and Howard Barclay at high court
The former owners of the Telegraph have avoided bankruptcy after reaching a settlement with HSBC over more than £140m in overdue debts.
At a high court hearing on Tuesday, Europe’s biggest bank said it had withdrawn proceedings against Aidan and Howard Barclay, whose family lost control of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph in 2023 over £1.16bn of unpaid debts owed to Lloyds Bank.
Continue reading...American soccer will have truly progressed when cases like the Dortmund teenager’s are common enough to be unremarkable
There’s something about a 16-year-old making his debut among fully grown senior professionals that makes him look like a fawn. A scrawny, wobbly baby deer, the function of his arms and legs not yet figured out, jogging on to the pitch in a kit and shin guards that always seem a few sizes too big, like a boy wearing his dad’s suit.
So, too, appeared Mathis Albert when coming on in the 89th minute of Borussia Dortmund’s 4-0 romp over Freiburg on Sunday, which secured the team a place in next year’s Champions League.
Continue reading...Leader mentions for first time lengths to which troops go to avoid falling into enemy hands while fighting for Russia
Kim Jong-un has praised North Korean soldiers who blew themselves up with grenades in order to avoid capture while fighting Ukrainian forces in Russia’s western Kursk region, confirming the existence of the extreme battlefield policy.
Mounting evidence, including from intelligence reports and testimonies of defectors, has indicated North Korean soldiers are explicitly told to resort to self-detonation or other forms of suicide to avoid falling into enemy hands.
Continue reading...Republican Chris Carr accused of trying to revive bid for governor with indictment – ‘the last gasp of a dying man’
Georgia’s top law enforcement official has drawn accusations of using the weight of his office to lift his own political fortunes by bringing a new indictment against protesters of the Atlanta police training center known as Cop City.
Amid bluster about “holding the line against antifa”, Georgia attorney general Chris Carr announced charges against three activists late last week even as his bid to become Georgia’s Republican nominee for governor limps along, with less than double-digit support in polling ahead of a 19 May primary.
Continue reading...Suspect detained by members of Shomrim before police officers arrested him, says volunteer group
A man has been arrested after two people were stabbed in Golders Green, north-west London, the Jewish neighbourhood watch group Shomrim has said.
The man was seen running along Golders Green Road armed with a knife and “attempting to stab Jewish members of the public”, Shomrim said on social media.
Continue reading...The Australian model: Navigating the US-China divide with Malcolm Turnbull 11 May 2026 — 16:00 TO 17:00 BST Anonymous (not verified) Chatham House and Online
Chatham House welcomes Malcolm Turnbull, former Prime Minister of Australia, to draw on his experience managing the full arc of Australia’s complex foreign relations.
Chatham House welcomes Malcolm Turnbull, former Prime Minister of Australia, to draw on his experience managing the full arc of Australia’s complex foreign relations.As US-China rivalry reshapes the international order, few countries have had to navigate its pressures more acutely than Australia – economically connected to China, strategically anchored to the United States, and geographically planted in the Indo-Pacific at the centre of the contest.
The question preoccupying governments from Canberra to London is how America’s allies manage in a world where might increasingly makes right. The rules-based order that the United States built and once guaranteed is now being challenged from within – with Washington itself cast in the role of revisionist power, while Beijing presents itself as a champion of stability, multilateralism, and the rule of law.
From the US alliance to trade tensions with Beijing, Malcolm Turnbull reflects on the choices, costs, and limits of strategic hedging for middle powers. What does Australia’s model offer allies seeking to preserve strategic autonomy without sacrificing economic interests? And what does it mean to be a US ally when the terms of that alliance are no longer fixed?
Family Connects New Orleans provides crucial postpartum support to mothers through home-based nurse visits
About three months ago, Amber Leduff, gave birth to her daughter, Autumn, at New Orleans’ Touro hospital. The room was hectic after the delivery, with nurses and doctors bustling in and out. In the chaos, Leduff, who is 30, only half registered the representatives from Family Connects New Orleans, taking paperworks from them and moving on.
But when her doctor encouraged her to enroll in the program, which provides up to three in-home visits to parents of newborns up to 12 weeks old, Leduff took it seriously.
Continue reading...An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: The Food and Drug Administration on Friday granted a quick review of three experimental psychedelic drugs meant to treat major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. It's the latest move by the Trump administration signaling a shift in policy toward treatments that also give users a high -- coming a day after the Justice Department said it would ease restrictions on state-licensed medical marijuana. UK-based biotech company Compass Pathways said Friday it has received an expedited review for its experimental form of synthetic psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression. In a press release the company cited two large, phase 3 studies that had "generated positive data." Usona Institute, headquartered in Wisconsin, also said it's received a voucher for its work with psilocybin to treat major depressive disorder. In an email, a Usona spokesperson said the company expects the review process to last one to two months after it submits its application. "The voucher expedites the timeline only; it does not alter scientific or regulatory standards," the spokesperson wrote. New York-based Transcend Therapeutics has also been granted a priority review voucher for its experimental drug methylone for PTSD, Blake Mandell, the company's chief executive officer, said. "There's a battle still raging in their mind that we don't fully understand biochemically," FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said. "When you see something that looks promising for a community that is suffering with mental health illness, despair and suicidal ideation, you can't help but recognize that." Makary told NBC News that with the priority voucher program, the agency could potentially approve the first psychedelic drug by the end of summer.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
When Texas dedicated $22 million to host the 2017 Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons, state officials expected a return on their investment.
But a state analysis after the Patriots’ thrilling comeback win said it was “impossible” to tell if Texas taxpayers broke even on their investments.
If anything, Texas came up $14 million short, according to a breakdown of tax revenues in the same analysis.
Texas taxpayers likely will be on the hook again when Houston and Dallas welcome the FIFA World Cup this June and July. The cities are among 11 in the U.S. that have agreed to shoulder hundreds of millions of dollars in costs for the soccer tournament, subsidizing a World Cup expected to generate $11 billion in profits for FIFA.
Host cities and their local organizing committees will pay for security at the matches, cover the cost of retrofitting their stadiums to better accommodate soccer and operate fan festivals in addition to the main matches. Originally, they were supposed to pay to transport FIFA officials to all matches, as well, though that requirement has been waived, according to Houston organizers.
The cities get little tangible benefit in return. They do not see a slice of game-day revenues from ticket sales, concessions and merchandise, or parking. Even selling tickets or suites in exchange for corporate sponsorships — usually a key revenue generator for local organizers — was restricted by FIFA this year.
Cities had to agree to FIFA’s demands before the U.S., Mexico and Canada even submitted their bid in 2017 to host the World Cup, and many of those host city contracts remain secret. Now, as the event nears, some cities are questioning whether those agreements will leave them paying for more than they get in return.
“Everybody signed an agreement that was very, very one-sided,” said Alan Rothenberg, who is on the Los Angeles host committee for the 2026 World Cup and was the president of U.S. Soccer the last time the country hosted the tournament in 1994.
Then, some host cities would get a slice of game-day revenues, such as a share of the money made from selling food and drinks at the matches. U.S. Soccer also covered the bill for security at the games and other organizing expenses, Rothenberg said. That helped cities take in more money than they spent, making hosting a more attractive endeavor.
This time around, the agreement was so lopsided that at least one city, Chicago, withdrew during the bidding. And in some cities that moved forward, concerns have grown as the matches near. Officials in Foxborough, Massachusetts, threatened in February to withhold permits for the matches unless FIFA or the owner of the Patriots committed to paying $7.8 million in security costs ahead of time. Foxborough ultimately approved the permits after local World Cup organizers agreed to pay the bill in advance.
“At this point, I think a lot of people are looking at Chicago and thinking they were the smart ones,” Rothenberg said. “They looked at the terms of the agreement and said, ‘No, thanks.’ I don’t think anybody in the 11 host cities thought it would be as tough as it seems to be.”
FIFA did not respond to questions about those criticisms. Instead, it provided a written response stating that it is working closely with its host sponsors and expects cities to benefit.
“The FIFA World Cup 2026 is projected to generate significant economic activity across Canada, Mexico and the United States, spanning tourism, hospitality, employment and long-term global visibility,” said Jhamie Chin, a FIFA spokesperson.
The host cities use external nonprofits to organize and run the tournament’s logistics and raise money for the costs of hosting. Chris Canetti, who runs Houston’s host committee, said the city’s organizers have been able to overcome any challenges the contract has presented.
“This event is going to have a substantial economic impact on our region, from hundreds of thousands of visitors coming through,” Canetti said. “We’re making an investment in that. I think this is good for our community at the end of the day.”
The Houston Chronicle sought to better understand the agreements cities made with FIFA and their implications for taxpayers by reviewing records from all U.S. host cities. Most refused to hand over the contracts, including Houston, which argued that releasing the documents would undercut its ability to negotiate for future events; Dallas did not oppose the release but sent the request to the Texas attorney general to allow third parties to object if they wanted.
The two cities asked the Texas attorney general for permission to keep them out of the public’s view. The attorney general’s office ruled that Houston and Dallas must release their contracts, though they were allowed to redact key financial figures, including how much FIFA is paying to rent stadiums for the event.
The Chronicle reviewed the two Texas contracts, along with those of four other host sites — Kansas City, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia and Seattle — that made their agreements available. Together, the contracts show that almost all of the costs for organizing the tournament fall on the cities, whose ability to collect revenue is limited.
Those agreements, according to Rothenberg and other experts, lock host cities out of prospective revenues more than ever, leaving FIFA with a larger share of the revenue.
In Houston, at least, most of the organizing costs are not expected to be borne by local governments.
“The host committee holds the contract with FIFA. We are 100% responsible for finding the funding to cover all of those expenses, and none of that comes from the city or the county,” Canetti said about the agreements.
The contracts do not make clear who is on the hook if the host committee cannot cover the costs. Canetti said he is confident Houston’s committee will have more money than it needs for the expenses, and any surplus funds would be donated to charitable efforts. The host committee that Canetti runs uses a mix of revenue generated from corporate sponsorships, the money FIFA pays to rent NRG Stadium and subsidies from state and federal governments.
That includes $65 million from the federal government to help Houston pay for security, part of a broader $625 million investment by American taxpayers in the World Cup.
The committee also expects to draw tens of millions of dollars from Texas’ Major Events Reimbursement Program, an offshoot of the state’s Event Trust Funds established in 1999 when Texas was vying to host the Olympics. Canetti did not reveal the precise amount Houston believes it will receive, and the Chronicle is still waiting for the governor’s office to respond to records requests for its communications with the committee.
The reimbursement fund was key to ensuring Houston did not lose money when it hosted the Super Bowl. It is expected to be a difference-maker again in covering World Cup costs, helping ensure Houston and Dallas are in a better position than other host cities that don’t receive state money. But it means Texas taxpayers bear a significant share of the costs.
Kelly Dowe, the city’s finance director when it hosted the Super Bowl in 2017, assumed the city would be left with the costs. He was surprised when the host committee for that event effectively paid the full bill, in large part with $22 million in state funds. But these big events, while a boon to specific industries like hotels, bars and restaurants, are hardly a driver in a city’s budget.
“It doesn’t make money for the city, per se,” Dowe said. “You’re glad to break even.”
Texas has made available about $263 million since 2015 to help cities cover the costs of dozens of events, subsidizing everything from a Super Bowl to Junior Olympics and cutting horse competitions. But program administrators have consistently struggled to verify that the events are creating a positive return on investment for taxpayers.
Under the program, cities seeking to host competitive sporting events apply for state funding, using estimates of how much they think revenue from sales, liquor and other state taxes will increase as a result of an event. That amount forms the basis of how much money the city is eligible for, and then it can submit expenses for reimbursement after the event. That included $21.9 million to Houston’s Super Bowl in 2017, $23 million to Austin’s Formula 1 United States Grand Prix event in 2019 and $31 million to the same event in 2021.
As the program grew, it began drawing criticism from across the political spectrum. Then-state Sen. Wendy Davis, a Democrat, pushed a bill in 2013 to audit the program, saying, “We’re handing these things out like candy.” The bill did not pass, but state auditors reviewed the program in 2015.
The audit suggested that officials in the Texas comptroller’s office, which originally administered the program, were not vetting the number of out-of-town visitors stringently enough to ensure an economic benefit. It also found they were not verifying that invoices sent by cities were directly related to the events they were hosting.
The comptroller’s office added rules in late 2014 clarifying what kinds of spending would be allowable for reimbursement, and, in 2015, the Legislature moved the trust funds to the governor’s office of economic development and tourism.
But the move has not made it any easier for the state officials who administer the program to distill complicated economic data, and they continue to write in their reports that they cannot tell whether the events bring a positive impact. In 2020, five years after the program was transferred to the governor’s office, the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, which has been a strong supporter of Gov. Greg Abbott, released a report criticizing the program, saying its vision “points to a misunderstanding of how economies work.”
Andrew Mahaleris, an Abbott spokesperson, said the governor’s office commissioned an economic impact analysis for the 2024 fiscal year that showed 840,000 nonlocal visitors spending more than $615 million in Texas, with a positive economic impact of more than $1.2 billion.
It’s unclear how the numbers in that study were calculated, and Mahaleris did not respond to requests to provide the study to the Chronicle.
“Event Trust Funds are critical tools that help Texas communities attract events to the state,” Mahaleris said.
When state officials review the taxes they collect after the events, they come to a different conclusion. State officials are limited in the types of economic indicators they assess. For example, they look at the amount of sales taxes collected in cities and counties, but that data does not identify how much comes from out-of-state visitors for the specific events the state is subsidizing.
“Houston is a giant economy, a region as big as some states,” said Dowe, the former Houston finance director. “As big a deal as the Super Bowl or the World Cup would be, it doesn’t move the overall economy as much as other factors — manufacturing, oil and gas, the refining that goes on at the ship channel. Any movement on those would far outweigh the noise in the signal from the World Cup.”
After every one of the last 40 events the state program has helped fund since 2015, state officials said that “neither a positive nor negative impact is determinable.”
Supporters of using taxpayer dollars to attract major sporting events maintain that host cities get economic benefits from the exposure that comes with the spotlight of widely watched matches.
Those figures are not insignificant, according to FIFA, which points to a study it released in April with the World Trade Organization that estimates the tournament will bring $47 billion in economic impact across the United States. FIFA deferred questions about the study to the WTO, which directed questions to OpenEconomics, an Italian firm that it said prepared the report. OpenEconomics did not respond to a request for comment.
Experts say such calculations are almost always exaggerated and that the true numbers are difficult to pinpoint. The billions promised in the report by FIFA and the WTO are “insanity,” said Victor Matheson, a professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, who has studied the economics of big sporting events like the Super Bowl and the World Cup for decades.
“This would mean every game is generating $400 million, or roughly $5,000 to $7,000 per fan,” he said. “But the most telling thing is that FIFA is right on the front cover as an author/sponsor of a report that says that FIFA is awesome. This report is better thought of as a press release rather than a serious piece of economic research.”
Recent reports have shown hotel prices dropping as the tournament nears, which could indicate fewer people plan to travel for the games. That would be a major factor for host cities, since out-of-town visitors are key to driving a positive economic impact.
Houston does not receive a net benefit from its own residents attending the World Cup. Those people are spending money they likely would have spent in the city anyway, a principle economists call substitution. An event like the World Cup can also crowd out other events, like conferences, that would have drawn out-of-towners to the city. And, of course, much of the money spent at the games flows to entities like FIFA that are not based in Houston.
All of those factors make it difficult to assess the true economic impact on a city or state, Matheson said. That math requires a large set of assumptions, and promoters will usually tweak those assumptions in their favor to drive up the total.
It can be even harder to fully track the public spending needed to cover the hosting duties.
The contracts reviewed by the Chronicle include a clause under which cities promise to “agree to do all things necessary to preserve their confidentiality,” unless required by local law to release them. And the nonprofit organizing committees generally are not subject to public disclosure laws.
Chin, the FIFA spokesperson, said the contracts contain information that is “commercially sensitive,” and it is standard to withhold them for “global events of this scale.”
As a result, many of the details about taxpayers’ investments remain out of public view. They include figures about how much FIFA will pay each city to use its stadium, which local companies have agreed to donate millions toward preparations and what benefits they receive in return, the tax breaks that FIFA will enjoy from each city, and how each host committee plans to pay for the extensive preparations that go into hosting the tournament.
The contracts the Chronicle obtained provide broad categories of responsibility that fall under a host city’s purview — security, transportation and retrofitting stadiums, among them. But the documents rarely attach dollar figures to those efforts.
Academic experts say the system’s secrecy is by design.
“It’s atrocious how secretive they are with these sorts of taxpayer-funded events,” said David Cuillier, director of The Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida. “These cities are going to invest a lot of money in hosting FIFA, and the people who are paying for that should know. They should know how much money and how it’s being spent. That’s why we have open records laws.”
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The post FIFA Could Make Billions From the World Cup. Host Cities Will Get Little in Return. appeared first on ProPublica.
Ruling is blow to Office for Students after it issued record fine for allegations over professor’s trans rights views
Sussex University has overturned a £585,000 fine from England’s higher education watchdog after the high court rejected claims that the university breached free speech regulations in a case involving its former professor Kathleen Stock.
The ruling is a damaging blow to the credibility and management of the Office for Students as the court rejected the regulator’s lengthy investigation involving Stock’s resignation in 2021, which followed protests over her views on transgender rights and gender identity.
Continue reading...Wicked star’s one-woman West End show was stopped in response to an increasingly common problem for theatres
A performance of Dracula in the West End on Monday night was halted after its star, Cynthia Erivo, spotted that an audience member appeared to be filming the show.
A representative for the production, in which Erivo plays all 23 roles, confirmed that there had been a short stop caused by the incident. A commenter on the forum Theatreboard, who said they had been at the show, wrote that Erivo – roughly an hour into the performance – “looked out into the audience and said: ‘Are you filming? Is someone filming?’ and stopped the show”. Another commenter said that they had attended Dracula – which is at the Noël Coward theatre – the following night and that there were extra reminders to the audience about taking photos and filming.
Continue reading...Annual event in Red Square to feature no armoured vehicles or missile systems for first time in two decades
Russia’s annual Victory Day parade will be held on 9 May without military hardware for the first time in almost two decades because of fears of a long-range attack by Ukrainian drones.
The defence ministry said no armoured vehicles or missile systems would roll across Red Square during the parade, which marks the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, citing “the current operational situation”.
Continue reading...A snake, reported to be a cobra, crawled into the victim's pants and bit him as he watched a show, police said.
Pace of sea-level rise has turned Outer Banks coastal area into a ‘canary in the coalmine’ for other east coast communities
Moving house has a more literal meaning on Hatteras Island, the slender hook of land that juts off the coast of North Carolina. After a slew of houses toppled spectacularly into the Atlantic Ocean recently, entire buildings are now being lifted on to wheels to flee the rapidly eroding coastline.
Since September, 19 homes have been lost to waves that tore them from their pilings, sending them crashing into other structures like bumper cars before breaking up in the ocean. Spooked homeowners have turned to the unusual services of Barry Crum, a lifelong Hatteras resident who has become the island’s main house mover.
Continue reading...Returning comedies and several British dramas are hitting the streamer this month.
@loaf That must have been one hell of a tumble to destroy the wrist guards and take you out for a year! Hope you're doing okay now.
Comey, one of Donald Trump’s political enemies, charged with two felonies. Plus, Disneyland introduces facial recognition
Good morning.
The justice department filed new criminal charges against James Comey, the former FBI director, on Tuesday.
What has he been charged with? Two felonies: making a threat against the president, and transmitting that threat, via social media, across state lines.
What does the indictment say? That the seashell numbers were something a reasonable person “would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States”.
And how about Comey? He published a video of himself saying: “Well, they’re back. This time, about a picture of seashells on a North Carolina beach a year ago. And this won’t be the end of it, but nothing has changed with me. I am still innocent. I am still not afraid. And I still believe in the independent federal judiciary. So, let’s go.” He continued: “It’s really important that all of us remember – this is not who we are as a country, this is not how the Department of Justice is supposed to be, and the good news is we get closer every day to restoring those values. Keep the faith.”
Continue reading...An increasing number of states are enacting legislation to counteract AI license plate readers, car trackers and police drone surveillance. Here's what you should know.
Colombia president Gustavo Petro tells 57-country talks on a green energy transition that fossil fuel interests could destroy humanity
The world is threatened by a “suicidal” model of capitalism that is leading to war, fascism and the potential extinction of humanity, Colombia’s president has said, as he convened 57 governments to address the climate crisis.
Gustavo Petro blamed fossil fuel interests for taking ever more desperate measures to prevent a transition to green energy. “There is inertia in the power and the economy of this archaic form of energy – fossil fuels – that lead to death. Undoubtedly, that form of capital can commit suicide, taking with it humanity and [other] life,” he said. “The question that needs to be asked is whether capitalism can truly adapt to a non-fossil energy model.”
Continue reading...US suspect held in south-east Asia after genealogical DNA identified him in Tampa-area case involving 7-year-old girl
A man accused of kidnapping and sexually abusing a 7-year-old girl in Florida in 1989 was recently arrested in the Philippines, according to authorities.
Preserved DNA and genealogical research allowed investigators to identify Young Tom Talmadge, 69, as the suspect in the Tampa-area case, the Philippines’ government said in a statement.
Continue reading...Messages from unknown numbers can be spam, and no one wants those clogging up their inbox.
The family business is dead.
Utility bills are up as much as 40% in some regions, and companies shut off power to customers 13m times in 2025
The US’s top utilities’ CEOs enjoyed a 16% pay raise last year – to an average of $12.3m – even as consumers shoulder the pain from high bills spurred by continuing inflation, the Iran war and datacenter growth, a new review of industry financial documents shows.
Utility bills are up as much as 40% in some regions since 2021, and, nationwide, utilities shut off power to customers 13m times last year, federal data shows.
Continue reading...
Why Should Delaware Care?
A major concern among many in Sussex County is the fast pace of development that has been ongoing for years, particularly near Delaware’s popular beaches. A new Lewes-area preserve shows the complex process behind slowing some of that development.
The Sussex County Land Trust faced a multimillion-dollar problem in 2019.
The trust — a nonprofit charged with preserving open spaces in southern Delaware — sought to protect an 80-acre property near the Delaware beaches as a public trail and a working farm.
But the $8.5 million price tag — a discount from what housing developers could have offered — was a big lift for the small nonprofit.
“We had to get a bit scrappy,” said Sara Bluhm, executive director and the only full-time staff member of the Sussex County Land Trust.
On Tuesday, the Land Trust finally purchased the property after seven years of negotiating and piecing together federal, state, county and even private dollars.
The purchase means eastern Sussex County’s yearslong building boom will not spread to the property that sits southwest of Lewes and east of Route 1. Still, it will take years and even more funding for part of the land to open to the public.
The purchase also highlights the unique approach to preserving open space in Sussex County, where years of retail and housing construction has sparked environmental concerns and questions of whether local infrastructure can handle an influx of new residents.
Unlike other Delaware counties, Sussex County does not have a dedicated parks department, so owning and maintaining preserved land is a complex collaboration between the county, the state, and nonprofits.
While that approach saves taxpayers money, Bluhm said it can be limiting because her organization can struggle to find the money to transform preserved land into something Sussex County residents can enjoy.
A flock of geese pecked through rows of cut corn last week at Sussex County’s newest preserved property, a quiet scene set within one of the region’s fastest-growing areas.
Set back from Route 1, the farm is far enough away that the sound of passing traffic fades. Trees line the property, partially screening it from nearby townhomes.
“We sometimes call this ‘The Hidden Farm,’ because people don’t know about it,” Bluhm said.
Former landowner Linda Miller, though, calls the property “Ard na Gréine,” Irish Gaelic for “the rise that catches the sun,” because of its slight slope and views of beautiful sunsets.
Miller said she has received dozens of letters of interest from developers and solar companies looking to purchase the property. It is one of the largest tracts of land east of Route 1 that has not yet been developed.
“I could always tell, when the mail came addressed to me a certain way, that this was going to be somebody interested in purchasing the farm for development,” Miller said.
But she said she wouldn’t have found peace with herself if she let the land turn into yet another housing development or solar field.
“Having open space is, I think, important to everyone, especially as areas get more congested. People need a place of quiet and peace and tranquility,” Miller said.
Former County Councilman I.G. Burton was one of the first to inquire about preserving the land in 2019. Shortly after, the Sussex County Land Trust agreed to pull together the funding to acquire it, with the county contributing $1.75 million.
The appraisal process took years, Bluhm said, and then it took even longer to raise all the money to acquire the property.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture contributed the largest portion of the funds, with the condition that the farmland on the property continue to be used for any form of agriculture.
Delaware’s environmental agency also contributed, as well as the Longwood Foundation and a number of private donors.
Still, the Sussex County Land Trust has to do more fundraising before the property opens to the public.
The nonprofit now has to raise more money to make a master plan for the site. Bluhm said she anticipates the nonprofit will eventually construct a trail around the perimeter of the land, with a connection to the Georgetown/Lewes Trail.
Sussex County Land Trust also plans to undertake native habitat restoration. The property is located adjacent to Ebenezer Branch, which flows into Canary Creek and the Great Marsh.
Miller still lives at the house on the property, and her driveway is still private. The nonprofit is considering adding another access point and a parking lot, which would require even more money.
Bluhm said she will soon begin applying for grants to cover the costs of the master plan.
Sussex County Administrator Todd Lawson said money is the main reason why the county government does not have a parks and recreation department.
Lawson said not everyone wants their tax dollars to be spent managing and preserving parks.
County spokesman Chip Guy added that the state and local municipalities already manage a lot of parks in Sussex County, “so the county [government] didn’t necessarily feel that it needed to be in that particular service.”
The county government does provide funding to acquire the land. Sussex County Council often allocates millions of dollars per year for that purpose — although that amount varies greatly depending on the timing of the acquisition.
Last year, the county spent $3.3 million on open space preservation, not including farmland preservation, according to county Finance Director Gina Jennings. The year before, it spent $350,000, and the year before that, it spent $2.3 million.
The county sometimes has partial ownership over the preserved land, and sometimes helps maintain it, Lawson said.
But primarily, the county partners with nonprofits to manage preserved land, including the Sussex County Land Trust, the Center for Inland Bays, the Nature Conservancy and the Nanticoke Indian Association.
Bluhm said all the work that goes into managing parks is often invisible to the public — and very costly. Her nonprofit has to fund the construction of road entrances to the parks, storm water management, parking lots, invasive species control, trees and more.
“I often say that park management is not sexy,” Bluhm said.
But that management is what the nonprofit will likely focus on in the future, she said. It already controls 1,400 acres of property. With limited funding and only one full-time employee, it has to focus on turning that land into public spaces instead of acquiring more.
Asked about the county’s private-public system of park acquisition and management, Bluhm said it is a “good partnership, but it certainly is limiting” because her organization does not get a lot of county funding for park management.
“I think that if residents of Sussex County would like to see a more robust parks program, then they should probably call their county council people and maybe tell them to fund us a bit more,” Bluhm said.
Funder Notice:The Longwood Foundation has supported Spotlight Delaware with a multi-year grant. The funding bears no impact on Spotlight’s editorial decision-making per our Editorial Independence Policy.
The post New Lewes preserve highlights Sussex approach to open space appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
Why Should Delaware Care?
Immigration has been top of mind for Delaware lawmakers throughout the legislature’s most recent two-year cycle, with lawmakers introducing a slew of bills meant to curb the impacts of ICE enforcement in the First State. But as the end of that legislative cycle draws near, only a handful of those bills have been signed into law.
As the Delaware legislature heads into its final two months of meetings for the year, the issue of federal immigration enforcement and its impacts on the state remains top of mind for lawmakers.
At least 16 immigration-focused bills have been introduced during the legislature’s two-year cycle, which began in 2025. Four of those have already been signed into law by Gov. Matt Meyer.
But as the end of the 2026 legislative session draws closer, the remaining 12 bills face an ever-shrinking window of opportunity to become law. If the bills do not pass both chambers of the legislature by June 30, they will have to be reintroduced in the next two-year cycle.
Some bills have made more progress in recent weeks than others.
Below, Spotlight Delaware rounds up some of the most important pieces of immigration-focused legislation, breaking down where the bills stand today.
While more than a dozen pieces of immigration-focused legislation have been introduced, some of those bills have seen more traction than others.
Here is a list of some of the most consequential immigration bills actively moving through the legislature:
House Bills 366, 367 and 368
House Bills 366, 367 and 368 were the subject of an hours-long committee hearing in Dover last week, marking the latest in a string of legislative debates surrounding immigration enforcement since President Trump returned to the White House.
The bills, each sponsored by Rep. Mara Gorman (D-Newark), would increase law enforcement officer identification requirements and prohibit officers in the state from detaining people solely based on their immigration status.
The bills sparked hours of testimony last week, drawing support from members of the Latino community and civil liberty advocates.
But the bills also received pushback from law enforcement leaders across the state, including the Delaware Association of Chiefs of Police and the Delaware Fraternal Order of Police.
Marvin Mailey Jr., the executive director of the Delaware Association of Chiefs of Police, said during the hearing that his organization opposed the bills not because they were in the business of conducting immigration enforcement, but because they are redundant.
“When we oppose this bill, we oppose it because (of) its redundancy,” Mailey Jr. said. “We already have checks and balances in place – we don’t need that.”
Mailey Jr. went even further, saying the bills would not achieve their intended purpose of preventing ICE agents from wearing masks in Delaware. Those agents, he said, derive their power from the federal government.
“The Supremacy Clause overrides state law.” Mailey Jr. said.
But Rep. Sean Lynn (D-Dover), who has sponsored a slew of his own immigration-related bills, rebuffed that assertion. Citing a U.S. Supreme Court case, Lynn explained the Supremacy Clause would only apply if federal agents wearing masks would be “necessary and proper” for them to complete their duties.
Gorman ultimately decided to withdraw both HB 366 and 367 after last week’s debate, though she said in a statement it was not a “signal of capitulation.”
She pointed to two recent court rulings in California which challenged the legality of similar state laws enacted there.
“The legal landscape has shifted, but our resolve has not,” Gorman said, “and I will continue to push HB 368, which does not face these kinds of constitutional challenges, forward.”
House Bill 94
Sponsored by Rep. Lynn (D), House Majority Leader Kerri Evelyn Harris and State Sen. Kyra Hoffner (D-Smyrna), House Bill 94 would restrict state and local law enforcement from cooperating with federal agencies conducting civil immigration enforcement activities at certain protected locations.
Introduced last March, the bill originally only listed schools and churches as protected locations. It has since been expanded to include healthcare facilities and institutions of higher education.
If a law enforcement agency were to cooperate in any ICE civil actions, it would be required to submit a report within 48 hours to the Police Officer Standards and Training Commission and the Department of Safety and Homeland Security describing what happened.
Under this bill, law enforcement officers would still be permitted to assist federal criminal immigration activities conducted under a valid court order.
The original version of the bill required law enforcement to receive permission from the Attorney General to cooperate with ICE, garnering criticism from the Delaware Association of Chiefs of Police and the Delaware Fraternal Order of Police during a House Public Safety & Homeland Security committee hearing last June.
The bill passed in the House earlier this month, and is currently awaiting a hearing in the Senate Corrections & Public Safety Committee.
House Bill 150
House Bill 150, introduced by Rep. Gorman and State Sen. Laura Sturgeon (D-Brandywine Hundred), would prevent ICE agents from conducting civil arrests inside Delaware courthouses or Department of Labor offices where the Delaware Industrial Accident Board conducts hearings.
The bill, originally introduced last spring, at first was written to prevent civil arrests from occurring only inside courthouses. It was substituted in March to also include Department of Labor offices.
Gorman said during debate on the House floor she made that change to include protections for IAB hearings as those are hearings in which people are seeking relief from the state after they have been hurt at work.
“I felt like it was important given that we know, one, that there are members of the undocumented community that are working in dangerous industries where they get hurt, and two, that there are people who aren’t undocumented but might look so, who show up for those hearings as well,” Gorman said. “We know that there isn’t always a distinction made, or close checks to make sure — we’ve seen cases of American citizens getting picked up by ICE.”
The bill passed the House at the end of March. It currently is awaiting a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
House Bill 151
House Bill 151, also introduced by Gorman, was first described as a ban on private detention facilities.
An updated version of that bill walks back that description. But the legislation, if passed, would curtail their ability to operate in Delaware by prohibiting the state government from entering into contracts with private providers or incentivizing their operation in any way.
There currently are no private prisons in Delaware, but ICE has increasingly looked to private prison operators to meet its detention center needs for tens of thousands of detainees.
The bill is currently awaiting a vote on the Senate floor after passing the House earlier this month.
Some immigration-focused bills that were introduced during the first leg of the General Assembly have not yet fully passed through the legislature. Here is a run down of some of those bills, and where they stand today.
House Bill 44
House Bill 58
House Bill 60
House Bill 95
House Bill 96
House Bill 302
Reporters Brianna Hill and Jose Ignacio Castaneda Perez contributed to this report.
Make your voice heard on legislative issues in Dover this year. Click the button below to find your representative or senator and let them know your opinion on proposed legislation.
The post Immigration enforcement reform bills face uncertainty appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
On Friday, the presidential personnel office sent termination notices to members of the National Science Board. This will undermine our public health efforts
In June 1981, I was a young pulmonary fellow at one of the three Los Angeles hospitals where the first five cases of an unusual pneumonia in previously healthy young men were being identified. I read about them, as my colleagues did, in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) – the small, dense bulletin the Centers for Disease Control had been publishing every week since 1952.
None of us yet knew what we were seeing. What MMWR gave us was a signal early enough to act on, and a system trustworthy enough that we did. What became Aids would, over the next decade, reshape every assumption I held about clinical medicine. I have spent the 40 years since then practicing critical care at UCLA, and the federal scientific architecture that produced that signal in 1981 has been the bedrock of my work.
Continue reading...An Indian man dug up his sister's body and carried it to a bank branch to prove she was dead after being refused access to her account without a death certificate, the lender says.
Commission says tech company does not have effective measures to keep under-13s off Facebook and Instagram
The tech company Meta has been found to be in breach of EU law for failing to prevent children under 13 from using its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
Issuing the preliminary findings of a nearly two-year investigation, the European Commission said on Wednesday that Meta did not have effective measures in place to stop under-13s accessing its services.
Continue reading...This is how McLaren protects its team and what experts want F1 fans to know before race day.
To test the safety and security of AI, hackers have to trick large language models into breaking their own rules. It requires ingenuity and manipulation – and can come at a deep emotional cost
A few months ago, Valen Tagliabue sat in his hotel room watching his chatbot, and felt euphoric. He had just manipulated it so skilfully, so subtly, that it began ignoring its own safety rules. It told him how to sequence new, potentially lethal pathogens and how to make them resistant to known drugs.
Tagliabue had spent much of the previous two years testing and prodding large language models such as Claude and ChatGPT, always with the aim of making them say things they shouldn’t. But this was one of his most advanced “hacks” yet: a sophisticated plan of manipulation, which involved him being cruel, vindictive, sycophantic, even abusive. “I fell into this dark flow where I knew exactly what to say, and what the model would say back, and I watched it pour out everything,” he says. Thanks to him, the creators of the chatbot could now fix the flaw he had found, hopefully making it a little safer for everyone.
Continue reading...The Lakers star can dominate a game, but still be judged for what his physique supposedly reveals about him
In Louis Theroux’s Netflix documentary Inside the Manosphere, he interviews podcasters, streamers and influencers from across the Red Pill ecosystem. But the most profound moments are when he speaks with their followers. Regular, everyday American men who struggle to make a living, find love, get laid and start a family.
One of them is a Latino man in his 20s living in Miami. He explains that Andrew Tate’s message helped pull him out of homelessness. What stuck with him wasn’t Tate’s aggressive bravado or rampant misogyny, but a simple idea: as a man, you start with no inherent value – you have to build it. On its face, it sounds like basic self-help. Beneath it is something harsher: a belief among those in the manosphere that worth is conditional, something that must be earned through performance, discipline and visible results. Under their logic, a “successful” man has a harem of women, luxury cars and a body bulging with muscles.
Continue reading...
Jasmir Urbina was scammed and then deported. Across the U.S., immigration scams have spiked amid President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort. Photo courtesy of Jasmir Urbina
As an asylum-seeker living in the U.S., Jasmir Urbina worried as she watched violence break out amid the military-style immigration sweeps across the country. Then she read about legal residents being arrested at immigration court and wondered when federal agents would set their sights on her city.
Urbina had fled Nicaragua in 2022 and legally resided with her husband, a fellow asylum-seeker, in New Orleans while reporting to immigration agents for check-ins as she awaited her day in court. Finally, the date was approaching, in late November 2025. Days later, the Trump administration would flood the region with federal officers in “Operation Swamp Sweep.”
Urbina, 35, began searching for a Spanish speaker who could help her, and said she stumbled on a Facebook post advertising the services of Catholic Charities, a prominent aid organization whose services include assisting immigrants. After a few clicks, she connected via WhatsApp with “Susan Millan,” who claimed to have a law degree. The woman’s photo looked professional, showing a small library in the blurry background, according to a screenshot Urbina shared with ProPublica. The asylum-seeker said she discussed her predicament with the woman she thought was an attorney.
Millan told Urbina the ordeal could be settled over a virtual hearing with U.S. immigration authorities. Millan sprinkled in details about her own life — a sick husband, two kids, a supportive church — so Urbina felt comfortable. In an interview, Urbina said she completed paperwork to be sent to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, for a fee. Millan’s organization asked her for documentation, including five character references; for another fee, it would submit these up the line. Through the payment app Zelle, Urbina and her husband paid nearly $10,000, according to her financial records, money they had set aside to buy their first home.
On Nov. 21, Urbina made the case that a “credible fear” was keeping her from going home. In the virtual hearing, which lasted five minutes, she said she spoke to a man dressed in a green uniform, stitched with what looked like government insignia, seated in front of an American flag. A day later, via WhatsApp, Millan told her she “won residency.” Her documents would be in the mail.
In an instant, Urbina’s fears had been assuaged. She asked if she should still attend her court date, Nov. 24. “No, don’t worry,” she remembers the woman replying. “There’s no need.”
But when Urbina asked to speak with someone in a message to Millan’s phone number the next day, according to screenshots she shared with ProPublica, the WhatsApp chat fell silent. After two days, she suspected she’d been duped and wrote in anger: “God is with us and He fights for His children; today you messed with the wrong person and you will get your payment from the Most High, you cowards.”
There was no attorney named Susan Millan associated with Catholic Charities, and the deceit was just one example of hundreds that the group has become aware of when desperate immigrants eventually reach the real organization.
“There’s a reason why we have a good reputation,” said Chris Ross, vice president of migration and refugee resettlement services at Catholic Charities. “And so for someone to be trading on that goodwill with nefarious intent is very frustrating.”
Urbina had fallen prey to “notario fraud,” in which scammers provide legal advice, often by saying they’re public notaries or other legal professionals. In many Latin American countries, a public notary is the equivalent of a lawyer, and notario fraudsters rely on this mistranslation to fake credentials.
Urbina shared documents that detail how she was lured into the scam, and ProPublica corroborated her story with her husband and Catholic Charities. After Urbina told local and federal authorities she had been tricked out of her day in court, Immigration and Customs Enforcement switched her scheduled December virtual check-in to an in-person meeting. When she showed up, agents arrested her. In January, she said, officers shackled her hands and feet and loaded her on a plane to Nicaragua.
She’d been scammed, then deported.
A spokesperson with the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not respond to questions about Urbina’s case but said, “Anyone caught impersonating a federal immigration agent will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” New Orleans police did not answer ProPublica’s questions about a complaint she filed.
Scams like those that destroyed Urbina’s dreams are on the rise, federal data analyzed by ProPublica shows, as profiteers seize on the fear and confusion wrought by President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Complaints of immigration scams have doubled since Trump was elected, ProPublica found in analyzing more than 6,200 complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission by victims and advocates over the last five years.
From the start of 2021 through the election in fall of 2024, the FTC — the nation’s top consumer protection agency — fielded about 960 immigration complaints per year, such as reports of fake attorneys offering services or people impersonating federal officers. In 2025, the commission received nearly 2,000 complaints.
In all, at least $94.4 million was reported stolen in complaints to the FTC over five years. That number is certainly an undercount, as not all immigrants report wrongdoing for fear of deportation, and not every report included dollar amounts.
The spike in complaints is so severe that many states and legal organizations have alerted the public about them. California’s and North Carolina’s attorneys general released statements in late 2025, as did the American Bar Association and AARP. In June 2025, the New York City Council passed legislation increasing notario fraud penalties, and a similar law passed in Florida.
“Immigration scammers contribute to a lawless environment, undermining our immigration system,” said Zach Kahler, a spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency Urbina falsely thought had awarded her residency. Online, the agency provides guides on how to spot immigration fraud and warns consumers that it does not use WhatsApp. The agency tells people who think they’ve been scammed to complain to the FTC.
Scams targeting those mired in the U.S. immigration system are not new, but advocates say predators have become more sophisticated, using technologies like artificial intelligence and targeted ads. At the same time, immigrants have become increasingly anxious about speedy mass deportations, creating a bonanza for those looking to cash in.
“I believe AI is being utilized in these scams pretty effectively. People think they’re talking to a real person, or the logos and stuff look pretty professional to the untrained eye,” said Ross, of Catholic Charities.
Many victims say they were duped by scammers who had professional-looking photos, wore immigration uniforms and staged realistic virtual hearings.
A review of the image of the person named Millan who was supposedly helping Urbina suggests that it was AI-generated.
Ross added: “The biggest thing is the desperation — that’s really what’s driving this.”
In San Diego, attorneys working for the city have been impersonated by scammers. City Attorney Heather Ferbert told ProPublica her office has forwarded these cases to the FBI and warned residents to be on the lookout for advertisements that promise a government official or lawyer can help with immigration proceedings. The FBI declined to comment.
“When you add the title and you add the government weight behind it — the city attorney’s office, the district attorney’s office, for example — the targets are sort of lulled,” Ferbert said. “We’ve heard stories where they promise that they can solve their immigration problems for them. No real lawyer is ever going to promise an outcome to you.”
Other scams extend beyond impersonating lawyers. The FTC complaints include a case in which people posing as Department of Homeland Security immigration officers received more than $600,000 from a family by claiming one of the relatives’ identities had been stolen and they needed to pay to protect it. In West Virginia, a “federal agent” threatened to deport a college student who was close to graduating unless they paid nearly $4,000 in gift cards.
“They claimed that if I did not comply immediately, I would be arrested, detained or deported,” wrote the student, who was legally residing in the U.S. on a student visa. The student, whose name was not disclosed in federal data, used prepaid Dollar General gift cards and then went broke and turned to family for help.
Immigrants from India and Bangladesh were told they had failed to update a necessary form and would be arrested and deported immediately unless they shared their Social Security numbers. Other scammers claimed the government had intercepted packages full of money and drugs addressed to immigrants, who were told to make a payment or face arrest.
Most victims find the fake attorneys advertising on Facebook or TikTok. Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has pledged to delete scam accounts and announced new tools to track them.
Charity Anastasio, practice and ethics counsel for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the ads are often pay-per-click and targeted at Spanish-speaking users.
“They’ve designed such a well-oiled machine,” Anastasio said.
The ads appealed to those in deportation proceedings, clinging to any means to stay in the U.S., but also those who may have wanted to get their paperwork in order ahead of Trump’s crackdown, said Adonia Simpson, an attorney with the American Bar Association.
“A lot of people are trying to preemptively get representation to see what their options are,” Simpson told ProPublica. “The enforcement has been a big driver. It’s caused a lot of people to be very fearful.”
The White House declined to comment.
In October 2024, 56-year-old José Aguilar, who had been granted temporary protected status under George W. Bush’s administration, was in just that position when he came upon a Facebook ad. The advertiser claimed to work for Jorge Rivera, a well-known Miami immigration attorney, and promised Aguilar they could get him permanent residency. It would take $15,000. ProPublica sought comment from the real Rivera, who is not accused of wrongdoing; he did not respond.
A leather factory worker in Minnesota who had fled El Salvador, Aguilar cobbled together the money in installments through loans from friends and that year’s tax refund. Over several months, he had four video calls with the fake attorney and two calls with immigration agent impersonators. He was initially skeptical but became convinced when they sent him videos of residency cards with the Citizenship and Immigration Services logo.
“Don’t try to deceive me, because I’m borrowing money, I’m a man of faith, and I’m a person who has had a heart transplant, so I can’t get angry because it hurts me,” Aguilar remembered saying.
“No, don’t worry, sir,” Aguilar said the scammer responded. “This is real. It’s super real.”
During one of their last conversations, Aguilar says the scammer appealed to their shared Christian faith, thanking God for approving the paperwork and earning him residency.
By February 2025, the scammers had stopped responding. A month later, Aguilar realized he was probably never going to get the residency cards and contacted an attorney who confirmed he had been duped. Aguilar, who has two young daughters, says his family is subsisting on food banks and relies on donations for rent.
“It’s unforgivable,” Aguilar said. “Even bringing God into it.”
For Mariela, an undocumented Honduran mother of three, financial stress began long ago. In 2021, the father of her children headed for the U.S. along with one of their daughters, seeking construction work. Two years later, when she traveled 2,000 miles in blistering heat to join them, she broke her arm in three places after falling into the Rio Grande while crossing the border. ProPublica is withholding her last name because she fears being deported.
And then, in October 2025, immigration agents detained her 20-year-old daughter. Desperate, the mother reached out to what she thought was a Catholic Charities Facebook page.
She was pulled into a scheme involving a man who posed as a priest, another posing as an immigration judge, and another posing as Oscar Carrillo, an attorney licensed in Texas who practices tax law.
The real Carrillo told ProPublica he began getting calls from frustrated immigrants last spring, all of them Spanish speakers who claimed they had been referred by Catholic Charities. When he realized his name and photo were being misused, he alerted the FBI and FTC. The State Bar of Texas has posted a public warning on its webpage about Carrillo impersonators.
“Most of these clients, because of their immigration status, are afraid to report this to the police,” Carrillo said. “I feel sorry for these clients. We’re not talking about wealthy individuals.”
In January, after her daughter was deported, Mariela realized the fraudsters had cheated her out of more than $18,000 over three months.
She said she had borrowed $3,000 from an uncle in Honduras, another $1,500 from a cousin, a few thousand from her boss, and another $2,000 from a friend from her Honduran hometown who had also emigrated to the U.S. In addition, she burned through her savings and her daughter’s.
Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, local law enforcement, advocacy groups, state attorneys general and law firms have published notices warning immigrants about an uptick in scams.
“Our best advice is to make direct contact, outside of social media channels, with the organization you’re seeking help from,” said Kevin Brennan, vice president for media relations at Catholic Charities. “Call the organization on the phone or visit an office in person.”
Scammers show no signs of retreat.
In April, three months after her deportation to Nicaragua, Urbina received a call from someone claiming to be a lawyer. He said that he’d been referred to her by a bishop with Catholic Charities and that he’d help her obtain immigration papers.
The stress of being scammed and separated from her husband, who remains in the U.S., had taken a toll. “I’ve been through a lot of things, one right after the other,” Urbina said. She’s living with her mother in a remote village, afraid to step outside in a country where the government has ramped up surveillance of those who previously moved to the U.S.
Desperate, she gave the “lawyer” her personal information.
After earlier saying his help would be free, he then asked for money, she said.
“Where did you get my number?” she asked.
Intrigued but skeptical, Urbina followed up with WhatsApp messages, hoping he might really be an immigration attorney.
She never heard from him again.
The post Fear and Opportunity: Immigration Scams Surged as Trump’s Sweeps Lured Desperate People to Eager Defrauders appeared first on ProPublica.
Fifteen historically Black colleges and universities are working together to pursue R1 status with support from top schools such as Harvard.
Teams should now be exempt from US federal taxes
Many will still have to pay US state and city tax
Fifa is poised to secure a last-minute tax exemption for all 48 World Cup qualifiers after intensive negotiations with the US treasury.
After months of lobbying Fifa has secured a significant breakthrough that should result in the national associations being exempt from federal taxes, although many will still have to pay state and city tax on their World Cup earnings.
Continue reading...Remarks by US president likely to cause embarrassment for aides of UK monarch, who usually remains neutral
Donald Trump has claimed King Charles agrees with him that Iran should never be allowed nuclear weapons.
Trump made the remarks at a White House state dinner on Tuesday in honour of the visiting Charles and Camilla, after the two men sat down to bilateral talks earlier that day.
Continue reading...US at 250: Internationalism vs. isolationism – America’s enduring foreign policy debate 27 May 2026 — 17:00 TO 18:00 BST Anonymous (not verified) Chatham House and Online
This session explores the competing ideas shaping American foreign policy and how it will evolve in the years ahead. A reception will follow this event.
This session explores the competing ideas shaping American foreign policy and how it will evolve in the years ahead.Since gaining independence, America’s relationship with global partners and its role in the international order have changed to meet the evolving geopolitical landscape and America’s strategic objectives abroad.
From Washington’s warning against entangling alliances and Wilson’s failed bid to reshape world order, to Roosevelt’s reluctant march into World War Two and contemporary doubts about longstanding alliances, the push‑and‑pull between internationalism and isolationism has defined American statecraft.
President Trump’s America First policies are designed to redraw Washington’s relationship with its allies, international institutions and the rules-based order to place American interests first.
This session, part of a series of events dedicated to the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, asks whether today’s scepticism towards the international order marks a historic rupture or the latest swing of a familiar pendulum.
Anant Ambani revives offer to transport 80 animals, all descendants of Colombian drug kingpin’s pets, to India
It remains one of the strangest conundrums in modern zoological history – what to do with the descendants of Pablo Escobar’s hippos?
The animals – herbivores native to sub-Saharan Africa – were originally imported into Colombia by the drug kingpin for his own entertainment. But the beasts and their offspring were left to roam free after his death in 1993.
Continue reading...Soaring oil prices and the blockade are preventing food, fuel and medicine being delivered to millions of people in desperate need, say NGOs
The volatility of global oil prices caused by the US and Israel’s war on Iran is taking a toll on the most vulnerable people, by slowing or blocking food and medical aid from reaching them.
Now aid organisations are calling for a “humanitarian corridor” to be opened through the strait of Hormuz amid rocketing transportation costs.
Continue reading...fjo3 shares a report from The Times: More than two-thirds of babies under two use screens, a report has found, and some are exposed for up to eight hours a day. Nearly a third of newborns were found to be watching screens for more than three hours a day, while almost 20 percent of infants of four to 11 months used screens for more than an hour a day. The report comes after the government issued guidance that children under two do not use screens at all, apart from communal activities such as video-calling relatives. In a review of the current research, researchers found evidence linking screen time to poorer outcomes for children, including an increased risk of obesity, short-sightedness, sleep and behavioural difficulties, and later challenges with friendships. [...] The research also revealed why children and parents use screens, with families reporting children doing so for educational purposes, entertainment, play and to communicate and bond with others. Parents, meanwhile, used screens to occupy or distract children, which helped caregivers to complete domestic duties, paid employment and other caring responsibilities. Nearly a quarter of parents -- 23.6 percent -- either had no childcare or were not aware of the government's early years offer.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Albanese defends plan forcing Meta, Google and TikTok to make deals with Australian news publishers through a levy
The Trump administration has described Australia’s moves to make big tech companies pay for news online as “extortion” but Anthony Albanese defended the plan by saying it was about protecting and rewarding media outlets for the work they produce.
Labor’s plan to encourage Meta, Google and TikTok to make deals with Australian news publishers, or face a 2.25% levy, is likely to be supported by the Coalition and Greens in parliament. But a bigger problem may be the ire of Donald Trump, who has strongly opposed extra regulation being imposed on US-based tech companies. A major tech industry lobby group on Wednesday urged the White House to consider retaliatory trade measures.
Continue reading...I experienced crunch on the 6” Superflux HT during sensorless transition.
The crunch was not only on my own HT, I testet it on several boards, with standard settings all boards crunched more or less.
Setting the ERPM limits for the transition between 2200 erpm and 2700 erpm made a massive improvement.
I also followed some steps from above.
Thanks to all.
Trump is volatile, capricious and unreasonable – but he belongs to the old world of analogue power. What comes next will be harder to manage
Donald Trump is not impressed by soft power. He respects hard men with military muscle. But he can be moved by pageantry, which is the purpose of King Charles’s visit to Washington this week. Trump is flattered to rub shoulders with majesty. The good vibes are then supposed to radiate warmth through a political relationship that has been chilled by the war in Iran.
It might work, but not for long. Trump’s irritation with Keir Starmer and other European leaders for what he calls cowardice in the Middle East is aggravated daily by evidence that the war is a strategic calamity.
Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist
Guardian Newsroom: Can Labour come back from the brink?
On Thursday 30 April, join Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr as they discuss how much of a threat Labour faces from the Green party and Reform UK – and whether Keir Starmer can survive as leader. Book tickets here or at guardian.live
Dublin scholars find 1,200-year-old manuscript of Caedmon’s Hymn composed by Northumbrian cattle herder
A lost copy of a poem composed in the seventh century by a Northumbrian cattle herder – the earliest surviving poem in the English language – has been discovered in Rome.
Scholars from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) uncovered the manuscript that contains Caedmon’s Hymn at the National Central Library of Rome.
Continue reading...How Trump misread Europe.
The unintended consequences of the U.S.-Israeli assault.
America Is preparing for the wrong kind of crisis
Elon Musk testified on day two of his trial against OpenAI, saying he helped create the company as a nonprofit counterweight to Google and would not have backed it if the goal had been private profit. CNBC reports: Musk on Tuesday was the first witness called to testify in the trial. He spoke about his upbringing, his many companies, his role in founding OpenAI and his understanding of its structure. Musk said in his testimony that he was not opposed to the creation of a small for-profit subsidiary, "as long as the tail didn't wag the dog." Musk said he was motivated to start OpenAI to serve as a counterweight to Google. He got the idea after an argument he had with Google co-founder Larry Page, who called Musk a "speciesist for being pro-human," he testified. "I could have started it as a for profit and I chose not to," Musk said on the stand. Earlier, attorneys for Musk and OpenAI presented their opening arguments to the jury. Musk's lead trial lawyer, Steven Molo, delivered the opening statement for the Tesla and SpaceX CEO. OpenAI lawyer William Savitt gave the opening statement for the AI company, Altman and Brockman. OpenAI has characterized Musk's lawsuit as a baseless "harassment campaign." The company said Monday in a post on X that it "can't wait to make our case in court where both the truth and the law are on our side." During his testimony on Tuesday, Musk repeatedly emphasized that he founded OpenAI to serve as a counterweight to Google. He said he got the idea after an argument about AI safety with Google co-founder Larry Page, who Musk said called him "a speciesist for being pro-human." Musk said he was concerned Page was not taking AI safety seriously, so he wanted there to be an nonprofit, open source alternative to Google. "I could have started it as a for profit and I chose not to," Musk said on the stand. Further reading: Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Head To Court
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
More than 600 Google employees urge Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai not to make the company's AI systems available for classified military work.
King Charles attended a state dinner at the White House, after speaking about what he called the "truly unique" relationship between the U.K. and the U.S. in an address to Congress.
The United States Attorney's Office filed a motion on Tuesday that says Aimee Bock, since at least February, has been directing her college-age son to "download large volumes of material related to her federal prosecution," and disseminate them to lawmakers and members of the media.
Top gubernatorial candidates met onstage at the CBS California Governor's Debate on April 28. Here are the highlights.
Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for April 29
A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit from the Justice Department seeking information on Arizona voters, another defeat in the Trump administration's nationwide push for voter data.
Justice department’s lawsuit dismissed in latest setback for government’s effort to amass information before midterms
An attempt by the Trump administration to gain access to Arizona’s detailed voter records was thwarted by the courts on Tuesday, when a federal judge dismissed the US justice department’s lawsuit against the state.
The ruling marks the latest legal setback in an unprecedented nationwide effort by the administration before the midterm elections to collect sensitive information about tens of millions of Americans. The justice department has sued at least 30 states and the District of Columbia seeking to force release of the data, which includes dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial social security numbers.
Continue reading...The new format would add eight more at-large teams, and take eight more teams out of the main bracket for play-in games.
I designed a pint bumper on my way to a related goal, and it looks like nobody else has made a front bumper printable- so if you wanted it, here you go.
Over $800,000 has already been raised, which is more than 80 times the Lumia 2's original goal.
Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, is set to be dissolved as a massive legal settlement resolving thousands of lawsuits takes effect.
Player also had stints with Raiders and Giants
Adrian Wilson pays tribute to player’s work rate
Former Arizona Cardinals and New York Giants defensive end Josh Mauro has died at the age of 35.
Mauro’s father, Greg, confirmed the news in a post on Facebook.
Continue reading...Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for April 29, No. 1,053.
Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for April 29, No. 787.
Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle No. 583 for Wednesday, April 29.
Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for April 29, No. 1,775.
Britain's ambassador, in February remarks reported by the Financial Times, also called the lack of fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal in the U.S. "extraordinary."
Saying he felt the "weight of history" on his shoulders, King Charles became the first British monarch in 35 years to address Congress on Tuesday.
For historians, the 1960s and 1970s provide particularly eerie parallels to the present. Both eras were marked by bitter political divides and the unsettling feeling that America's social fabric was being ripped apart.
The settlement ends a case where the Minnesota Supreme Court found USA Powerlifting violated the state's Human Rights Act by barring JayCee Cooper from competition.
Texas lawmakers do not think owners have fixed problems at Camp Mystic, but they might not be able to prevent the camp from reopening in May.
As I’m getting older and more fragile, I’m starting to think that some protective gear might be a good idea. As of now, I’m only thinking about wrist guards and a helmet, but might grab elbow & knee pads at some point. Most of my riding is street, but I have been mixing in some trails recently.
Anyone have any recommendations? Right now I’m looking at the Smith express helmet and some flatland 3d gloves.
Tournament was due to take place from 25-28 June
Louisiana expects LIV to give back unspent grant
The LIV Golf event scheduled to be played in Louisiana in June has been postponed. The postponement comes less than two weeks after the LIV Golf CEO, Scott O’Neil, said the breakaway circuit’s 2026 season would proceed as planned after reports that the series was at risk of losing its funding.
Tuesday’s announcement came a day after sources with knowledge of LIV Golf operations said the event may be postponed due to concerns the football World Cup could affect attendances and viewership, while issues such as high temperatures and course condition were also factors.
Continue reading...Charges appear to stem from photo posted on Comey’s Instagram account last year; former FBI director expresses faith that he will be exonerated at trial
Donald Trump has reportedly signaled to his top advisers that he is dissatisfied with and unlikely to accept Iran’s latest proposal to end the war, which would reopen the strait of Hormuz and leave discussion of Iran’s nuclear program for a later date.
Two people familiar with the matter told CNN that Trump conveyed his views during yesterday’s meeting with top national security aides where the Iranian proposal was discussed. One of the people said Trump was not likely to accept the plan, which was sent to the US in the last few days.
What I will reiterate is that the president’s red lines with respect to Iran have been made very, very clear, not just to the American public, but also to them as well.
I wouldn’t say they’re considering it. I would just say that there was a discussion this morning that I don’t want to get ahead of, and you’ll hear directly from the president, I’m sure, on this topic.
Continue reading...Officials investigating the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner said they estimated the suspect was running at about 9 miles per hour when he sprinted through a checkpoint and discharged his shotgun.
Niesr says even under best-case scenario, economy would grow at slower pace in 2026 and 2027 because of conflict
Britain is facing a £35bn economic hit and the risk of a recession this year as the fallout from the Iran war adds to the pressure on Keir Starmer’s government, a leading thinktank has warned.
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr) said that even under a best-case scenario the UK economy would grow at a much slower pace this year and next because of the Middle East conflict.
Continue reading...Research on maths teaching in English secondary schools upends decades of debate over mixed-ability education
Teaching pupils in classes grouped by ability improves the results of high-flyers but does not affect the progress of less able children, according to a study that upends decades of debate over mixed-ability education.
The research by University College London’s Institute of Education found that secondary school pupils in England with previously strong maths performances made slower progress in mixed-attainment classes than when they were taught alongside children with similarly high ability.
Continue reading...An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: University of Oregon chemist Christopher Hendon loves his coffee -- so much so that studying all the factors that go into creating the perfect cuppa constitutes a significant area of research for him. His latest project: discovering a novel means of measuring the flavor profile of coffee simply by sending an electrical current through a sample beverage. The results appear in a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications. [...] The coffee industry typically uses a method for measuring the refractive index of coffee -- i.e., how light bends as it travels through the liquid -- to determine strength, but it doesn't capture the contribution of roast color to the overall flavor profile. So for this latest study, Hendon decided to focus on roast color and beverage strength, the two variables most likely to affect the sensory profile of the final cuppa. His solution turned out to be quite simple. Hendon repurposed an electrochemical tool called a potentiostat, typically used to test battery and fuel cell performance. Hendon used the tool to measure how electricity interacted with the liquid. He found that this provided a better measurement of the flavor profile. He even tested it on four different samples of coffee beans and successfully identified the distinctive signature of a batch that had failed the roaster's quality-control process. Granted, one's taste in coffee is fairly subjective, so Hendon's goal was not to achieve a "perfect" cup but to give baristas a simple tool to consistently reproduce flavor profiles more tailored to a given customer's taste. "It's an objective way to make a statement about what people like in a cup of coffee," said Hendon. "The reason you have an enjoyable cup of coffee is almost certainly that you have selected a coffee of a particular roast color and extracted it to a desired strength. Until now, we haven't been able to separate those variables. Now we can diagnose what gives rise to that delicious cup." Outside of his latest electrical-current experiment, Christopher Hendon's coffee research has shown that espresso can be made more consistently by modeling extraction yield -- how much coffee dissolves into the final drink -- and controlling water flow and pressure. He also found that static electricity from grinding causes fine coffee particles to clump, which disrupts brewing. The solution: adding a small squirt of water to beans before grinding (known as the Ross droplet technique) to reduce that static, cut clumping and waste, and lead to a stronger, more consistent espresso.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Latest ONS figures also suggest lower population growth in coming decades than previously expected
Deaths are projected to outnumber births in the UK every year from 2026 and the population is expected to grow at a slower rate over the next few decades than previously reported, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
About 1.7 million people are projected to join the population between 2024 and 2034, pushing the total up 2.5% from 69.3 million to 71 million, before it starts to decrease in the mid-2050s.
Continue reading...Remarks marking 250th anniversary of American independence tell US lawmakers: ‘The actions of this great nation matter’
King Charles has extolled the importance of Britain’s “special relationship” with the US in a speech to Congress that made pointed reference to the importance of Nato, the defence of Ukraine and the climate crisis.
In a speech that will be read as a veiled plea to Donald Trump to return to the US’s traditional European alliances and restore his country’s role as a defender of liberal values, Charles said: “America’s words carry weight and meaning, as they have since independence. The actions of this great nation matter even more.”
Continue reading...But after some early hiccups, the U.S. government's hub for businesses seeking tariff refunds is running smoothly, an expert says.
The Trump administration is subjecting broad categories of immigrants applying for green cards and citizenship to enhanced FBI checks, and is pausing some cases while those changes are implemented, according to documents obtained by CBS News.
One of CNET's most highly rated VPNs adds more features for a busy spring and summer.
President Trump has warned that Cuba is "next" after he's launched military operations against Venezuela and Iran.
Apple's Vision Pro has been used in what's described as the world's first cataract surgery performed with the headset. MacRumors reports: [New York opthalmologist] Dr. Eric Rosenberg of SightMD completed the initial procedure in October 2025 and has since performed hundreds of additional cases using ScopeXR, a surgical platform he co-developed for Apple's mixed reality device. ScopeXR streams live feeds from 3D digital surgical microscopes directly into the Vision Pro, which lets the surgeon view the operative field in stereoscopic 3D while overlaying preoperative diagnostic data. The platform also supports real-time remote collaboration, allowing surgeons to virtually join procedures and see exactly what the operating surgeon sees. "We are now able to bring the world's best surgeon into any operating room, at any hour, from anywhere on the planet," said Dr. Rosenberg in a company press release. "From residents performing their first cases to surgeons facing unexpected complications, this technology democratizes access to expertise and that will save vision."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google's new AI-powered language tool can give you real-time feedback by analyzing speech and correcting your pronunciation.
Mother's Day will be here before you know it, but finding a gift for Mom doesn't have to be stressful. Check out these outstanding gifts, all hand-picked by our expert editors.
US representatives Jared Huffman and Jamie Raskin earlier this month called agreements outrageous and unlawful
The Trump administration blocked two permitted US wind energy projects from development this week, with an agreement to pay millions of dollars in refunds to the companies behind them if those funds are reinvested in oil and gas.
US Department of the Interior officials framed the canceled agreements as a way to “promote US energy security and affordability” by funneling funds “away from intermittent, higher-cost energy sources toward proven conventional solutions”, in an announcement issued on Monday.
Continue reading...James Lawhead was arrested after forensic DNA analysis lead in decades-old killing of Cindy Wanner
A 64-year-old man was arrested last week in connection to a decades-old murder investigation that had long haunted the affluent suburb of Sacramento where it occurred.
On 25 November 1991, Cindy Wanner, 35, vanished from her sister’s home in Granite Bay, California. Her husband arrived to the residence with their four-year-old daughter and found their 11-month-old baby alone, wailing and strapped to a high chair. Three weeks later, Wanner’s body was discovered 40 miles away in a secluded wooded area. She had died from strangulation.
Continue reading..."Geofence warrants," sometimes known as reverse location searches, are increasingly controversial for sweeping up information on any device that happened to be in the vicinity of a crime.
Peacock Premium Plus is the latest Roku Channel premium subscription.
Sony is reportedly rolling out a 30-day online check-in requirement for some digital PS4 and PS5 games, meaning players could temporarily lose access if their console does not reconnect to renew the license. Tom's Hardware reports: In the info page of an affected game, you'd see a new validity period and a "remaining time" deadline. At first, this seemed like a software bug, but now PlayStation Support has confirmed its authenticity to multiple users. PlayStation owners are furious about the change. From what we've seen, this DRM is intended for digital game copies. It works by instating a mandatory online check-in where you have to connect to the internet within a rolling 30-day window or risk losing access to the game. Afterward, you can still restore access, but you'll need an internet connection to renew the game's license first. So far, it seems like only games installed after the recent March firmware update are affected. Affected customers report that setting your PS4 or PS5 as the primary console doesn't alleviate this check-in policy either. No matter what, any game you download from now on will feature this new requirement, effectively eliminating the concept of offline play for even single-player titles.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Charles quoted Wilde and Dickens in measured masterclass – and no tirade as yet from mad monarch in White House
A flick of Oscar Wilde here, a nod to Henry Kissinger there, a sprinkling of Charles Dickens here, a dollop of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt there. Job done!
The British monarch mobilised an elite squad of dead white men, leavened with humour and subliminal politicking, on Tuesday in a charm offensive aimed over Donald Trump’s head and squarely at the US Congress. Judging by the cheers and minute-long applause he received at the end, the soft power flex worked a treat and the special relationship lives to fight another day.
Continue reading...It seems like Apple is finally going to remove support for AFP from macOS, twelve years after first moving from AFP to SMB for its default network file-sharing technology. This change shouldn’t impact most people, as it’s highly unlikely you’re using AFP for anything in 2026. Still, there is one small group of people to whom this change has an actual impact: owners of Apple’s Time Capsule devices. Time Capsules only support AFP and SMB1, and with SMB1 being removed from macOS ages ago, and now AFP being on the chopping block as well, macOS 27 would render your Time Capsule more or less unusable.
It’s important to note that the last Time Capsule sold by Apple, the fifth generation, was released in 2013, and the product line as a whole was discontinued in 2018. If you bought a Time Capsule in the twilight years of the line’s availability, I think you have a genuine reason to be perturbed by Apple cutting you off from your product if you upgrade to macOS 27, but at least you have the option of keeping an older version of macOS around so you can keep interacting with your time Capsule. It still feels like a bit of a shitty move though, as those fifth generation models came with up to 3TB of storage, which can still serve as a solid NAS solution.
Thank your lucky stars, then, that open source can, as usual, come to the rescue when proprietary software vendors do what they always do and screw over their customers. Did you know every generation of Time Capsule actually runs NetBSD, and that it’s trivially easy to add support for Samba 4 and SMB3 authentication to your Time Capsule, thereby extending its life expectancy considerably? TimeCapsuleSMB does exactly that.
If the setup completes successfully, your Time Capsule will run its own Samba 4 server, advertise itself over Bonjour (show up automatically in the “Network” folder on macOS), and accept authenticated SMB3 connections from macOS. You should then be able to open Finder, choose Connect to Server, and use a normal SMB URL instead of relying on Apple’s legacy stack. You should also be able to use the disk for Time Machine backups.
↫ TimeCapsuleSMB
It’s compatible with both NetBSD 4 and NetBSD 6-based Time Capsules, although you’ll need to run a single SMB activation command every time a NetBSD 4-based Time Capsule reboots. This will also disable any AFP and SMB1 support, but that is kind of moot since those are exactly the technologies that don’t and won’t work anymore once macOS 27 is released. The installation is also entirely reversible if, for whatever reason, you want to undo the addition of Samba 4.
This whole saga is such an excellent example of why open source software protects users’ rights, by design.
The British monarch addressed US Congress on Tuesday as part of his four-day visit to the US marking the 250th anniversary of the country's independence. He called on the UK and the US to 'build' on the countries' 'indispensable partnership' in a time of uncertainty, adding that the era was 'in many ways more volatile and more dangerous' than the time his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, addressed Congress in 1991
Continue reading...The former FBI director is accused of calling for Trump’s death with seashell picture. We explain what it stands for
While the former FBI director James Comey has said it did not occur to him that that the numbers “86 47” – which he spotted spelled out in seashells on a beach, and posted on social media last year – could be interpreted as a call to assassinate the president, as many supporters of Donald Trump have claimed, he now faces criminal charges tied to the shells.
On Tuesday, Comey was charged over the picture he posted on Instagram last year. The charges mark the latest instance in which Trump’s justice department has used its power to target the US president’s political enemies.
Continue reading...The State Department is planning a limited-edition redesign of the American passport with new artwork that features a portrait of President Trump, according to a department official.
No 10 deploys full weight to block parliamentary inquiry bid as MPs warn PM running out of political capital
Keir Starmer has seen off a major Labour rebellion over a bid to force a parliamentary investigation into his appointment of Peter Mandelson, but many of his own MPs warned he was running out of political capital.
After Downing Street deployed its full weight to force Labour MPs to block a referral to the privileges committee over the scandal, some angrily accused Starmer of leaving them facing accusations of a “cover-up”.
Continue reading...Former FBI Director James Comey is again facing federal charges after the government's previous case against him was dismissed.
The regulatory agency issued the order after President Trump and first lady Melania Trump urged ABC to fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.
Federal prosecutors charged 34 defendants across two indictments, alleging sports betting and mafia-linked rigged poker games.
Apple is adding a new App Store subscription option that lets developers offer lower monthly prices in exchange for a 12-month commitment. "This model will allow developers to offer discounted rates to customers in exchange for more predictable long-term revenue," reports TechCrunch. "This also caters to how many developers have already been marketing their annual subscriptions in their apps." From the report: Often, app developers will display the lower monthly price to highlight the discount the customer would receive if they purchase the annual subscription instead of the monthly option. If the user is on the fence about a longer-term commitment, the notion that they're getting a better deal can help to push them toward the annual option. Now, Apple is essentially formalizing what these developers were already doing, which allows it to also craft a set of policies around how these subscription offers are to be displayed so as not to mislead customers about the true cost of the deals. However, the option will not be available to developers in the United States or Singapore at launch. While Apple didn't offer an explanation for this, it's still in App Store litigation in the U.S. around the specifics of the court's ruling in its case with Epic Games around how Apple can charge for subscriptions. Apple likely doesn't want to complicate the matter further until that matter is finalized. Singapore, meanwhile, also has a sophisticated payments market with strong consumer rules, which is why it may have been left out of the initial release.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
If you have any digital games, it's advisable to keep your PS5 connected to the internet.
Looking for a profitable home for a few thousand dollars now? Here are three viable account types to consider.
Comey oversaw inquiries that directly intersected with Trump’s political goals while the president, in turn, has continued to attack him publicly
The relationship between Donald Trump and James Comey has spanned a turbulent decade, beginning during the 2016 presidential campaign and continuing into Trump’s second presidency with repeated investigations and criminal charges.
Comey oversaw inquiries that directly intersected with Trump’s political goals, first into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, and later into possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. Trump alternately criticized and praised Comey’s actions during the 2016 race, but once in office their exchanges grew increasingly tense, leading up to Comey’s dismissal in May 2017.
Continue reading...Knowing when a virtual vet visit is the right call for your pet could save you a lot of time — and a lot of money.
US president claims Friedrich Merz ‘doesn’t know what he’s talking about’ after German leader criticised US strategy in Iran
US is being ‘humiliated’ by Iran’s leadership, says Friedrich Merz
Hezbollah drone strikes target Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon
Saudi Arabia is to host a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Jeddah later today, in what will be first in-person meeting of Gulf leaders since their states became dragged into the war.
A Gulf official told the Reuters news agency that the meeting aimed to craft a response to the thousands of Iranian missile and drone attacks Gulf states have faced since the US and Israel launched the war on Iran on 28 February.
Continue reading...Limited-edition versions will place US president’s portrait inside cover alongside declaration text and flag motifs
The United States government, marking 250 years of independence from a monarchy, will this summer issue passports featuring a large photograph of its most senior leader’s face.
The limited-edition documents, billed as a commemoration of the US’s 250th anniversary of independence, will display Donald Trump’s photograph on the inside cover, surrounded by the text of the Declaration of Independence and the US flag, with his signature rendered in gold. A separate page features the famous painting of the founding fathers signing that very document.
Continue reading...Ex-Niaid employee David Morens accused of trying to shield correspondence related to outbreak of pandemic
An ex-adviser to the former top public US health official Anthony Fauci has been indicted by Trump administration prosecutors on accusations that he illicitly concealed federal records during the Covid pandemic.
The justice department on Tuesday announced charges against David Morens, 78, of Chester, Maryland, amid a sharply divisive debate over the origins of the coronavirus, which has become particularly politicized during Donald Trump’s two presidencies. Competing theories – including a natural spillover versus a potential lab leak – have fueled partisan clashes, with splits along ideological lines.
Continue reading...Will it be cheaper to borrow $25,000 worth of equity with a home equity loan or HELOC this May? Here's what to know.
American Airlines is imposing new rules on portable chargers that passengers can bring on flights. Here's what to know.
Lately, life sure feels like everything’s coming at us at once: The financial pressures. The political turmoil. The creep of AI into every corner of our lives.
To a nonprofit agency that’s simply trying to do good for Delaware, those global pressures can be overwhelming at times – especially as the need grows and big donations falter. They can feel beleaguered, unappreciated, alone.
Those anxieties will ease considerably this Friday, when more than 250 of the state’s nonprofit leaders come together to face their challenges as one, at the annual IMPACT Delaware Conference sponsored by DANA, the Delaware Alliance of Nonprofit Advancement. On the docket: How nonprofits can use AI agents effectively, navigate shifting federal policies, and take advantage of DANA’s new “Care for Good” healthcare plan.
It’s a day for sympathizing, but also for learning. There will be wise advice and warm reconnections with fellow advocates. Weary warriors will emerge energized, ready to renew their passion for the people they serve and the mission they champion.
“As nonprofit leaders, we have our heads down, nose to the grindstone, every day,” said Sheila Bravo, the former president and CEO of DANA. “Coming to a conference like this gives them a moment to look up from their work, to listen and understand how they can help each other thrive.”
Those moments of connection have become especially important over the past few years, as nonprofits work to steady themselves against the choppy tides of politics and finances. They’ve all had to become more resilient, more adaptable, more determined.
But that steadfast effort can come with its own emotional toll. “If you’re just kind of churning in your work, and you don’t take the time to come together, it’s just not healthy,” said Patrick J. Carroll, Chief Executive Officer of Humane Animal Partners Delaware. “It’s a day for venting, for commiserating, and even for sharing successes.”
Along with that communal, emotional reset, it’s also a chance to discover real-world strategies for countering chaos. They learn to do more with less, and to proactively push back against those acute external forces. Sessions will dive deep into the potential and perils of AI, the seemingly whimsical shifts from Washington D.C., the sometimes-disheartening softening of corporate support.
Thanks to DANA, real solutions are at hand: The group has just launched Care for Good, an innovative program designed to give its 500-plus nonprofit members sustainable, more-affordable healthcare coverage. At the IMPACT Delaware Conference, they’ll also get chances to explore fresh solutions to organizational needs, thanks to the vendors who attend each year to pitch their products, from human resources services to accounting help.
But the best takeaway is often found away from the main stage at Clayton Hall, where attendees at the sold-out conference find words of advice and encouragement from fellow members. “One of the top things that we hear from our members after the conference is the number of people that they got to meet, the new connections that they got to make,” Bravo said. “Those connections then can create opportunities for new ideas and collaborations in the future.”
“Oftentimes in these leadership roles, it can feel very lonely,” said Lydia Sarson, Executive Director of Healthy Foods for Healthy Kids, which helps students start their own school gardens. “It’s good to know that there are others out there who are going through something similar. You can ask questions, learn from them. You can hear about different solutions that maybe you didn’t think of at all.
“So many times for us little nonprofits, especially as we’re growing and changing and moving in this work, you can feel very blind,” Sarson added.
Through the year, DANA helps clear a path toward progress: Members can seek help with their board recruiting needs, get tailored consulting services from experts, or attend courses and sessions aimed at fine-tuning their skills. Through its Nonprofit Accelerator Program, DANA helps groups through that fledgling period when limited resources can be a drag on growth.
The IMPACT conference’s focus is by nature less individualized, but still serves as a chance to understand and cope with the big-picture topics that inevitably filter down to individual nonprofits. This year, a “plenary panel” will help members protect their missions against federal policy shifts, with the help of some high-profile panelists: Thère du Pont, President of the Longwood Foundation; John Kane, Director of Policy and Federal Affairs for Gov. Matt Meyer; and Diane Yentel, President of the National Council of Nonprofits.
More high-level lessons will come during the conference’s IMPACT Talks, which will deliver rapid-fire, thought leadership discussions from three respected Delaware figures: Rony Baltazar-Lopez, Director of the Delaware Office of New Americans; Doris Griffin, Executive Director of the Delaware Adolescent Program; and Kerriann Otaño, Vice President of Engagement for OperaDelaware.
“You’re not going to find anything like that anywhere else in Delaware but at our conference,” Bravo said.
Still, there’s a sense among members that some of the most meaningful moments are more personal, and perhaps more about sustaining each person’s morale and spirit. “Sometimes, the good thing about conferences like this is just the affirmation that you’re in the right place, and that you’re doing good work,” Carroll said. “It’s a reminder to yourself that you matter, and that your work is meaningful, and that you do want to keep going.”
Sarson has felt that glow, too. “You do get a sense of emotion as you’re leaving, a feeling that, ‘Okay, we can do this. It is not just me, it is not just this person or that organization. It really is all of us trying to make each of our communities a little bit better.”
To learn more about joining DANA, visit the Membership Page.
The post In turbulent times, Delaware’s nonprofits know they can thrive better together appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
Eight local broadcasting licenses under review after White House launched attack on late-night host over comment
The US’s top media watchdog announced on Tuesday that it is accelerating the review of eight local broadcasting licenses used by ABC, in a move critics see as a clear example of political and regulatory retribution against a disfavored broadcaster.
The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) announcement comes after the White House launched a full-on attack against the ABC’s late-night host, Jimmy Kimmel, over a joke he made last week about Melania Trump.
Continue reading...A federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration's policy of making immigrants subject to mandatory ICE detention without bond, including those who have lived in the U.S. for years.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: For its famous intractability, the Bloomberg Terminal has long inspired devotion, bordering on obsession. Among traders, the ability to chart a path through the software's dizzying scrolls of numbers and text to isolate far-flung information is the mark of a seasoned professional. But as a greater mass of data is fed into the Terminal -- not only earnings and asset prices, but weather forecasts, shipping logs, factory locations, consumer spending patterns, private loans, and so on -- valuable information is being lost. "It has become more and more untenable," says Shawn Edwards, chief technology officer at Bloomberg. "You miss things, or it takes too long." To try to remedy the problem, Bloomberg is testing a chatbot-style interface for the Terminal, ASKB (pronounced ask-bee), built atop a basket of different language models. The broad idea is to help finance professionals to condense labor-intensive tasks, and make it possible to test abstract investment theses against the data through natural language prompts. As of publication, the ASKB beta is open to roughly a third of the software's 375,000 users; Bloomberg has not specified a date for a full release. Wired spoke with Edwards at Bloomberg's palatial London headquarters in early April, where he shared several examples of what ASKB can do. "With ASKB, I can create workflow templates. I can write a long query, and say, 'Hey, here's all the data I'm going to need. Give me a synopsis of the bull and bear cases, what the Street is saying, what the guidance is.' Now, I want to schedule [the workflows] or trigger them when I see this or that condition in the world." As for what separates mediocre traders from the best, assuming both have access to the same data, Edwards said: "These tools are not magical. They don't make an average [employee] all of a sudden great. The difference will be your ideas. In the hands of experts, it allows them to do better analysis, deeper research -- to sift through 10 great ideas when they might have only had time for one. If you're a mediocre analyst, they'll be 10 mediocre ideas."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Defection is damaging to Saudi Arabia’s prestige – and could strengthen the US hand in the region
The United Arab Emirates’ decision to walk out of Opec is a political as much as business decision, and will reignite the simmering rows between the UAE and Saudi Arabia – which had been covered up by their shared anger with Iran over its attacks on the Gulf states since the start of the US-Israel war on Tehran.
In the short term, leaving the oil producing cartel it joined in 1967 gives the UAE the freedom to respond quickly to a long-term prospect of constrained supplies, and to maximise profit. But it is a decision the UAE has considered before, as UAE and Saudi tensions over production quotas have been longstanding.
Continue reading...Eight EU members continue to include force or violence in their definitions in national criminal codes
The European parliament has called on the EU to draw up a standardised consent-based definition of rape, in what legislators described as a crucial step towards addressing the patchwork of laws, some of them insufficient, that now exist across the bloc.
On Tuesday, 447 of the parliament’s 720 MEPs voted to approve a report calling for a common definition of rape, centred on “only yes means yes”, prompting a loud round of applause in the chamber in Strasbourg.
Continue reading...YouTube Premium subscribers can try it out and shake up their video searches.
Allegations that more than a dozen Minnesota safety net programs, including child care and housing services, misused federal funds have roiled the city in recent months.
Downing Street says focus will remain on cutting bills, backing renters and lowering energy prices
Downing Street has dismissed the idea of a freeze on private sector rents even as Rachel Reeves left the door open to such a move, after the Guardian revealed the chancellor has been considering it as an option to cut the cost of living.
A No 10 spokesperson said on Tuesday that freezing private sector rents was “not the approach we will be taking” after sources told the Guardian it was Reeves’s preferred solution for dealing with a spike in housing costs in the wake of the Iran war.
Continue reading...Multiple people injured when gunman opened fire inside a social security office and later an appeals court
An 89-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of shooting and wounding several people in attacks on government buildings in Athens.
Hours after the double shooting in the Greek capital, authorities announced a suspect had been detained in the western port city of Patras, reportedly attempting to flee to Italy. His arrest followed a countrywide manhunt.
Continue reading...US president says Americans ‘have had no closer friends than the British’ amid recent tensions between both nations
Donald Trump has praised the “special relationship” between the US and the UK, as he hosted a ceremonial military welcome for King Charles and Queen Camilla at the White House.
Against a backdrop of recent tensions between London and Washington, the US president, speaking on the second day of Charles’s state visit, said: “In the centuries since we won our independence, Americans have had no closer friends than the British.”
Continue reading...The email client suffered sign-on glitches Monday, and some of those problems seem to have continued into Tuesday.
A U.S. soldier pleaded not guilty to charges that he used classified information about the mission to capture former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro to win more than $400,000.
FactCheck.org has won a National Headliner Award for online beat reporting of government and political coverage. Our series on “How Project 2025 Has Unfolded Under Trump” won first place in that category.
The series, which was published over several days in late September and early October, was written by Eugene Kiely, our former director. Eugene explained in detail how President Donald Trump was implementing or trying to implement many elements of Project 2025, a policy manual that was produced by the Heritage Foundation and written by veterans of Trump’s administrations or campaigns, along with other conservatives. Trump had distanced himself from the document during the 2024 campaign, saying he knew “nothing about Project 2025.”
The judges called the series a “powerful deep dive that showed how Project 2025 was implemented across the federal government. Excellent explanatory lookback at promises made and kept — with an easy-to-navigate presentation.”
The series began by examining Project 2025’s recommendations to “dismantle the administrative state.” Subsequent articles focused on immigration, climate change/fossil fuels, social safety net programs, and divisive cultural issues, such as reproductive rights, transgender protections and DEI, or diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
This is the second year in a row that FactCheck.org has won first place in the National Headliner Awards’ category of online beat reporting of government and political coverage. These awards were founded in 1934 by the Press Club of Atlantic City.
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 Project 2025 Series Wins National Headliner Award appeared first on FactCheck.org.
The impact of higher energy prices and fears about covering monthly bill is taking a toll on public sentiment, a new Gallup poll finds.
Case centers on a photo prosecutors allege was a threat to Donald Trump, while Comey says he is ‘still innocent’
The justice department filed new criminal charges against James Comey, the former FBI director, on Tuesday.
Comey was charged in federal court in the eastern district of North Carolina over a picture he posted on Instagram while on vacation last year in which sea shells were arranged to say “86 47”. The post was taken as a threat to Donald Trump. The number 86 can be used as shorthand for getting rid of something, and Trump is the 47th president. Comey subsequently deleted the post and apologized, saying he didn’t realize the numbers were associated with violence. “It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down,” he wrote on Instagram.
Continue reading...The upcoming iOS update could also bring a few updates to the Maps app on your device.
Dr. David Morens worked as a senior adviser to NIAID's Office of the Director from 2006 through 2022.
MPs rejected a Conservative party proposal for the prime minister to face a parliamentary inquiry into his appointment of Peter Mandelson
Q: Was there pressure on you to approve Mandelson’s vetting?
This is a reference to the claim that Keir Starmer misled MPs last week when he talked about no pressure being placed on the Foreign Office.
One is during my tenure. I was not aware of any pressure on the substance of the Mandelson DV case.
Question two was there pressure? Absolutely. And I’ve described it. And I also have seen what the Foreign Office said to you last night. [See 8.50am.]
I didn’t receive any direct calls from the chief of staff during my time as permanent undersecretary. So there was no call at all. My interactions were always when others were present in a general meeting, there weren’t very many of those either …
I’ve really racked my brains and I cannot recall Morgan McSweeney swearing in a meeting at me, or indeed just in general. So I don’t see any substance in that part of it and I think it’s important I say that this morning, given how many people have come to think that might be true.
Continue reading...Prosecutors allege Gannon Van Dyke won $400,000 using insider information to bet on Maduro raid on Polymarket
The US army soldier charged with winning $400,000 by using insider information to bet on the removal of the ousted Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro pleaded not guilty to fraud charges on Tuesday.
Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, entered the plea in US district judge Margaret Garnett’s courtroom in Manhattan. Van Dyke sported a shaved head and wore a black blazer, jeans and brown shoes as he arrived to the courtroom with his lawyers, Zach Intrater and Mark Geragos.
Continue reading...Swift has filed for three trademark applications, including one covering her voice speaking the phrase, "Hey, it's Taylor."
Google has reportedly signed a classified agreement allowing the Pentagon to use its AI models for "any lawful government purpose." While the deal is said to discourage domestic mass surveillance and autonomous weapons without human oversight, it apparently does not give Google the power to block how the government actually uses its models. The Verge reports: The agreement was reported less than a day after Google employees demanded CEO Sundar Pichai block the Pentagon from using its AI amid concerns that it would be used in "inhumane or extremely harmful ways." If the agreement is confirmed, it would place Google alongside OpenAI and xAI, which have also made classified AI deals with the US government. Anthropic was also among that list until it was blacklisted by the Pentagon for refusing the Department of Defense's demands to remove weapon and surveillance-related guardrails from its AI models. Citing a single anonymous source "with knowledge of the situation," The Information reports that the deal states that both parties have agreed that the search giant's AI systems shouldn't be used for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weapons "without appropriate human oversight and control." But the contract also says it doesn't give Google "any right to control or veto lawful government operational decision-making," which would suggest the agreed restrictions are more of a pinky promise than legally binding obligations.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
I'm in need of a new tire on my XR+ and my local store that sells equipment only carries GT tires and Pint tires. Does a GT tire fit on an XR+ board or do I need to order a specific one in from elsewhere?
The average cost of a gallon of gasoline hit $4.18 on Tuesday, up $1.20 since the conflict in the Middle East started on Feb. 28.
Sky Roberts said survivors ‘still fighting to be heard’ after king, whose brother Andrew was accused of assault by Giuffre, did not meet with them
The brother of the late Virginia Giuffre criticized King Charles III for not meeting with survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse during his visit to the United States this week.
“Survivors are here sitting with members of Congress, still fighting to be heard, still pushing for real accountability, while many of the powerful figures connected to these systems remain just out of reach, unable to acknowledge survivors face to face,” Giuffre’s brother Sky Roberts said. “You would expect this to be a moment for the king to give a message to the world that he stands with survivors.”
Continue reading...The Spanish-language adaptation of the beloved novel lands on the streaming service this week.
Ex-classmates who knew Cole Tomas Allen, 31, at the California Institute of Technology say they were shocked by a message in which he appeared to use biblical teachings to justify violence.
Rescuers hope to move young male humpback from Baltic to North Sea after being stranded for a month near Lübeck
Rescuers trying to save a stranded humpback whale off Germany’s Baltic coast have coaxed the mammal on to a barge in the hope the vessel can take it to safety in deeper waters.
Amid intense media attention, the high-stakes rescue mission, funded by two multi-millionaires, is being watched by hundreds of onlookers, many of whom are camped nearby to monitor the spectacle.
Continue reading...Kremlin-controlled paramilitaries also alleged it inflicted ‘irreplaceable losses’ on insurgents avoiding civilian casualties
Russia’s defence ministry has claimed its Africa Corps – the successor to the former Wagner mercenary group – prevented a coup in Mali over the weekend, avoiding mass civilian casualties and inflicting “irreplaceable losses” on rebel insurgents.
It said in a statement that its troops in the desert town of Kidal near the Algerian border had fought for more than 24 hours while completely surrounded and vastly outnumbered. It also alleged, without providing evidence, that the militants had been trained by European mercenary instructors, including Ukrainians. The casualty toll was not specified.
Continue reading...49-year-old apologizes to family and NBA over case
More than 30 people arrested in sprawling investigation
Former NBA player and assistant coach Damon Jones has become the first person to plead guilty in a gambling sweep that led to the arrests of more than 30 people, including reputed mobsters and other basketball figures.
The 49-year-old entered a guilty plea on Tuesday to a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud during the first of back-to-back hearings in Brooklyn federal court.
Continue reading...fjo3 writes: The United Arab Emirates announced Tuesday that it would exit the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (source paywalled; alternative source), or OPEC, along with the wider group of partners known as OPEC+, effective May 1, in what could be a blow to control over prices by the group, long led in practice by Saudi Arabia. The move "reflects the UAE's long-term strategic and economic vision and evolving energy profile" read an official statement carried by a UAE state news agency, as disruptions "in the Strait of Hormuz continues to affect supply dynamics." [...] The UAE is the second Persian Gulf country to leave the group after Qatar terminated its membership in 2019. The UAE has been a member of OPEC since 1971. The latest departure leaves in place 11 core members: Algeria, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tech company is latest Silicon Valley firm to sign agreement with US military despite widespread employee opposition
Google has reportedly signed a deal with the US Pentagon to use its artificial intelligence models for classified work. The tech company joins a growing list of Silicon Valley firms inking agreements with the US military.
The agreement allows the Pentagon to use Google’s AI for “any lawful government purpose”, the report from the Information added, putting it alongside OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI, which also have deals to supply AI models for classified use. Similar agreements, both at Google and other AI firms, have sparked significant disagreements with the Pentagon and major employee pushback.
Continue reading...A witness says the doors to the ballroom where the White House Correspondents' Dinner was held were "wide open" when a gunman rushed toward the event.
Companies are now seeking refunds on tariffs after supreme court ruled Trump’s emergency levies were illegal
General Motors is expecting a $500m tariff refund after the US supreme court struck down some of Donald Trump’s most sweeping levies.
That has boosted the Detroit automaker’s outlook for 2026. On Tuesday, GM said it was now looking to rake in $13.5bn-$15.5bn in earnings before interest and taxes this year – up from previous forecasts of $13bn-$15bn.
Continue reading...Oil prices surged as talks on reopening of strait of Hormuz remain gridlocked, sending prices $1 higher than last year
US gas prices rose to their highest level in four years on Thursday, reaching an average $4.18 a gallon at the pump as US-Israeli peace talks with Iran remain at a standstill.
The last time average US gas prices breached $4.15 a gallon was in April 2022, when oil prices soared shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. Average gas prices are now $1 higher than just a year ago, when they were closer to $3.15 a gallon.
Continue reading...Customs and Border Protection officers seized $8.1 million worth of methamphetamine from a tractor trailer that entered the U.S. from Mexico last week.
Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has a proposed a new congressional map to net Republicans up to four more seats.
Federal raids unfold in Twin Cities amid ongoing tensions between the Trump administration and Minnesota officials
Federal agents under the command of the Trump administration have descended on Minnesota’s Twin Cities again to primarily target alleged fraud at daycares after the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s so-called “Operation Metro Surge” all but wound down earlier in the year.
“Today the FBI with federal, state and local law enforcement is involved in court-authorized law enforcement activity as part of an ongoing fraud investigation,” the US justice department told the Guardian in a statement on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Ceasefire frays further as Israel also carries out airstrikes and issues new displacement orders for south Lebanon
Hezbollah launched several drones at Israeli soldiers in south Lebanon on Tuesday, while Israel issued new displacement orders for south Lebanon and carried out airstrikes, as the fraying ceasefire failed to stop fighting between the two sides.
Hezbollah claimed Tuesday’s attack injured several Israeli soldiers, but no confirmation was given from the Israeli military, apart from a statement saying interceptor missiles had been fired at incoming Hezbollah drones.
Continue reading...Pirates appear to be taking advantage of international naval strength being diverted to Middle East
Three vessels have been hijacked off the coast of Somalia in the past week, raising fears of a resurgence in piracy around the Horn of Africa, and adding to the woes of the global shipping industry.
The merchant vessel Sward was taken over on 26 April, a day after a dhow was seized. These followed the 21 April hijacking of Honour 25, a motor tanker carrying 18,000 barrels of oil, according to the Maritime Security Centre Indian Ocean (MSCIO), the tracking service of the EU’s naval force.
Continue reading...US president has accused organisation of ‘ripping off the rest of the world’ by inflating oil prices
The United Arab Emirates has quit the Opec oil cartel after 60 years of membership, in a heavy blow to the group and its de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, as global energy markets contend with the biggest supply crisis in history.
The shock loss of the UAE, Opec’s third-largest oil producer, is expected to weaken the group, which for decades has worked together to use its collective oil production to influence global oil market prices.
Continue reading...The departure weakens the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, long criticized by Trump, as the global economy reels from the Iran war energy shock.
This opening leg of the semifinal sees the two tournament favorites face off in Paris.
Haven't you missed seeing Denji and Pochita on your screen?
Bay Area homeowner and investment banker Storm Duncan is trying to swap a 13-acre Mill Valley property for Anthropic equity instead of cash. He created a LinkedIn page for the home, describing the move as a "diversification play" because he is "under-concentrated in AI investments relative to the importance of AI in the future, and over-concentrated in real estate." A young Anthropic employee, Duncan says, might be "in the exact opposite scenario." TechCrunch reports: Duncan is asking potential buyers to email him to discuss deal specifics, but he said it would be a private transaction that doesn't require the buyer to sell their stock outright. On LinkedIn, he also said the homebuyer would "continue to retain 20% of the upside value of the shares exchanged for the duration of the lockup period." Duncan, who described himself as a longtime Bay Area resident who moved to Miami during the pandemic, bought the property in 2019 for $4.75 million. It's currently occupied by "a high-profile VC," he said, but he declined to identify the VC.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
TPOR poll of 1,018 likely voters puts Talarico ahead of John Cornyn by three percentage points and Ken Paxton by five
Democrats’ hopes of winning control of the US Senate in November’s midterm elections have been boosted by a poll showing James Talarico, the party’s candidate in Texas, leading in a head-to-head matchup against two potential Republican opponents.
The Texas Public Opinion Research (TPOR) survey has Talarico, a Democratic state legislator, ahead of the GOP incumbent senator, John Cornyn, and his internal party challenger, Ken Paxton, in one-on-one contests.
Continue reading...  | Been messing around with ride recording. I like snowboard videos with the cam on the front leg so I'm giving that a try. [link] [comments] |
About 20 sites in the Minneapolis area were were targeted as prosecutors refocus attention on a billion-dollar social services scandal.
Diplomatic missions are told to ask nonimmigrant visa applicants if they fear returning to their home country, and to deny travel documents to those who say yes.
Mandelson’s replacement made comments in February, with diplomat also saying Israel has special relationship with US
The UK’s new ambassador to the US has described Keir Starmer as having been “on the ropes” over the Peter Mandelson scandal and said it is Israel rather than Britain that has a “special relationship” with the White House.
Christian Turner, who took office in February to replace Mandelson as the UK’s most senior diplomat in Washington, made the remarks privately to a group of students visiting the US in the same month he was appointed.
Continue reading...Anant Ambani, the son of tycoon Mukesh Ambani, said he formally requested the Colombian government to stay a decision to kill the animals.
Thomson led team to World Series appearance in 2022
Phillies are tied for worst record in majors this season
Rob Thomson, who led the Phillies to four straight playoff appearances, including the 2022 World Series, was fired as the team’s manager on Tuesday after Philadelphia lost 11 of 12 games and began the day tied for last place in the majors.
Bench coach Don Mattingly was named interim manager through the end of the season and third-base coach Dusty Wathan was promoted to bench coach.
Continue reading...When shots rang out at the Washington Hilton during the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday, there were echoes of the hotel's storied presidential history.
Refusal or silence would increase denial risk under new US guidance requiring applicants to confirm no fear of return
Applicants seeking a temporary visa to the United States must now tell a consular officer that they have not experienced harm and do not fear returning to their home country, according to new guidance issued from the state department. If they answer yes or decline to respond to either question, the chance they will be denied will skyrocket.
The Guardian obtained a state department cable which instructs officers at every US embassy and consulate globally to amend their process and ask applicants to affirm they do not fear mistreatment if they return home as a prerequisite for the interview to continue.
Continue reading...US-Israel war on Iran: What will Netanyahu do next? 5 May 2026 — 13:00 TO 14:00 BST Anonymous (not verified) Online
Experts discuss how the Israeli state and society have responded to the war so far, and examine possible political, military and security trajectories for the country.
Experts assess how Israeli state and society has responded to the wars so far, and examine possible political, military and security trajectories for Israel.Nearly two months into Israel’s multi-front military campaign against Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the country’s social and security landscape is marked by contradiction. Recent opinion polls indicate opposition to the ceasefire, despite a broader national mood of strategic fatigue and pessimism about the state of the war.
Polling also indicates that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has gained no political leverage during the war and lacks a coalition. With elections likely in October, significant questions remain as to how Israel’s wars in Iran and Lebanon have, and will continue, to shape the domestic political sphere.
In this webinar, speakers examine possible political, military and security trajectories for Israel, and the implications of Israel’s shifting relationships with the United States, Europe, and Gulf Arab states.
I know this question has been asked many times but there is a GTS(350 miles) with a fast charger in my area for 1800. Should I buy that or buy a new X7? I'm 200#
AGM briefly adjourned after protesters wearing T-shirts labelled ‘No more big oil’ burst into song
The chair of NatWest was forced to defend the bank against accusations of “climate backtracking” at a chaotic annual shareholder meeting, which was temporarily suspended owing to singing protesters.
Not long after the meeting began in Edinburgh, it was adjourned for about half an hour after a protester interrupted Rick Haythornthwaite’s opening speech.
Continue reading...A closer look at voters' views on issues in the primary for the California governor's race going into Tuesday's debate.
The talkshow host has found himself targeted by the president once again but his jokes fail to have the influence or tastelessness that the right like to claim
In an episode of the classic sitcom Arrested Development, dutiful son Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) corrects his wily but not always culture-savvy mother Lucille (Jessica Walter) that she has not actually been confronted and embarrassed by Michael Moore: “That was a Michael Moore impersonator for a bit on Jimmy Kimmel Live.” Lucille, as always, is undeterred: “I don’t know who that is and I don’t care to find out.” It’s a hilariously haughty response, withering in its blithe lack of interest. It also accidentally attains a kind of dignity through ignorance that Donald Trump – who is, like Lucille Bluth, wealthy, elderly and frequently cruel – could only dream of stumbling into.
Or maybe that’s actually our dream. Just imagine a world where Trump and his family (both blood and Maga) don’t know or care what’s going on with Jimmy Kimmel. Alas, we live in a world where Kimmel is directly and repeatedly lambasted by the White House for making a joke that seemed in poorer taste after an assassination attempt on Trump. This is despite the joke itself being written and delivered well before the event in question – the talkshow monologue version of pre-crime, if you can conceive of something that embarrassing.
Continue reading...Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, was fired from her job as a top prosecutor in New York last year.
Created by three dads from Seattle, the resolutely un-mobile handset doesn’t have internet access, apps or even a screen. No wonder anxious parents are snapping it up
Name: Tin Can.
Age: Launched last April.
Continue reading...A cottage industry of women are selling courses aligned with a conservative movement that claims feminism is the source of women’s discontent
A thirtysomething woman with the easy smile of your favorite neighbor sits in her earth-tone living room, natural light washing over a gray couch so long it could easily fit four children. The woman speaks of a friend, a married mother, who was frustrated that she had to constantly remind her germophile husband to wash his hands. Hearing this, the woman cautioned her friend: “I think it would be better for your entire family to get the black plague and die … than for you to continue treating your husband like a toddler by reminding him to wash his hands.”
Welcome to Wife School, a video masterclass led by Tilly Dillehay, a 38-year-old Baptist writer, podcaster and pastor’s wife who teaches women how to “become the kind of woman who inspires a godly leader”. That means molding them into the wives she says that husbands want: smiling, attentive and submissive, women who know not to nag – even if it means risking the bubonic plague.
Continue reading...An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Monday heard a dispute over labels on the popular Roundup weed killer, which thousands of people blame for their cancers. How the Supreme Court rules could have implications for tens of thousands of lawsuits against Roundup maker Monsanto, which is now owned by Bayer. The case centers on who decides about warning labels on chemicals: the federal government -- or states or juries. [...] The justices will not be evaluating whether glyphosate causes cancer. Rather, they'll consider who should decide what appears on warning labels and whether states have a role to play after the EPA weighs in. The current U.S. solicitor general backed Monsanto. Sarah Harris, his principal deputy, said the Environmental Protection Agency is in the driver's seat, not anyone in Missouri. "Missouri thus requires adding cancer warnings but federal law requires EPA to approve new warnings and tasks EPA with deciding what label changes would mitigate any health risks," Harris argued. "State law must give way." Several justices, including Brett Kavanaugh, appeared to agree with Monsanto's argument about the need for a single, uniform standard across the country. But others, like Chief Justice John Roberts, wondered what would happen if the federal government moved more slowly than states did, who wanted to act quickly on information about new dangers. "Well, it does undermine the uniformity," Roberts said. "On the other hand, if it turns out they were right, it might have been good if they had an opportunity to do something, to call this danger to the attention of people while the federal government was going through its process," he said about states. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked about the emergence of new science, and the EPA's reviews. "There's a 15-year window between when that product has to be re-registered again and lots of things can happen in science, in terms of development about the product," she said. Bayer, which now owns Monsanto, only sells Roundup that contains glyphosate to farmers and businesses these days. Bayer has been pushing to resolve scores of the residential cases through a sweeping settlement, trying to put the costly claims behind it.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tech giant accused of ‘cynical attempt to bust the union’ in decision to shutter location in Towson, Maryland
Workers at the first Apple store to unionize in the US are pushing back against the company’s decision to shut it down by June, alleging that Apple’s decision is rooted in “a cynical attempt to bust the union”.
On Monday, the union filed an unfair labor practice charge against Apple, alleging unionized employees at the store in Towson, Maryland, are being denied transfer rights and other rights compared with workers at non-unionized stores. The union is also alleging retaliation for being unionized.
Continue reading...No one has been arrested and "officers are keeping an open mind about the motive behind the attack," police said.
Sakharov prize winner was sentenced to eight years in a penal colony in Belarus in 2021
Polish-Belarusian journalist Andrzej Poczobut, the 2025 Sakharov prize winner, has been freed from Belarusian prison.
His release has been confirmed by Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk, who posted a picture of him on social media saying: “Andrzej Poczobut is free! Welcome to your Polish home, my friend.”
“Both have paid a heavy price for speaking truth to power, becoming symbols of the struggle for freedom and democracy.”
Continue reading...UAE officials said the decision to depart the OPEC oil cartel comes after an "extensive review" of the country's oil production policy.
More than three years after the series ended, the show is back with a new chapter.
Hinckley says ‘bad things keep happening’ at Washington Hilton and it was ‘not a secure place to hold big events’
The man who shot Ronald Reagan at the Washington Hilton in 1981 has said it was “spooky” for him to learn of Saturday’s shooting at the hotel during a prestigious media gala attended by Donald Trump and senior members of the president’s administration.
In an interview with TMZ published on Monday, John Hinckley Jr also observed that “bad things keep happening” at the hotel and maintained it was “just not a secure place to hold big events”.
Continue reading...Lawsuit alleges DoJ broke transparency law by withholding records on Jeffrey Epstein and over-redacting disclosures
Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, engaged in a “brazen, shocking, and ongoing violation” of a law requiring the Department of Justiceto release the entirety of the so-called Epstein files, a lawsuit filed in Washington DC alleges.
The action on Monday by Katie Phang, an investigative journalist and legal analyst, seeks to hold Blanche personally responsible for the justice department’s alleged failure to publish all the documents the government holds about Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender. A full release was mandated by a landmark transparency act passed by Congress in November, with a deadline of 19 December 2025.
Continue reading...It’s UAExit as the United Arab Emirates will leave Opec on 1 May, in a blow to the group of oil producers
Although rising energy prices are great news for oil and gas producers, they’re a blow to other businesses, such as housebuilders.
This morning, Taylor Wimpey has reported that the cost of building a home is being pushed up, telling shareholders:
As a result of rising energy costs, build cost inflation is now expected to be low to mid single digit for 2026, with cost pressure and surcharges starting to come through from our supply chain.
Continue reading...Wage garnishment hurts your finances from day one and could ultimately have a massive impact if it compounds.
Billionaire Alexei Mordashov’s vessel, Nord, reportedly able to cross blockaded strait with US and Iranian approval
A superyacht owned by the Russian billionaire Alexei Mordashov was able to transit the blockaded strait of Hormuz after undergoing maintenance in Dubai because neither Iran nor the US objected, a source close to Mordashov said on Tuesday.
It has been unclear how the multi-deck pleasure vessel, worth more than $500m (£370m), gained permission to sail on Saturday through the commercially important waterway at the heart of the US-Iran conflict, where traffic has been severely restricted since February.
Continue reading...The Southern Poverty Law Center accused senior Justice Department officials of making "misleading" statements after indictment.
Sakharov prize winner was given eight-year sentence after process widely condemned as politically motivated
The Polish-Belarusian journalist Andrzej Poczobut, the 2025 Sakharov prize winner, has been freed after five years in a Belarusian penal colony as part of a US-brokered multi-country swap deal.
His release has been confirmed by Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, who posted a picture of him on social media, saying: “Andrzej Poczobut is free! Welcome to your Polish home, my friend.”
Continue reading...Hallucinogens have come a long way from the 60s counterculture to Trump’s White House – propelled by veterans’ lobbying and Silicon Valley capital
Kojo Koram’s new book, The Next Fix: Winners and Losers in the Future of Drugs, is out on 4 June
On 13 May 1966, a US Senate subcommittee questioned a former Harvard clinical psychologist, considered by many to be “the most dangerous man in America”, on the risks of psychedelics. Leading the inquisition of Dr Timothy Leary was Senator Ted Kennedy, of America’s unofficial first family. Amid a series of questions that reflected the moral panic about psychedelics then gripping the US establishment, Kennedy asked: “This is a dangerous drug – is that right?” To which Leary replied: “No, sir. LSD is not a dangerous drug.” Kennedy remained unconvinced. To the committee of politicians listening to Leary, psychedelics were behind the hippy movement, anti-war protests and the general breakdown of society.
Earlier this month, almost exactly 60 years after this tense inquiry, Ted Kennedy’s nephew Robert F Kennedy Jr stood behind Donald Trump as he signed a new presidential executive order to accelerate mainstream access to medical treatment based on psychedelic drugs. A particular focus is ibogaine, a psychoactive compound derived from a West African shrub, which scientists suggest can be effective for treating chronic mental-health problems. Kennedy Jr has been the champion of psychedelics within the Maga coalition, alongside figures such as the podcaster Joe Rogan, who stood beside him in the Oval Office on 18 April. Rogan described to the press how he had encouraged the president to sign the executive order over text message.
Kojo Koram is a professor of law and political economy at Loughborough University. His new book, The Next Fix: Winners and Losers in the Future of Drugs, is out on 4 June
Continue reading...I tested almost every temperature setting on my fridge to find the "Goldilocks" zone that wouldn't freeze my produce.
How can African institutions deliver in the Great Lakes peace process? 12 May 2026 — 14:30 TO 16:00 BST Anonymous (not verified) Online
In a crowded and shifting diplomatic field – spanning Washington, Doha, and beyond – this webinar asks what the African Union and regional bodies must do to deliver durable peace in the Great Lakes, and how closer coordination with external partners and grassroots initiatives might move the process forward.
In a crowded and shifting diplomatic field – spanning Washington, Doha, and beyond – this webinar asks what the African Union and regional bodies must do to deliver durable peace in the Great Lakes, and how closer coordination with external partners and grassroots initiatives might move the process forward.The peace process in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and the wider Great Lakes region continues to be shaped by a crowded and shifting diplomatic field. African institutions – including the African Union, regional economic communities and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region – are striving to define their strategic value in this mix and to coordinate effectively with external actors.
While past stasis and competing initiatives at times exposed the limits of African-led mediation, the influence of domestic factors and the fragmented nature of conflict have equally shown the risks of marginalizing regional actors altogether. An effective process also demands greater synchronization of high-level negotiations and grassroots peacebuilding initiatives.
This webinar examines the role of African institutions in the Great Lakes peace process. It will assess the conditions under which African actors can sustain a durable and comprehensive peacebuilding effort through closer coordination with the US, Qatar and other mediators, but also with grassroots initiatives that are sometimes better tailored to localized conflict patterns.
Though solar was initially incorrectly blamed for crisis, renewables have helped insulate Spain from gas price rises caused by war in Middle East
One year ago today, all of Spain, and much of Portugal, suffered through a blackout of unprecedented scale and duration. In mere seconds, a cascading sequence of events burst through the grid and created Europe’s first “system black” event in recent memory.
Traffic signals failed, mobile networks stopped working entirely, petrol stations could not pump fuel and supermarkets could not process payments. Madrid’s metro came to a halt and people had to be pulled out of carriages. “People were stunned because this had never happened in Spain,” Carlos Condori, a 19-year-old construction sector worker, told AFP at the time. “There’s no [phone] coverage, I can’t call my family, my parents, nothing: I can’t even go to work.”
Continue reading...Starmer’s former chief of staff says he asked people to act quickly but not to skip steps in vetting process
• UK politics live – latest updates
Morgan McSweeney has admitted that Foreign Office officials came under intense pressure to expedite Peter Mandelson’s posting as UK ambassador to Washington, but denied they were forced to “skip steps” in security vetting to do so.
Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff, who resigned earlier this year over the scandal, acknowledged that he had asked the then top official at the department, Philip Barton, to conduct the process “at pace” but not to do anything “improper”.
Continue reading...High fuel prices and passenger delays as result of EU’s EES entry-exit system leading to problems, says trade body
Europe’s smaller airports may not survive if jet fuel shortages triggered by the Middle East crisis lead to widespread route cancellations, the industry’s trade body has warned.
Although airlines insist there are currently no supply problems within the normal four- to six-week horizon, the US-Israel war on Iran and the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz have doubled the price of jet fuel, prompting some carriers to cancel flights.
Continue reading...Defendant, 21, in court with second man over alleged scheme to kill music fans outside Vienna stadium
A 21-year-old man has pleaded guilty in an Austrian court over a jihadist plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna nearly two years ago, which led to shows by the US megastar in the country being scrapped.
The plan to kill onlookers massing outside the venue was thwarted at the 11th hour but Austrian authorities still cancelled Swift’s three scheduled performances in August 2024.
Continue reading...Ittai Gradel died of renal cancer days after museum awarded him medal for ‘very significant contribution’
The academic turned antiquities dealer who exposed the theft of hundreds of artefacts from the British Museum has died aged 61.
Dr Ittai Gradel, from Denmark, alerted the British Museum and the police after he was able to buy dozens of museum artefacts on eBay over the course of several years.
Continue reading...Bring your phone number and a device to the carrier and get a $200 prepaid Mastercard.
Wearable display glasses are becoming incredible. The Viture Beast is one of my new faves.
He has said he is ‘tormented’ by his previous support for Donald Trump – and some suggest the former Fox News host is positioning himself for the GOP nomination
A few years ago, Tucker Carlson was sleeping peacefully alongside his wife and four dogs when, all of a sudden, he was “physically mauled” by a demon. This supernatural attack left bloody claw marks on his side, the former Fox News star claimed in a documentary about spirituality. Shaken by this unusual ordeal, Carlson called an evangelical friend who told him: “Yeah, that happens – people are attacked in their bed by demons.” The whole thing, he said, was a “transformative experience”.
Fast forward to the present day and poor old Carlson seems to be plagued by demons again, although this time they’re more metaphorical than metaphysical. The far-right personality, who started his own media company after parting ways with Fox in 2023, has said that he is “tormented” by his previous support for Donald Trump. In a recent episode of his podcast, Carlson spoke to his brother, Buckley, a former Trump speechwriter, about their shared disappointment with the president and said he was “sorry for misleading people”. This was a moment, Carlson said, “to wrestle with our own consciences”.
Continue reading...US generated more power from renewables like solar and wind than gas last month in a first
Donald Trump has wielded the full might of his administration to crush the progress of clean energy, which he has called a “scam” and “stupid”. But there are signs this assault is not going to plan.
In March, the US generated more of its electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind than it did via gas, the first time clean energy has surpassed the planet-heating fossil fuel for a full month nationally, according to data from the Ember thinktank.
Continue reading...Suns have lost 10 consecutive playoff games
Pistons in 3-1 hole against Magic
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had 31 points and eight assists as the Oklahoma City Thunder finished off a first-round playoff sweep with a 131-122 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Monday night.
Continue reading...Customs officials say group allegedly hid 5kg of ‘kush’ in false walls of bags on return from Bangkok holiday
Twenty-two Buddhist monks are in Sri Lankan police custody after customs officials found 110kg of high-grade cannabis concealed in their luggage, the largest ever drug bust at Colombo’s main international airport.
The group, mostly junior monks in training from temples across Sri Lanka, were alleged to have “carried about five kilos of the narcotic concealed within false walls in their luggage”, according to a Sri Lanka customs spokesperson.
Continue reading...Alleged shooter, identified as Cole Tomas Allen, faces potential life sentence. Plus, the Americans renouncing their citizenship
Good morning.
The suspect accused of trying to storm the White House correspondents’ dinner was charged on Monday with three federal crimes, including attempting to assassinate the president – a charge that carries a potential sentence of up to life in prison.
What was his motive? Investigators have yet to release one. However, to establish the charge of attempted assassination, the affidavit quotes from a part of a manifesto Allen allegedly sent to family members that states: “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”
Was lax security to blame? While many have praised the actions of law enforcement officers in swiftly stopping the attack, Allen’s alleged manifesto mocked an “insane” lack of security at the Washington dinner.
What is the Trump administration saying about the attack? Several officials, including the president, have seized on the incident to advance their case for the completion of Trump’s $40m White House ballroom project, with the justice department pressuring a preservation group to drop a lawsuit seeking to halt the construction.
Will there be an Oval Office meeting? Sources told the Guardian that Charles will pose for the cameras at the start of his centerpiece bilateral meeting on Tuesday, but that British officials have pushed for the Oval Office meeting to be held off camera, for fear of a repeat of the scenes when Trump berated the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in front of the world’s press.
What challenges does the king face with this visit? Relations between the UK and the US are already tense following Trump’s public criticism of Britain’s refusal to back military action against Iran, but Charles is also meeting Trump under the shadow of Jeffrey Epstein. Charles’s brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office over his connection with Epstein.
Continue reading...Audias Flores Silva, also known as "El Jardinero," or The Gardener, was seen as a possible successor to "El Mencho," who was killed in February.
Jimmy Kimmel has responded to Donald and Melania Trump calling for ABC to fire him after a joke he made days before the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
Oil prices continue rising as the Trump administration unenthusiastically mulls an Iranian offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz but delay nuclear talks.
Neither political party is immune to conspiracy theories in a time of intense distrust in government and media, experts say
After an armed man attempted to breach the ballroom where Donald Trump was set to speak to White House journalists on Saturday, conspiracy theories immediately spread about whether the event was staged.
The rhetoric has become a common refrain from both sides of the aisle in an era of deeply fractured politics and intense distrust in political institutions and media, and in the president himself.
Continue reading...Commentary: For the high price that Motorola wants the Razr Ultra to command, the company shouldn't restrict its best features to international markets.
We're getting close to the end of this season's war in New York City.
Spoiler: The answer depends entirely on your goals. Here's the breakdown of what each does best.
It introduces hot-swappable, mix-and-match TMR and mechanical switches.
Massachusetts woman jailed for six months after court heard she admitted to freeing bees on sheriff’s deputies
A beekeeper has been jailed for six months after she set swarms of her insects on sheriff’s deputies attempting to carry out an eviction at a friend’s house.
Rebecca Woods insisted she only released her truckload of hives to allow the bees to enjoy the “lovely, flowering landscape” near the home of an elderly friend and cancer patient.
Continue reading...Iranian negotiators are seeking separate tracks for a deal over the Strait of Hormuz and talks on broader peace, including nuclear issues.
The Crystal Palace manager delivered the club’s first major trophy and could add a European title this season. But a bigger team will present fresh challenges
When Oliver Glasner took over from Roy Hodgson at Crystal Palace in February 2024, the club was in a desperate situation. The lack of an identity and coherent strategy at all levels soured Hodgson’s tenure. Transfers that hadn’t worked out, injuries, and lackluster tactics meant they were only a few points above the relegation zone.
Glasner helped spark a revival. Not only did he preside over a return to mid-table stability, he also helped deliver memories through FA Cup success that will live on with Palace fans for years. His achievements at Selhurst Park make him one of the most intriguing managerial free agents when he leaves his post at the end of the season, although he is not without his faults.
Continue reading...Bank’s chief executive points to alleged fraud as it sets aside a further £105m for motor finance compensation
Barclays is pulling back from lending to risky borrowers, as its chief executive warned of increasing numbers of fraud cases and the bank took a £228m hit from the failure of a mortgage lender.
The mortgage lender Market Financial Solutions (MFS) collapsed in February amid allegations of fraud, and the UK’s financial regulator has since launched an investigation into the scandal.
Continue reading...First-quarter profits of $3.2bn prompt outrage from campaigners, who say figures come at expense of consumers
BP has provoked outrage by revealing its profits more than doubled in the first quarter of this year after its oil traders reaped the benefit of the war in Iran.
The energy company capitalised on a surge in global oil market prices to report better than expected profits of $3.2bn (£2.4bn) for the first quarter, more than double the $1.38bn it made in the same period last year.
Continue reading...The Trump administration has fired all 22 current members of an independent board that oversees the National Science Foundation, one dismissed member says.
The new Eurasian chessboard: Power, connectivity and strategic resources 5 May 2026 — 13:30 TO 14:30 BST Anonymous (not verified) Chatham House and Online
Join us for an expert panel exploring how the EU, the UK, the US, and Turkey can navigate great power competition in Central Asia and harness the region’s growing strategic and economic potential.
Join us for an expert roundtable exploring how the EU, the UK, the US, and Türkiye can navigate great power competition in Central Asia and harness the region’s growing strategic and economic potential.Central Asia sits at the heart of today’s great power competition — a pivotal arena for East-West connectivity, energy transition, and the restructuring of the global order. Its governments are increasingly asserting their independence from Moscow without aligning with the West, making the region a critical testing ground for a new geopolitical settlement. The second gathering in a two-event series co-hosted by Chatham House and GMF, this expert roundtable will focus on the region’s political trajectory and geoeconomic dynamics amid a shifting strategic landscape. It will also ask how the EU, the UK, the US, and Türkiye can cooperate more effectively to support regional stability and harness its growth potential.
This expert panel will focus on the region’s political trajectory and geoeconomic dynamics amid a shifting strategic landscape. It will also ask how the EU, the UK, the US, and Turkey e can cooperate more effectively to support regional stability and harness its growth potential.
It costs as much as Nvidia RTX models but lacks RTX graphics. Still, the XPS 16 is a strong overall performer with a thin-and-light design.
Climate group calls for urgent windfall tax on excess fossil fuel profits, as delegates tell Colombia conference their nations are suffering
The Middle East oil and gas crunch will impose as much as a trillion dollars of additional costs on the global economy while petroleum companies rake in spectacular profits from elevated fuel prices, analysis has revealed.
The uneven distribution of risk and reward comes amid rising concern that the US-Israeli attack on Iran is worsening inequality, poverty and hunger across a world that has become dangerously dependent on fossil fuels.
Continue reading...The firms said last week that they will be reducing parental leave and other benefits for employees starting next year
Recent moves by US companies Deloitte and Zoom to reduce how much paid parental leave they offer employees could signal a larger reduction in benefits in corporate America, according to labor market experts.
American workers are already seen as having less benefits and labor protections than many of their counterparts across the world, especially in Europe.
Continue reading...The track prodigy made it to world championships at 17 and joined Nike’s Oregon Project. At 29, Cain is detailing the hellish years under coach Alberto Salazar in her new memoir
“As someone who has lost touch with reality, I like to hold a firm grasp on it now,” Mary Cain says while we walk through a palm-tree spotted campus in California.
She’s telling me why she insisted she write her own memoir, This is Not About Running, without ceding the narrative to a ghostwriter, as happens with many athletes. “My story is so complicated … there are so many bad actors that I think it forces the reader to embrace nuance, and I don’t think you see that very often.”
Continue reading...An attorney shortage has left thousands trapped in criminal cases without lawyers. One wrongfully accused woman had no choice but to wait
Corshelle Jenkins was charged with a crime she didn’t commit – and now, there was a warrant for her arrest.
In May 2025, the 36-year-old Portland resident received a letter saying she had been arrested for theft, and after failing to appear in court, police were instructed to take her to jail. The mother of six was stunned. She had never been arrested for stealing. She assumed a visit to court would prove it was a case of mistaken identity.
Continue reading...There are plenty of electric toothbrushes in every price point to choose from.
The Boys are back for one final time.
Researchers say infrasound -- low-frequency vibrations from things like pipes, HVAC systems, and traffic that humans can't consciously hear -- may help explain why some old buildings feel unsettling or "haunted." Rodney Schmaltz, senior author and professor at MacEwan, says: "Consider visiting a supposedly haunted building. Your mood shifts, you feel agitated, but you can't see or hear anything unusual. In an old building, there is a good chance that infrasound is present, particularly in basements where aging pipes and ventilation systems produce low-frequency vibrations. If you were told the building was haunted, you might attribute that agitation to something supernatural. In reality, you may simply have been exposed to infrasound." ScienceBlog.com reports: Infrasound sits below roughly 20 Hz, the lower limit of what the human ear can ordinarily detect. It's generated by storms, by volcanic activity, by tectonic rumblings deep in the Earth's crust, and (this is the part that matters) by the mundane mechanical heartbeat of cities: ageing pipes, HVAC systems, traffic, industrial machinery. "Infrasound is pervasive in everyday environments, appearing near ventilation systems, traffic, and industrial machinery," says Schmaltz. Most of the time, we walk through it without a second thought. The question the team wanted to answer was whether walking through it was actually doing something to us, whether the frequency was registered somewhere below consciousness, somewhere we couldn't readily name. The experimental setup was deliberately ordinary. Thirty-six undergraduate students filed one at a time into isolated testing rooms and sat alone with a piece of music, either a calming instrumental or a horror-themed ambient track designed to provoke discomfort. Hidden subwoofers, including a 12-inch unit positioned in an adjacent hallway and a 16-inch speaker oriented toward the ceiling in a neighboring room, pumped infrasound at approximately 18 Hz into half those spaces. The participants had no idea. That last point turned out to be rather important. When the team ran the numbers, they found that participants couldn't reliably identify whether infrasound had been present. Their guesses were, statistically speaking, no better than chance. And according to Schmaltz, participants' beliefs about whether the infrasound was on had no detectable effect on their cortisol or mood. The physiological response didn't care what the participants thought was happening. It just happened anyway. What happened, specifically, was this: those exposed to infrasound reported higher irritability, lower interest in the music, and a tendency to rate the music as sadder, irrespective of whether it was the calming or the horror track. Cortisol levels, measured before and about 20 minutes after exposure, were also elevated. Kale Scatterty, the PhD student who led the work, notes that irritability and cortisol do tend to move together under ordinary stress, but adds that "infrasound exposure had effects on both outcomes that went beyond that natural relationship." That distinction matters more than it might seem. Previous theories about infrasound and paranormal experience have often leaned on anxiety as the explanatory mechanism, the idea that low-frequency sound triggers a kind of free-floating dread that the mind then reaches for supernatural explanations to account for. The new data don't really support that picture. Measures of anxiety didn't budge significantly. What went up was irritability and disinterest, a kind of sour, low-grade aversion rather than fear. That's perhaps a more honest description of how a lot of ghost stories actually feel in the telling: not screaming terror, but wrong atmosphere, a sense of unease that never quite crystallizes into something you can point at. The study has been published this week in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Arrests of Audias Flores and César Alejandro ‘N’ lead to gunmen blocking roads, as US embassy warns employees to avoid Reynosa after earlier arrest
The Mexican authorities have arrested two top criminals, one of them a close ally of the slain founder of the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), prompting gunmen to block roads in the western state of Nayarit.
Audias Flores, known as “El Jardinero”, is a regional commander in control of swathes of CJNG territory along Mexico’s Pacific coast. He was considered a potential successor to Nemesio Oseguera, alias “El Mencho”, who ran the cartel and was killed in a security operation in February.
Continue reading...Actions expected to exceed 3,000 as unions and groups expand protests inspired by Minnesota ICE crackdown
Labor unions, democratic organizations and community groups are organizing an economic blackout this year to commemorate May Day, International Workers Day, inspired by the economic blackout in Minnesota during the massive ICE operation in the state.
May Day Strong events are being planned across the US, with organizers calling for “no school, no work, no shopping”, in protest of government policies they say put billionaires’ needs above those of workers.
Continue reading...Raised in a Texas refinery town, she blazed her own trail through journalism as a woman in the 1960s. She celebrated her 80th birthday by trekking through Utah.
Beran A. was arrested after a tip from U.S. intelligence services just before the first of Swift's three planned Vienna concerts in August 2024
Star tells awards ceremony: ‘I disagree with everything that this administration stands for, but there’s no place for the kind of violence we saw two nights ago’
In the wake of the shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner, George Clooney used an awards-show speech to make a plea against “hatred and corruption and cruelty and violence”.
Clooney was speaking at an event at the Lincoln Center in New York, where he was given Film at Lincoln Center’s annual Chaplin award, which “recognises an individual’s significant contribution to cinema”.
Continue reading...FTSE 250 firms Paragon and OSB Group, owner of Kent Reliance and Precise Mortgages, slide on London Stock Exchange
Shares in some of the UK’s biggest buy-to-let lenders such as Paragon and One Savings Bank have fallen after it emerged that the chancellor may make private landlords commit to a one-year rent freeze.
In an effort to protect households from rising living costs as a result of the Iran war, Rachel Reeves is considering whether to ban landlords in England from increasing rents for a limited period of time, the Guardian revealed on Monday night.
Continue reading...Kareem’s Daily Quote: Even science doesn’t have all the answers.
Fumbling at the One-Yard Line: When "standard procedure" fails the president.
Video Break: Playing great at 41
MTG Sez: Is someone using a shooting to their advantage?
Galileo’s Ghost: Why AI’s future shouldn’t be decided behind closed doors.
What I’m Watching: Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning
Jukebox Playlist: B.B. King, How Blue Can You Get
“Science can provide the ‘how,’ but it cannot provide the ‘why.’” — Attributed to Albert Einstein
That isn’t really what Einstein said. But at least it’s close. Closer still is what he probably actually said: Science can tell us what is, but not what ought to be. Unfortunately, that isn’t as easy to parse into an essay, so we’ll stay with the former.
In the world of professional basketball, we spent thousands of hours obsessing over the “how.” How to perfect the footwork of a shot, how to rotate on a double-team, how to manage the clock in the closing seconds of the fourth quarter. But the “how” only wins games; it doesn’t tell you why the game matters…much less how it could possibly fit into the broader struggle for human dignity.
The why versus the how is a distinction we often ignore in our rush toward progress, but as I’ve looked at the state of our nation in 2026, I’ve realized that we are drowning in “hows” while starving for a “why.” We have become a society that excels at the mechanics of power while losing the purpose of our soul.
This disconnect is the common thread in the three stories I’ve been following recently. Whether we are talking about the digital reach of the government, the physical security of our leaders, or the silicon-based future of our minds, we are letting the politicians, the technicians and the billionaires dictate the rules without asking what human values those rules are supposed to protect.
Take the debate over FISA Section 702 (a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that allows the government to conduct surveillance on non-U.S. persons located outside the United States). The intelligence community is very good at explaining the “how”—how they sweep up data, how they track threats, how they maintain a digital dragnet. But they have yet to provide a moral “why” that justifies doing it without a warrant. When we strip away the requirement for a judge’s oversight, we are essentially saying that the efficiency of the machine is more important than the rights of the person. We are perfecting the “how” of surveillance while abandoning the “why” of the Fourth Amendment.
We see the same pattern in the recent security breach at the Washington Hilton. The Secret Service pointed to their “standard procedures” to explain how the night unfolded. They focused on the logistics: how the magnetometers were moved and how the evacuation was executed. But they missed the deeper “why.” Why are we relying on 1980s solutions for 2020s threats? Why was the guest screening ignored? When Director Curran said the system “worked” because the president survived, he was focusing on the lucky outcome rather than the sound process, forgetting that the only reason these agencies exist is to provide a shield of preparation, not a rabbit’s foot.
Perhaps most concerning is the quiet collision of the Vatican and Silicon Valley. Behind closed doors, billionaires are building Artificial Intelligence that could redefine what it means to be human. They have mastered the “how” of the algorithm, but their “why” is often rooted in profit or a strange desire to leave humanity behind. When Elon Musk calls us “minimal code,” he is speaking the language of a scientist who has forgotten the human heart. We cannot allow a few men in a private room in Rome to decide the moral future of the world just because they own the servers.
In each of the cases above, we are being told to trust the experts, follow the deadline, and accept the “standard procedure.” But as a citizen, my job—and yours—is to keep asking the “why.”
Violence and the subversion of our rights are never the answer to our political differences. Once we allow the “how” of power to override the “why” of justice, we open the door to a very dark room. The three essays that follow are my attempt to pull back the curtain on these rooms, to look past the glitz of the how, and to ask if the game is still one worth playing.
We must ensure that as our science and technology leap forward, our morality isn’t left standing at the starting line. After all, the most advanced “how” in the world is useless if we’ve forgotten the human “why” it was supposed to serve.
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Vice-president faces challenges as he assumes potential role of point man in endeavor to end a war he opposed
As a man who wears his Christian beliefs on his sleeve, JD Vance is no doubt acutely conscious of Jesus Christ’s dictum from his sermon on the mount declaring that “blessed are the peacemakers”.
Yet the US vice-president, a Catholic convert who recently found himself at odds with Pope Leo, is discovering the difficulties of living up to that standard while serving a mercurial political master who is waging a war Vance once cautioned against.
Continue reading...
Even a glance at Shy’tyra Burton’s life reveals her need for the sort of federal government assistance that helps disabled Americans stay in their homes. Born two months prematurely into a poor family in Philadelphia, unable to breathe or swallow without tubes and largely confined to medical facilities until age 4, Burton was diagnosed with a litany of developmental and intellectual disabilities that left her with an IQ below 70.
She persevered and graduated from a high school special education program, then attempted community college. But she struggled to grasp basic tasks and information. She couldn’t get hired, including at McDonald’s. After multiple medical and psychological evaluations and a hearing before a judge, the federal government approved her for the Supplemental Security Income program, which provides a basic income to those with severe disabilities and to indigent older people.
For Burton, now 22, the $994 monthly benefit is lifesaving but not enough to completely support herself on her own. So, like many SSI recipients, she has continued to live with her father, who makes around $2,000 a month as a Philadelphia sanitation worker.
Now, President Donald Trump’s administration is poised to penalize people like Burton simply for living in the same home as their families, according to four federal officials, internal emails and a federal regulatory listing. The administration is working on a rule change that would deduct the value of a disabled adult’s bedroom from their SSI allotment, even if the family members they live with are poor enough to qualify for food stamps. This would mean slashing the benefits of some of the most low-income SSI recipients by up to a third — about $330 a month in Burton’s case — or ending their support altogether.
The effort to cut SSI for families who also rely on food stamps, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, was initiated by top White House and Department of Government Efficiency officials last year, multiple Social Security officials said. It marks a second attempt by the Trump administration to quietly but dramatically downsize disability benefit programs overseen by the Social Security Administration, despite those programs’ strict eligibility standards and minimal instances of fraud. White House Budget Director Russell Vought and Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano abandoned a different proposed regulation involving disability payments last year after ProPublica and other news outlets reported on the harm that the plan would cause to hundreds of thousands of largely blue-collar workers in red states. (The disability programs are administered by the Social Security Administration but separate from the retirement program for which the agency is named. The Trump administration has promised not to cut Social Security retirement payments.)
The likely SSI cut will affect not just younger adults with disabilities such as Down syndrome and severe autism who are still living at home with their low-income parents, but also older people with health or financial problems who have had to move in with their adult children on tight budgets. All told, as many as 400,000 poor and disabled people and indigent older people across the United States could have their support cut or eliminated, according to a ProPublica analysis of actuarial figures from the Social Security Administration.
Protecting the SSI program from such a fate is “about how the faithful will be judged, and our care for the most vulnerable,” said Galen Carey, vice president of government relations for the National Association of Evangelicals and himself the father of a 35-year-old son with Down syndrome who lives at home and receives SSI. Carey said it’s wrong to reduce a disabled person’s SSI benefits for choosing or needing to live with loved ones. “Knowing that they are contributing and not a burden to the family can be a source of great pride,” he said. (Some 40 Down syndrome organizations recently sent a letter to Bisignano expressing their opposition to the planned change.)
The reason this will especially affect SNAP families is complicated. Essentially, under a long-standing federal policy that was updated during the Biden administration, if a household has already demonstrated its poverty via SNAP or other public assistance programs’ own extensive income-reporting requirements, then the family is officially deemed unable to financially support a disabled loved one living at home. (The typical SNAP household that is also supporting a person who receives SSI has an annual total income of just $17,000, according to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.)
The Trump rule will undo this approach. It won’t matter if the SNAP program has already determined a family is poor enough to receive aid; anyone living at home beyond age 18 without paying full rent will be treated as if they have a benefactor. The value of their bedroom as well as any income and assets their family may have will be calculated and recalculated as often as every month and deducted from their SSI check.
The SSI rule change is being reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, a process that involves editing the draft regulation and considering where it falls on the list of the president’s priorities. Once it’s returned to the Social Security Administration for initial publication, there will be an opportunity for public comment; it could take until next year to be finalized, depending on the amount of opposition it faces.
Presented with a detailed list of this article’s findings, Rachel Cauley, the OMB’s communications director, asserted that “this story is false because it speculates about policies that have not yet been decided.” Asked to specify what was false, Cauley did not identify anything, instead reiterating that the story is “trash.” A Social Security Administration spokesperson said “Commissioner Bisignano remains committed to protecting and strengthening Social Security and serving America’s most vulnerable populations.”
ProPublica interviewed families who rely on the SSI program in Philadelphia and across the country. We talked to a young couple struggling to support not just their kids but also a parent with Alzheimer’s. We heard from a mother, Opal Foster, whose 18-year-old son has Down syndrome and lives at home as he strives to become a chef. And we spoke with a middle-aged woman with schizophrenia and panic disorder who lives with her brother’s family because she can’t hold down a job and fears being left alone in a nursing home.
All of these people could have their SSI benefits cut because they live with family, even though disability advocates, evangelicals and budget experts agree that it’s more humane and less expensive for adults with disabilities to live at home rather than in institutional facilities. The potential cut to Burton’s SSI benefit, for example, would save taxpayers about $11 a day. But if her dad as a result of the reduced support can’t afford to provide for her anymore, then it could cost taxpayers many hundreds of dollars a day or more to house her at a residential facility, according to the state of Pennsylvania’s fee schedules.
Supplemental Security Income, which serves 7.5 million Americans who are unable to make a living because of severe disabilities or destitution in old age, has never been easy to qualify for. Fewer than a third of applicants are approved, and the process often takes years. Recipients of these benefits in turn regularly have their finances reevaluated, and are also intermittently examined by medical and vocational experts, to determine whether their payments will continue.
This paperwork-and-review-heavy process generates hefty overhead. The SSI program distributes just 5% of all Social Security Administration benefits yet accounts for nearly 35% of the agency’s administrative budget. Month after month, staffers have to pore over microscopic changes to SSI beneficiaries’ living arrangements and family members’ incomes and assets.
Current and former Social Security officials have told ProPublica over the past year that the SSI program’s complexities and absurdities remain perhaps the agency’s biggest bureaucratic headache. As ProPublica reported last summer, DOGE did nothing to address this, mostly ignoring SSI despite its obvious inefficiencies. In fact, DOGE and the White House pushed out roughly 7,000 Social Security employees, many of whom had been working on SSI reforms and backlogs.
The Biden administration had tried to do something about SSI’s excessive red tape. Under existing law, disabled people whose families have already established themselves to be poor by qualifying for certain other public assistance programs, such as veterans’ benefits or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, don’t have to do all of the same check-ins, over and over again, to receive SSI. In 2024, Biden added SNAP — which is more widely used now than when these SSI rules were created — to the list of such programs.
This was ultimately an act of government efficiency, said Marianna LaCanfora, who was for years the deputy commissioner for retirement and disability policy at the Social Security Administration, including during Trump’s first term. Safety net programs like SSI don’t have to be so complicated and thus expensive, LaCanfora and others at the agency said. But they often are that way because of all the effort spent triple-checking that the poor are actually poor.
Nevertheless, conservative think tanks opposed the Biden SNAP policy, with some claiming that paying these low-income SSI beneficiaries less could save the federal government $20 billion over the next decade. And the White House included the rule change as one of its agenda items for the SSA heading into 2025. It was part of a broader push by the administration and DOGE to undo anything that the Biden administration had touched.
If enacted, the change will require intellectually disabled young people like Burton as well as very elderly people to file extensive monthly reports if they want to continue their benefits even at the reduced level. They’ll have to provide details about the property where they live: whether it’s leased or owned, as well as the names of anyone in the home, and whether any of these people has any new income or assets. They’ll also have to include documentation of all household bills and expenses, showing how much they do or don’t contribute personally, as well as financial documents such as bank statements and any pay stubs.
Burton will likely have to make an appointment and report in person at a Social Security field office any time her father’s hours or wages change even slightly; any time she and he switch up how they split utility bills; and any time an adult sibling spends even a few nights at the house and helps her with living expenses. If she doesn’t, she could later receive bills accusing her of having been overpaid by Social Security.
For his part, Bisignano, the Social Security commissioner, wants to be seen as a leader who’s making the agency more businesslike and efficient, according to interviews with agency staff and recordings of him speaking in private executive meetings. But the SSI rule change, by all accounts, will increase the administrative burden not just on families like Burton’s but also on the staff who’ll have to constantly assess the living arrangements and family incomes of her and millions of other people.
Given the tension between what the rule will do and the sense of efficiency that Bisignano says he wants to instill at Social Security, some agency insiders told ProPublica that he could still push the White House to drop the plan.
Shy’tyra Burton’s monthly SSI support check is what allows her to contribute to her household, by paying her own phone and internet bills and buying many of her own meals, according to her father, Rondell. “I’m still barely managing, though,” he said. He has largely been a single parent to Shy’tyra and her siblings, who need some support too, although they’re more self-sufficient. Groceries and gas have only gotten more expensive.
Burton is calmer and better at managing her disabilities when she can sense that her family’s economic circumstances are relatively stable, her father said. When he blew out his shoulder last year trying to hurl a heavy recycling bin onto a garbage truck, and had to have surgery and take time off work, the loss of income soon manifested in her behavior, he said. “It’s a trickle-down effect,” he explained. “My daughter absorbs money stress in her body.”
One recent 75-degree afternoon, sitting on the front stoop of the rowhouse where she lives with her dad, Burton was rubbing her hands together vigorously, as if it were cold out. When asked why, she claimed it reminded her of being a baby in the neonatal intensive care unit and touching her parents’ hands through the small opening in her incubator.
Burton still has some childlike ways. She grips her stuffed animals when she’s nervous, which is often. She talks to imaginary friends out loud, the same ones she talked to when she was a girl. What she likes about living at home is in part that she can be herself, and her family will still be there to care for her. She doesn’t like the lack of freedom and that she can’t truly be “out there” like her adult siblings.
Burton wanted to go into the child development field, to help kids growing up with disabilities like hers, but some of the concepts were a bit too difficult. Now, she’s excited by cosmetology and intends to support herself one day as a hair stylist. She spends much of her time practicing on mannequin heads in her childhood room.
The post The Trump Administration Aims to Penalize Disabled Adults Who Live With Their Families appeared first on ProPublica.
Keep prying eyes out of your apps with this trick.
The Federal Reserve is contending with rising inflation amid the war and a lackluster job market, along with the departure of Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
Why Should Delaware Care?
Resident engagement in local politics in Georgetown has been remarkably high in recent months, as residents have grappled with the impacts of a growing homeless population. Two frontrunner candidates to replace retiring mayor Bill West in the town’s upcoming municipal elections have the potential to turn that engagement into action, potentially reshaping how the Sussex County seat responds to homelessness and affordable housing proposals.
In the wake of longtime mayor Bill West’s impending retirement, a three-way race for Georgetown’s next leader has quickly heated up between a former town council member and two candidates new to town politics.
As the Sussex County seat has grown increasingly divided in recent months over the widespread impacts of homelessness, the upcoming May 9 election will be the first real litmus test of how Georgetown residents want their leaders to handle key issues.
The election could be a chance for a candidate supported by a passionate Facebook group of residents opposed to the current town government to take the helm. Conversely, it could be the first time a member of Georgetown’s Latino community – which comprises roughly half the town’s population – takes the mayor’s seat.
Angie Clauser Townsend, who served on town council for multiple stints since the early 2000s, narrowly lost the race for mayor to West in 2024. Townsend is seeking the mayorship for the second time, with the endorsement of the vocal 5,600-member Facebook group Make Georgetown Great Again behind her.
The group has gained considerable traction online and at town council meetings since last fall, fighting against proposed new projects in town and seeking to unseat members of the town government with whom they are not satisfied, like West, with the tagline, “May is on the way.”
Itzel Hernandez is a 37-year-old Latina artist, who is seeking elected office for the first time. Since Hernandez announced her candidacy in mid-April, Latino community leaders have been rallying to get more community members registered to vote ahead of the May 6 registration deadline.
Christina Diaz-Malone, the current vice mayor and the only Latino person to serve on the town government to date, told Spotlight Delaware she is endorsing Hernandez’s campaign.
The third mayoral candidate is Geoffrey Walker, a longtime town resident who works as a prison correctional officer. Walker has not garnered prominent endorsements in town like the other two candidates, but told Spotlight Delaware he is aiming to run a low-key campaign, and get his message out “by word of mouth.”
Two of the four additional seats on town council also are up for election on May 9. Michael Briggs is running against incumbent Eric Evans for the 3rd ward position, and Penuel Barrett, who has been in office since 2020, is running unopposed for reelection to the 4th ward seat.
The five-member council is divided into four geographic districts, or wards. The mayor, who represents the entire town, is the council’s fifth voting member. Candidates running for a council seat must live in the ward they are seeking to represent, but citizens vote at-large for all council positions, regardless of where they live, Georgetown town manager Gene Dvornick said.
Members of the Make Georgetown Great Again group have billed Townsend, Briggs and Barrett together as the group of candidates they support to bring change to the town government.
Barrett and Briggs said they support one another’s candidacies, but are running as independent entities, separate from the MGGA message. Townsend did not respond to Spotlight Delaware’s requests for comment.
The race for mayor has intensified in recent weeks, with social media blasts questioning candidates’ qualifications for office and yard signs aplenty around town in support of Townsend or Hernandez.
Hernandez was born and raised in Georgetown, but she has been living in other parts of the United States and other countries for some years until recently returning home. Her journey, she said, provides her with a unique approach to addressing problems in Georgetown.
Hernandez told Spotlight Delaware she would use her artistic background to bring “out of the box” solutions to the town, while encouraging residents to feel more of a connection to their town through initiatives like trash clean-up programs, painting murals in public spaces and adding better lighting around town.
She said her campaign ethos is inspired by the Spanish word “convivir,” which translates to “coexist,” or “live together,” for how she wants the town’s Latino community and non-Hispanic population to unify for a better Georgetown.
“We’ve got to make [the town] attractive, more appealing, more friendly,” Hernandez said. “Make the town feel like it belongs.”
Since launching her campaign, Hernandez has faced criticism that she is not well-versed in the issues facing Georgetown and does not have experience with the town government.
Hernandez acknowledged her lack of experiences but said she is ready to “learn and listen.”
Townsend did not respond to Spotlight Delaware’s multiple requests to discuss her candidacy.
In a graphic posted to her Facebook account, Townsend wrote that her campaign priorities are to strengthen government relationships with local businesses and residents, engage in conversations with nonprofit organizations about the best ways to serve the town’s homeless population, and “ensure that future economic development and land use decisions are consistent with recommendations from the Planning Commission.”
Her third recommendation seems to reference the Little Living development, which generated controversy when the town council voted to approve the tiny homes project in early February, after the planning commission recommended to deny the proposal in late 2025.
In an interview with Kevin Andrade, host of the prominent Delmarva Spanish-speaking radio station Maxima 95.3 FM, Townsend said homelessness is “the most fearful” issue in town. She said she does not want The Shepherd’s Office – a day center that provides daily meals and church services in town – to continue operating, because it attracts homeless people from other towns.
“I don’t want to enable the homeless,” she said. “I would love to see the town of Georgetown take a stand that it’s illegal to live in a tent in the woods.”
Townsend, along with Barrett and former town council member Sue Barlow were also the subject of controversy in 2022. The three, all serving on town council at the time, voted to continue funding the Georgetown Historical Society, which hosts a monument dedicated to the those who served the Confederacy in the Civil War and was flying a Confederate flag at its museum.
In the La Maxima interview, Townsend said her stance in support of the museum has not changed.
“To me, [the Confederate flag] represents individuals – young men, old men – that gave their lives to fight for a cause they believed in,” Townsend said. “Whatever somebody makes of the flag is their opinion.”
Walker, 55, said he has been wanting to run for mayor for a while, and decided to throw his name in the ring when he heard about West’s retirement.
He told Spotlight Delaware he was inspired to run because he “loves this town,” and he wants to make it a more desirable place for people to move.
“I want this town to look beautiful,” Walker said. “I want this town to be the next thing on the Delaware Today magazine: the best town to live and raise your kids.”
West, who will be wrapping up 12 years in office in May, announced his retirement in late March. He told Spotlight Delaware he does not want to weigh in and endorse a candidate for his replacement, but he hopes residents “look at the big picture” when voting.
The candidates running for town council seats described similar campaign priorities – homelessness and public safety – to those of the mayoral candidates.
Briggs, running to unseat Evans for the 3rd ward seat, runs a propane company and has been a part of the town volunteer fire department for nearly three decades. He also has served on the Georgetown planning commission for the past two years.
Briggs said he decided to run for town council after becoming frustrated by what he described as the “back and forth” between the planning commission and council. The council disregards resident concerns by approving projects like the tiny homes, he said.
“I feel like the [planning] commission listens to the community, and the mayor and council do not,” he said. “But that’s small town politics.”
While members of the Make Georgetown Great Again Facebook group have been posting a grouping of Briggs, Townsend and Barrett’s campaigns as the three candidates who can provide positive change to the town, Briggs said he is running as his “own person.”
Evans, the incumbent, said he would prioritize building a mix of high- and low-density housing in town, if reelected.
Despite competing views over the best future for town government, residents on both sides of the debate say they hope the contest will spur increased engagement in local politics.
Voter turnout was 19%, or 725 out of 3,773 registered voters, in the most recent town election that included a mayoral contest in 2024, Dvornick, the town manager, told Spotlight Delaware.
The 2022 mayoral election produced slightly lower numbers, with 15.9% voter turnout. The average turnout in local government elections in the U.S. is under 20%, according to data from the University of Chicago Center for Effective Government.
Tyler Scott, who started the MGGA Facebook group last fall, said his goal is to see at least 25% to 30% voter turnout for the election.
“So much attention has been put on this race,” Scott told Spotlight Delaware. “So many people are fired up about it and just want to see change.”
Diaz-Malone, whose council term runs through May 2027, said engagement in local government among the Latino community has been low for many years. She also said it is time for the younger generation to “step up” and become more involved.
“We need to do whatever we can to inject new blood in Georgetown,” Diaz-Malone said. “Otherwise our history will fade.”
Get Involved
Georgetown’s municipal elections will be held from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, May 9, at Town Hall, located at 37 The Circle. In order to vote in the election, residents must register with the Sussex County Department of Elections by Wednesday, May 6.
Maggie Reynolds is a Report for America corps member and Spotlight Delaware reporter who covers rural communities in Delaware. Your donation to match our Report for America grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://spotlightdelaware.org/support/.
The post Georgetown mayoral race intensifies with competing visions for the future appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
Why Should Delaware Care?
Delaware sets what are called health care spending benchmarks annually in an attempt to keep hospital costs down and limit the burden on taxpayers. A board meant to hold hospitals within those limits recently lost its ability to enforce hospitals found in noncompliance.
A group of state revenue analysts will vote on Wednesday to determine the level at which they predict health care costs will burden Delaware taxpayers in 2027.
A subcommittee of the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council, better known as DEFAC, sets what is called the “health care spending benchmark” in an attempt to manage hospital spending that is passed down to taxpayers.
Delaware is one of eight states that set health care industry benchmarks. In 2018, then-Gov. John Carney created Delaware’s system by signing two executive orders.
Since then, Delaware has blown past its spending benchmarks almost every year they have been in effect. In December, DEFAC approved the 2026 benchmark at 4.9% after months of debate and outside litigation surrounding an oversight board meant to hold Delaware’s hospitals accountable to that spending level.
That lawsuit, filed by ChristianaCare in 2024, challenged the authority of the board to modify and veto budgets that overshoot the health care spending benchmark. Ultimately, the lawsuit was settled after lawmakers passed a bill diminishing the board’s ability to use budget modification as an enforcement tool.
It is unclear at what level DEFAC officials are considering setting the 2027 benchmark on Wednesday.
And after the legal settlement, there is no enforcement mechanism to restrain health care systems, insurers and pharmaceutical companies to the benchmark rate.
Health care spending in Delaware increased 9.1% between 2022 and 2023 to nearly $11 billion, according to an annual assessment released by the Delaware Department of Health & Social Services in May 2025.
That increase was nearly three times the state recommended benchmark rate of 3.1%.
Leading those rising costs were inpatient hospital services and prescription drug benefits after rebates, each totaling about $2 billion, while outpatient hospital services ranked third at about $1.7 billion.
In 2024, the Delaware legislature passed House Bill 350, which established the Diamond State Hospital Cost Review Board. The law would later be signed by former Gov. Carney.
The board was tasked with reducing hospital spending in Delaware and health care systems accountable to the benchmark. The law also gave the board the power to veto hospital budgets it deemed excessive.
Prior to the law’s passing, the state’s hospital systems blitzed the statehouse, attempting to lobby lawmakers against the bill. Ultimately, that effort failed.
Shortly after HB 350 was signed into law, ChristianaCare sued the state. In its lawsuit, the hospital called the review board “draconian,” saying its ability to reject hospital budgets violated the state’s corporate charter.
State lawyers denied those claims. In court filings, they further said ChristianaCare’s arguments amount to an “army of strawmen” designed to halt the regulations.
Following an attempt by the state to dismiss the lawsuit, a judge in Delaware’s Court of Chancery allowed the lawsuit to continue.
Touching on Delaware’s corporate-friendly ethos, the judge said the question of whether the state board’s authority over hospital budgets unconstitutionally usurps a hospital board of directors has merit.
“In Delaware, the managerial power of boards of directors is sacrosanct,” said the judge, Vice Chancellor Lori Will.
On his way out of office, Carney stacked the board with five of its seven appointed board members, leaving incoming Governor-elect Matt Meyer only two appointments.
One of those Carney-appointed members, the former Secretary of Finance and chair of the board, Rick Geisenberger, stepped down as chair after a spat with Meyer.
In a letter sent to Meyer last summer, Geisenberger recounted how he had declined the governor’s request to cancel meetings of the board, saying instead the public body was “duly authorized” by the legislature and had a responsibility to perform its business “impartially and free from undue influence.”
Soon after, the state and ChristianaCare agreed to pause proceedings on the lawsuit until Sept. 30 in “the interests of the parties and the public.” In October, the state and the hospital announced a proposed settlement agreement where the hospital said it would drop its lawsuit if lawmakers repealed the board’s budget modification power.
The review board also halted its meetings until new regulations could be passed in the statehouse. According to the agreement, the board would still operate, and current board members would remain seated.
“The core of HB 350 remains: Hospitals must present detailed budget information annually to the Board, and the Board determines compliance with the State’s healthcare spending benchmark,” the agreement said.
Lawmakers ultimately passed Senate Bill 213, which stripped the board of its budget veto and modification powers, and sent it to the governor’s desk in January, one day before a ChristianaCare-imposed deadline.
Before SB 213, the Diamond State Hospital Cost Review Board’s oversight would have followed a four-step process.
Hospitals would submit detailed financial documents, which board members would review. If they deemed hospital spending to be too large, they would put the facility on a “performance improvement plan.”
If a hospital failed to correct its overspending, the board could then modify or veto its budget.
Following the bill’s signing, the board no longer has the power to modify or veto the budgets of hospitals it deems to be too profligate.
The new bill also made technical adjustments to language in the law, including renaming the performance improvement plan, a “benchmark compliance plan.”
At the center of those plans are whether hospitals keep their spending below DEFAC’s projected spending benchmark.
If a hospital’s spending exceeds the state’s projection, the cost review board now requires it to send in a compliance plan outlining how it intends to bring costs down.
The law also introduced “meaningful cost containment arrangement” plans, which are described as “contracts between hospitals and payers” meant to hold the hospitals responsible for controlling health care spending in a specific area.
Hospitals can enter these agreements and be exempt from the benchmark plans for one year, the law said. But it does not exempt them from the financial reporting requirements outlined in the law, like sharing budget information and labor costs.
Get Involved
The DEFAC Healthcare Spending Benchmark Subcommittee will meet at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, April 29 at the Herman M. Holloway Sr. Campus located at 1901 N. Dupont Highway in New Castle. The meeting also has a virtual option, and residents can find the agenda here.
The post Delaware revenue officials to vote on health care spending goals appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
Every time you turn around recently, it feels like there’s new reporting about insiders cashing in on prediction markets. On Thursday, a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who was involved in the raid to capture Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela was arrested on charges that he used classified information to make more than $400,000 by betting on the operation before it happened. In the hours before the U.S. attacked Iran, hundreds of anonymous bets over $1,000 were placed on the U.S. striking Iran by the next day, which the New York Times said suggested that some users might’ve “seen the strike coming.”
Prediction markets, such as industry leaders Polymarket and Kalshi, have exploded in popularity. They create or exacerbate an array of problems, but at the Media and Democracy Project, or MAD, we believe they have the potential to severely harm the way news is reported, perceived, and engaged with — threats that deserve far more attention from the public.
MAD calls the use of prediction markets in news stories “casino journalism.” There is too much already, and it is likely to get much worse if not nipped in the bud. But we are optimistic it can be stopped if news organizations recognize the threat and respond.
Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones, announced a partnership with Polymarket. The Associated Press, CNN, Substack, and CNBC have all made similar deals, the terms of which have not been disclosed. So it was extremely troubling to see the Wall Street Journal report that “Polymarket Bets See Over 70% Chance of U.S. Forces Entering Iran in Next Month” on March 30, and not just because of the fear of a broader war. This so-called news story provided none of the journalistic insight that was touted when the partnership was announced — just the betting odds. It looks more like an advertisement for their new partner than real journalism and, while the betting market was active, had a link to Polymarket.
Do news organizations and journalists really want to gamify the news? What are the long-term impacts on a paper if they make a practice of such reporting? Should news outlets see the betting markets as partners? News organizations, the practice of journalism, and the public are all much better served if the media outlets instead set policies constraining the use of these markets in their reporting and altogether forbidding financial deals where the outlet profits from the success of the prediction markets.
MAD has long called for less horse-race journalism and more substantive reporting. Many others have done so for even longer, including New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen, who has pushed for a focus on “not the odds, but the stakes.” But prediction markets are horse-race journalism taken to its most cynical end point, one that will only serve to supercharge reporting on who’s up and who’s down at any given moment, particularly because these markets are open 24/7.
Prediction markets turn events that have an impact on people’s lives — and carry a real human cost — into pure entertainment.
There are many ways prediction markets can be manipulated or misbehave in other ways, but let’s consider their stated best-case use. Suppose that prediction markets achieve their claims of providing better forecasts than other methods. Even if that were true, casino journalism is bad for journalism and the public. Predictions crowd out coverage of substance. In politics, this means less information to help voters evaluate candidates. Focusing on the odds gives the impression that the horse race is more important than the issues. Prediction markets turn events that have an impact on people’s lives — and carry a real human cost — into pure entertainment.
Tarek Mansour, the CEO of Kalshi, has said it does a “very, very good job at distilling information and surfacing truth to people,” even as it seeks to “financialize everything.” He presents it as providing a new, better source of information and as changing the way their readers digest the news. In an interview with the Financial Times in February, he said, “Prediction markets don’t make money off somebody’s losses, they make money off somebody’s engagement.” But the type of engagement matters a great deal. Increasing the nicotine content of cigarettes increases smokers’ “engagement” with the tobacco industry. Gambling is also addictive; as sports betting has become commonplace, participants have found that, over time, they mostly lose. Promoting these markets as part of the news is likely to damage readers’ trust and can also harm their overall well-being.
Quite apart from the questionable news content of prediction market bets, the news industry needs to recognize how implicated it is in shaping how these markets function. Most of the “propositions” offered on these markets are based on news reports; reporters provide the raw material on which these bets are made. In effect, traders on prediction markets are betting on the content of news stories.
This has tremendous potential to be a corrupting influence on journalists. An Israeli journalist recently received death threats over his refusal to rewrite his report on an Iranian missile strike, on which $23 million of prediction market “investments” were riding. As the markets become larger, and their use in news increases, the incentive for market manipulation will also grow. There could be intense temptation for insider trading of all kinds that would destroy the credibility and integrity of these markets, bringing the news business down with it. There are already many worrisome incidents related to these markets, such as the soldier who enriched himself based on classified info. Centering prediction markets will create a substantial risk of scandals that will implicate and embarrass news organizations.
MAD is heartened that most news outlets have not engaged in deals or embedded prediction market prices as news. The New York Times’ Guidelines on Integrity begin with the statement, “Our greatest strength is the authority and reputation of The Times. We must do nothing that would undermine or dilute it and everything possible to enhance it.” So we are hopeful that the Times and other responsible news outlets will defend their reputations by setting clear public policies limiting how prediction markets may be used and what kinds of business relationships they will engage in.
Any news organizations that have already signed on with Kalshi or Polymarket should publicly disclose the terms of these relationships. Reporters should be forbidden from citing the markets as valid forecasts and should be barred from using the platforms themselves. We encourage more reporting on substantive impacts of governmental actions and less speculation on the prospects that the policies will be implemented.
Horse-race journalism was already a detriment to nurturing an informed citizenry. But casino journalism has no place at all in any functioning democracy.
The post We Need to Kick Prediction Market Betting Out of Journalism While We Still Can appeared first on The Intercept.
Artists and writers argue scrappy nature of self-published booklets is incompatible with artificial intelligence
The self-published zine has long been central to cultural revolutions, from queer activism to Black feminism and the riot grrrl punk movement, producing titles such as Sniffin’ Glue and Sweet-Thang along the way. But now the traditionally analogue art form faces a new shift: artificial intelligence.
AI may seem incompatible with the these cult DIY booklets, but some creatives, designers and artists have begun to experiment with the technology, causing alarm in parts of the underground publishing world. It has been their Dylan-goes-electric moment.
Continue reading...The reaction to the Washington DC shooting shows that Americans are swinging between outrage, exhaustion and numbness
In the early hours of Sunday, I awoke to check the time on my phone and learned that there had been a shooting – apparently, an assassination attempt – at this year’s White House correspondents’ dinner, an event held annually to honor the journalists who cover presidential politics.
I stayed awake just long enough to read that the attack had been thwarted and that no one had been killed, and then I went back to sleep.
Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Continue reading...A new approach to suicide prevention shifts the focus from stopping harm in moments of crisis to upstream policies that give people reasons to live.
Groups like the Mass Deportation Coalition see Markwayne Mullin’s push to restore confidence in DHS after fatal shootings as a potential betrayal of the president’s promise.
For 30 minutes, Brian Tracey lay naked and unable to breathe on the floor of the medical ward at the St. Johns County Detention Center, a low-roofed building south of Jacksonville, Florida. It was Dec. 15, 2023, the day Tracey was supposed to be released from jail.
By the time deputies noticed him, it was too late. His girlfriend, who’d posted bond for Tracey after nine days, waited outside for him but was instead greeted by a deputy and chaplain, who told her Tracey was dead.
Medical staff working for the jail’s health provider, Armor Health of St. Johns County LLC, an affiliate of Miami-based Armor Health, said Tracey, 62, was showing flu-like symptoms and suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung condition that makes it difficult to breathe. In the days and hours before his death, Tracey had passed out and appeared confused, according to a police report from the county sheriff’s office, which investigated the death. Much of what is known about how he died comes from this report, which includes Tracey’s autopsy, interviews with deputies and medical staff, and a description of a video of Tracey in the medical ward.
Four experts reviewed available detention and autopsy records for The Florida Trib and ProPublica. All four — two retired jail commanders and two medical doctors with extensive knowledge of jail treatment — determined that Tracey should have been hospitalized based on the symptoms he showed at the jail, which were later determined by an autopsy to be caused by pneumonia with COVID-19.
He never was.
For people like Tracey, who arrive in poor health, jails can be particularly dangerous, according to a growing body of medical research. Jailhouse deaths have been rising in the United States for the past decade, with about half due to illness, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Yet even as the death rate climbs, improving healthcare in jails has proven difficult. Many jails have turned to private contractors to care for inmates. But when those contractors perform poorly, there’s little pressure on the sheriffs or local governments to make a change. That’s even more true in Florida, where the vast majority of jails are run by elected sheriffs with little oversight from local and state officials.
“Healthcare overall in Florida prisons and jails is a difficult and frankly ignored issue that’s put on the back burner,” said former Republican state Sen. Jeff Brandes, who was vice chair of the state’s Criminal Justice Committee. “And it’s one that has no independent accountability or oversight. It’s kind of a black box that operates in the state.”
In the decade leading up to Tracey’s death, Armor Health Management LLC, known as Armor Health, and its predecessor, Armor Correctional Health Services Inc., faced allegations that they failed to hospitalize patients who needed more intensive care, according to court records obtained by The Florida Trib and ProPublica. (Armor Health had previously been operating as Armor Correctional Health Services Inc. until legally converting to an LLC in 2021.)
From 2014 to early 2021, Armor Correctional Health Services was sued over 450 times, the company reported in documents submitted to St. Johns County as part of a contract-bidding process in 2021. Lawsuits over subpar jailhouse healthcare are frequently filed and often dismissed, as was the case in two-thirds of the suits filed against Armor. The bid documents show the company has settled at least 56 suits that alleged medical negligence or inappropriate medical care. Court records show that at least 13 of those cases alleged a delay in hospital care. More than 100 cases are still pending, according to the documents. In a 2020 wrongful death suit against Armor Correctional Health Services, lawyers hired a medical expert to review internal company reports of inmate deaths at Armor facilities obtained through discovery. The expert claimed the company failed to hospitalize patients in more than 70 instances, according to court documents.
Armor denied claims that it has provided poor care or that its staff failed to hospitalize people, saying of the expert review that “each case involves unique medical circumstances, and deaths referenced were related to drug overdoses, natural causes, or other clinical conditions that were not associated with decisions regarding hospital transfer.”
Other states have taken action against Armor. After 14 inmates died at two county jails in New York where Armor Correctional Health Services of New York Inc. provided healthcare, the state sued the company in 2016 for breach of contract and fraud. The New York State Commission of Correction’s Medical Review Board found what it called “egregious lapses in medical care” in seven of the deaths, and a separate investigation by the state attorney general found that the company failed to keep accurate records. Armor settled the suit and denied responsibility, but the agreement barred the company from doing business in New York for three years. Armor is now allowed to operate in the state.
In Wisconsin, prosecutors said Armor Correctional Health Services failed one jail inmate to such a degree that they charged it with a felony. In December 2018, Milwaukee prosecutors levied eight criminal counts against the company for its role in the death of a Wisconsin inmate who died from dehydration while under its care. The charges included seven counts of falsifying a record and one felony count of abuse of a resident of a penal facility. A jury in 2022 found the company guilty of all charges.
Prosecutors had hoped the conviction would push jails to cancel contracts with Armor, they said in an interview. And at least in Florida, they had reason to believe that might happen. Under Florida law, companies convicted of crimes directly related to transactions with government agencies must report the conviction to the state within 30 days and are barred from working with Florida public entities. Barred companies are also placed on a public list of convicted vendors. But the Florida Department of Management Services told reporters in 2023 that the company did not report its conviction to the state — a claim the company rejects. The company also continued to do work in Florida under a range of names linked to entities that had similar leadership and structure.
After it was charged but prior to its conviction, the company filed paperwork with Florida converting itself to a new corporation under the name Armor Health Management LLC, according to corporate records. When the verdict came down in December 2022, it was against the defunct company. A series of new LLCs, which were formed under the holding company Armor Health and have Armor Health in their names, then signed new contracts with seven Florida jails. Florida business records show those limited liability companies have the same chief executive officer and street address in Miami as Armor Health. Manuel Fernandez, chief operating officer of Armor Health, also testified in court that the new entities assumed the liabilities of Armor Correctional Health Services Inc. after that company dissolved. Fernandez said the LLCs were created for tax purposes.
In at least one document, the company seemed to acknowledge a connection between the defunct company and one of its newly formed companies. When Armor Health of St. Johns County LLC was asked in bid documents to provide a list of all litigation for the past seven years, the company listed hundreds of suits filed against the defunct Armor Correctional Health Services.
Within three years of the company’s conviction, six of the seven Florida jails using an Armor entity stopped contracting with those companies, with at least two ending their contracts early: one citing poor performance and contract violations, and the other saying the termination was in the county’s best interest.
St. Johns County, where Tracey died, holds the only known remaining contract with an Armor entity in Florida. Sheriff Robert A. Hardwick, who is responsible for signing contracts with vendors, declined to comment.
An attorney for Armor defended the ongoing contract, telling the news organizations last month that it disclosed the conviction to the state and that the convicted company no longer exists. “Each Armor entity is in full compliance with all applicable State of Florida requirements and each remains eligible to operate in the state,” J. Alfredo Armas, the attorney for Armor Health of St. Johns County LLC, wrote in an email to The Florida Trib.
The state of Florida does have safeguards to ensure its contractors are providing good services. However, in multiple ways, the state did not employ those tools when it came to Armor. In 2023, the state’s Department of Management Services, which is responsible for maintaining the list of convicted state vendors, said that it was investigating the company after a man died in the Duval County jail under Armor’s care. The inmate’s family alleged in a lawsuit filed in 2024 against the sheriff that the man was denied life-sustaining medication for a heart transplant. Armor said at the time that it had located and ordered the medication, but it arrived after the man had been released. That suit was later settled. The Department of Management Services has declined repeated inquiries over two years to say whether it has investigated Armor Correctional Health Services or Armor Health Management, or if it ever took action against any of the company’s entities. Armor does not appear on a public list of banned companies on the department’s webpage.
The fact that there is a known vendor that has basically allowed people to die while under their care and they can continue to work in our prisons and jails is something that I have a problem with.
Angie Nixon, former state representative for Jacksonville, Florida
The state has also failed to reply to public records requests that might shed light on how it handled its investigation, if one was conducted. When a reporter went to the Department of Management Services headquarters in Tallahassee in February, the department would not make any agency representative available and told the reporter to contact the same spokesperson who has repeatedly declined to answer questions.
In addition, at the time of the transplant patient’s death, former Jacksonville state Rep. Angie Nixon and a state senator wrote to the U.S. Department of Justice and stated that Armor had failed to report its conviction and should be barred from operating in the state. They asked the DOJ to conduct an investigation into “potential violations of federal law” by Armor. The DOJ acknowledged receipt of the letter to Nixon, but she said they never heard from the department again. The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.
The office of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who appointed the interim Department of Management Services secretary, Tom Berger, declined through a spokesperson to comment about the agency’s investigation, or to say if the governor has a stance on convicted companies working in Florida. The Florida attorney general, who represents state agencies and issues formal legal opinions, also declined to comment.
Nixon, who is now running for a seat in the U.S. Senate, said she would be raising the issue of Armor again with the DOJ, the Department of Management Services and the governor’s office.
“The fact that there is a known vendor that has basically allowed people to die while under their care and they can continue to work in our prisons and jails is something that I have a problem with,” said Nixon.
When Jose “Pepe” Armas, a Miami physician and business owner, started Armor Correctional Health Services in 2004, he had very different ambitions. He had learned about jail deaths and substandard care that plagued the Broward County jail in South Florida for decades. So he consulted with other physicians and told a medical professor whom he attempted to recruit that he wanted to raise the standard of correctional care across the country.
Armor’s first contract was a $127 million deal in Broward County to handle medical care for all of its roughly 5,000 inmates. The company grew rapidly, winning additional contracts in Brevard, Hillsborough, Martin, Palm Beach and Sarasota counties and, in 2007, St. Johns County. By 2011, Armor had also signed contracts in at least 12 other states.
In a 2021 wrongful death lawsuit, Pensacola attorney Joe Zarzaur argued that those contracts incentivize Armor entities to keep sick inmates in the jails because Armor is paid a flat fee to provide healthcare; that means, he argued, there’s no billable benefit for adding additional services, such as hospitalization.
“This is why Armor’s contractual partners, inmates, and families see this repetitive conduct of delaying or outright denying inmates medical care, which leads to their deaths,” Zarzaur argued in court filings. In that case, 44-year-old Misty Williamson died of pneumonia with sepsis after she was sick for five days at the Santa Rosa County jail.
Armor said no Armor entity assumes financial responsibility for offsite medical costs, therefore there is no financial incentive to delay or avoid sending a patient to the hospital, adding that delaying hospital care is counterproductive.
“Allowing a serious condition to deteriorate only increases the likelihood that the patient will ultimately require more intensive, expensive and specialized treatment,” Armor’s attorney, J. Alfredo Armas, said. The suit alleged in court records that since 2011, at least 72 people died under the care of Armor Correctional Health Services after they were not hospitalized or their hospitalization was delayed, including 11 other people who died from pneumonia or sepsis. The analysis was conducted by an expert in jailhouse medical care who reviewed hundreds of pages of Armor’s internal death reports gained through discovery. Armor attempted to block the analysis from being used in the trial by arguing the allegations had no bearing on whether the medical treatment its employees provided to Williamson met its standard of care. A judge allowed the death reports and a written affidavit by the expert to be entered as exhibits in the trial.
A jury sided with the family of Williamson, whose estate was awarded $6 million in compensatory damages. Jurors found both Armor and its employees were negligent in delaying her transfer to a hospital and awarded her family an additional $10 million in punitive damages.
But there was a larger issue at play: Was it individual employees or a larger company policy that was at fault? During the Williamson trial, Amy Dixon, a former Santa Rosa County jail nurse, testified that Armor had an ambiguous standard for sending patients to the hospital without preapproval, and that she could transfer someone if they were having a heart attack, but that something like a seizure should wait. Jurors ruled against Armor, saying the company’s policies and its employees were at fault for Williamson’s death. But the judge overruled that, striking down the $10 million award and finding that attorneys did not prove Armor’s policies led to Williamson’s death. Armor said the deaths in the analysis involved unique medical conditions and were related to drug overdoses, natural causes or other clinical conditions that were not associated with decisions regarding hospital transfer.
Despite that outcome, in other cases nurses have similarly testified that Armor delayed transfers to hospitals. Carolyn Rubin testified in a Sarasota case that “there was a strong corporate push for the doctor not to send patients out.” She added, “It was our duty to keep them there as long as possible, to prevent costs of the hospital.” Armor denied the allegations that it failed to hospitalize a detainee who died of a brain hemorrhage after she complained for days about health problems including trouble walking. The lawsuit was later settled and Armor made no admission of wrongdoing.
In 2018, Katherine McCormack Grange, an Armor nurse working at a New York jail where an inmate died of a heart attack, testified in a civil trial that she was personally told by an Armor manager that the company did not want patients to be sent to the hospital because of the expense. The lawsuit accused Armor Correctional Health Services of a “long and pervasive history of deficient health and medical care” at the Nassau County jail, which the company denied. The case was eventually settled and Armor made no admission of wrongdoing. The New York State Commission of Correction later determined the man’s death may have been prevented if he received proper care, according to the commission’s report, and that Armor Correctional Health Services staff did not properly fill out documentation after his collapse, which the company also denied.
In the years leading up to Tracey’s death but before the conviction in Milwaukee, a handful of Florida sheriffs dumped Armor, blaming the company for inmate deaths and failed accreditations, and claiming it provided lax medical care.
Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly publicly fired Armor Correctional Health Services in 2019 after a 23-year-old was found seizing and unresponsive in his cell earlier that year; he had been complaining of a high fever. He was taken to a hospital and died there. Staly said the medical provider failed to recognize the man “was having a reaction to medicine they had prescribed to him and the seriousness of his illness.”
“In response to this tragedy, Armor has shown little interest in anything other than denying responsibility and trying to bill us for even more money,” Staly said then. The next year, an annual audit by the Florida Model Jail Standards at the Flagler County jail “found expired medications, lapses in medical care by Armor and other deficiencies in Armor’s services.”
In 2020, Sarasota County Sheriff Thomas Knight wrote in a declaration during a civil employment case that Armor filed against an employee that he fired Armor because he was “not satisfied with their performance,” including lack of proper medical staffing. Wakulla County Sheriff Jared Miller also wrote a declaration, explaining that he was “not satisfied with the service levels the WCSO had been receiving from Armor” when he ended the contract.
In response to this tragedy, Armor has shown little interest in anything other than denying responsibility and trying to bill us for even more money.
Rick Staly, Flagler County sheriff, after an inmate died
Then, in 2022, Armor Correctional Health Services was criminally convicted in Milwaukee for abuse and falsifying records after a man died of dehydration in a Wisconsin jail.
“We understood that this would likely have some broader impact if we were successful,” Milwaukee prosecutor Nicolas Heitman told The Trib, adding that the district attorney’s office wanted to make sure the company could not operate in other jails. “If you look at the history and their performance as a corporate partner with these institutions, you see they have a history of problems and an inability to reform themselves.”
One sheriff cited the conviction as a reason for ending a contract. Duval County first hired Armor in 2017, but Sheriff T.K. Waters ended a renewed contract early, saying that Armor failed to disclose its felony conviction, failed to maintain accreditation with the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, and failed to comply with Florida’s open record laws. The decision came after the heart transplant recipient died after not getting antirejection medications while in the Duval County jail. Waters did not cite the death as a reason to cancel the contract.
Mariloly Muller, a spokesperson for Armor Health, said the canceled contracts “relate to a prior leadership team and legacy operations that are not reflective of the current organization, its leadership, or its ongoing business practices.”
The only public record of Tracey’s nine days in jail comes from a 26-page police report from the St. Johns County sheriff’s major crimes unit, which investigates in-custody deaths.
Tracey had been taken to jail on Dec. 6, 2023, for pushing an elderly woman he had been dating. The report shows that upon his arrival, jailers placed him in the infirmary to monitor a dog bite wound that doctors at University of Florida Health Flagler Hospital had treated shortly after he was arrested.
Soon after he arrived at the infirmary, medical staff noticed Tracey was having trouble breathing and prescribed him an oxygen mask, according to the report. A nurse said that on Dec. 14, Tracey was sweaty and complained of shortness of breath. The report noted that Tracey repeatedly removed his mask, something nurses interpreted in the report as noncompliance, and reprimanded him. The nurse who treated Tracey noted that his blood oxygen level dropped to 89%. The Cleveland Clinic, an academic medical center, recommends on its website that people seek immediate medical treatment when their blood oxygen level falls below that.
The next day, a different nurse told medical staff that Tracey needed to be watched because of his “decline in health,” that his blood oxygen levels were still “very low,” and that Tracey had passed out in his cell, according to the sheriff’s incident report.
According to the report, the nurse practitioner on staff later told investigators he was never told Tracey passed out. Another staffer quoted in the report said no one had discussed whether to send Tracey to the hospital. One person told investigators that Tracey was asked if he’d want to be hospitalized, but he declined. There is no standard “refusal” form that detainees have to sign if they say no to medical care, the report noted.
About an hour after he passed out, at 7:09 p.m. on Dec. 15, Tracey’s girlfriend had paid his bond and the deputy went to his cell to give him street clothes. He was found naked and lying in his bed. Investigators noted that it took “a lot of effort” for Tracey to get dressed. At 7:56 p.m., Tracey, who was still in the cell, appeared to yell something, waved his hands and then used an inhaler and put his hand on his chest, investigators saw in the videotape.
By 8:16 p.m., Tracey had removed his pants and was visibly struggling to breathe, the report says.
However three minutes later, in the inmate log report, a separate document maintained by sheriff’s deputies who conduct routine checks of medical patients, deputies noted they checked on Tracey and he was “OK.”
Over the next 26 minutes, as Tracey lay alone in his cell, nobody came to his aid.
At 8:35, Tracey appeared to stop breathing, according to investigators who watched the surveillance video. Investigators noted two deputies went into his cell two minutes later, then left. They came and went three more times over the course of a few minutes, without giving Tracy medical care, the report says.
In the jail log, deputies wrote that they checked on all medical inmates at 8:45 — 10 minutes after investigators noted Tracey stopped breathing — and wrote that “all appears secure.”
No one gave Tracey CPR until 9 p.m., when he had already lost his pulse, according to the investigative report.
An ambulance was called, but Tracey was declared dead at the jail.
Dr. Marc Stern, a correctional healthcare expert and University of Washington Public Health professor, said based on the information known about Tracey’s symptoms from the investigative report, Tracey should have been hospitalized.
Rich Forbus, a former jail commander who currently serves as vice president at the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, reviewed the sheriff’s report at the request of The Trib and agreed with Stern. The private nonprofit company offers accreditation services to jails upon request. While some Florida county jails, such as Duval, have received accreditation from the company, St. Johns confirmed it doesn’t use the firm now, though its 2022 contract with Armor Health of St. Johns County LLC required the company to maintain accreditation with the commission.
“You know the person’s a COPD patient and you know he’s sick, I’ll be honest, I question why he didn’t go out” to a hospital, Forbus said. “If I’m the jail commander, I’m questioning why he’s not at the hospital.”
That’s a question that Tracey’s sister, Lillian Scharf, is also asking. About five hours after he died, at 1:30 a.m. on Dec. 16, 2023, Maryland police went to her house.
Scharf, Tracey’s closest remaining relative, said police told her to call the Florida sheriff for more information.
“They told us he died of a heart issue, that it was sudden, he just fell over and died,” her daughter, Tracey Letourneau, recalled being told.
But when Scharf asked for her brother’s full medical documents, the sheriff declined to give them because she’s not his legal next of kin. Tracey’s wife, Brenda, died a year before he did.
When asked about Tracey’s death, J. Alfredo Armas, the attorney for Armor Health of St. Johns County LLC, cautioned against drawing conclusions regarding Tracey’s death because his medical records have not been released. The company has withheld those medical records from The Florida Trib, ProPublica and Tracey’s sister, citing medical privacy laws.
Scharf also contacted a handful of attorneys in Florida and Maryland, but because the jail told her he died of a heart issue, each attorney turned her away.
Scharf didn’t learn the true details of her brother’s death until this year, when The Trib and ProPublica sent her the autopsy and police report, obtained through a record request. By then, the two-year statute of limitations to sue for a wrongful death or neglect had passed. Florida also doesn’t allow monetary lawsuits in cases where the deceased doesn’t have a spouse or children.
Her younger brother’s ashes are now in Glen Burnie, Maryland, in a box in Scharf’s closet. His pug, Thor, lives with Brenda’s sister.
“You know, only the Lord knows the truth as far as if he would have survived or if he would have died, but I just feel like they didn’t give him the opportunity to try to save his life,” Scharf said.
The post Inmates Have Died in the Care of Armor Health Companies. Jails Keep Contracting With Them Anyway. appeared first on ProPublica.
Britain’s king and queen have met Donald and Melania Trump on the first day of their US state visit, which was arranged to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US’s independence
Continue reading...Briefings obtained by freedom of information warned a ‘cascade of withdrawals’ could lead to collapse of 2026 South Australian festival
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Adelaide writers’ week was sacrificed to save the 2026 Adelaide festival, an event that ploughs more than $60m into South Australia’s economy each year, documents show.
After the 8 January announcement by the Adelaide festival board that controversial Palestinian Australian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah had been dumped from the AWW program, it wasn’t just fellow Australian and international guest writers and academics who began pulling out in droves.
Continue reading...Australia is dependent upon UK’s ability to deliver new submarines but report says ‘cracks are already beginning to show’
“Cracks are already beginning to show” in the UK’s funding for the Aukus agreement that could derail the ambitious nuclear submarine plan, a British parliamentary inquiry has found, highlighting a threat to Australia’s security.
UK shipbuilding has been under-funded for decades and the country’s submarine availability is “critically low”, the House of Commons defence committee’s report found.
Continue reading...More than a year after Kilmar Abrego Garcia won at the U.S. Supreme Court — forcing the Trump administration to bring him back from El Salvador — federal officials can’t seem to decide what, exactly, they want to do with him.
On the one hand, Trump officials continue to insist that Abrego must be deported to Africa, recently settling on Liberia. At the same time, the Department of Justice has pressed forward with its prosecution of Abrego for human smuggling — a criminal case that must be resolved before the government deports him.
“You can’t have it both ways,” Maryland District Judge Paula Xinis, who first ordered Abrego’s return to the U.S. and who is still presiding over his immigration case, recently told the DOJ. “He physically needs to be in this country to be prosecuted.”
The criminal case against Abrego stems from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee, which, according to federal prosecutors, was proof he was enmeshed in a human smuggling plot. The case was set to go trial in Nashville this year but presiding District Judge Waverly Crenshaw of the Middle District of Tennessee canceled the trial date to consider a key question: whether Abrego is the target of a “selective and vindictive prosecution.” The answer will determine whether the case moves forward; Crenshaw is expected to rule any day.
Defense attorneys argue that the Trump DOJ brought the charges against Abrego as revenge for his successful legal challenges, which freed him from the notorious Salvadoran prison known as CECOT. “This case results from the government’s concerted effort to punish him for having the audacity to fight back, rather than accept a brutal injustice,” they wrote in their motion to dismiss the case.
Crenshaw has already found some evidence to support these allegations, writing last fall that there was a “realistic likelihood of vindictiveness” against Abrego. He pointed to numerous public statements made by top Trump officials, particularly that of then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, formerly Trump’s personal defense attorney, who told Fox News that the Justice Department began investigating Abrego after “a judge in Maryland” interfered with Trump’s decision to deport him.
Still, proving their case has been a challenge for Abrego’s defense. The DOJ has refused to turn over evidence that would illuminate its decision-making — and tracing the prosecution to its roots requires untangling the Tennessee case from a previous probe originating in Baltimore. The Maryland investigation, which was linked to Abrego’s immigration case, probed Abrego’s 2022 traffic stop and stayed open for more than two and a half years, only to be closed after Abrego was shipped to El Salvador.
After Abrego prevailed at the Supreme Court, however, the Maryland investigation was suddenly reopened to great fanfare. The Department of Homeland Security sent out press releases trumpeting the “bombshell” revelations supposedly derived from the traffic stop – namely that Abrego was a human smuggler and a member of MS-13. It was in the wake of this publicity that the U.S. attorney’s office in the Middle District of Tennessee began its case, repackaging the evidence from the Baltimore investigation and indicting Abrego in May 2025.
To further probe the government’s motivations, Crenshaw ordered an evidentiary hearing, where the DOJ would be required to present “objective, on-the-record explanations” for Abrego’s prosecution. If the DOJ could not rebut his previous finding that there was a “likelihood of vindictiveness” against Abrego, he would have to throw out the case.
That hearing took place in late February, with lawyers on both sides filing post-hearing briefs earlier this month. In its 24-page filing, which contained the word “undisputed” 20 times, the DOJ insisted that it proved once and for all that Abrego’s prosecution was rooted in evidence of criminality rather than revenge. “Regardless of the tale Defendant invites this Court to believe,” wrote Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, “any narrative of animus has been affirmatively disproven by the Government’s undisputed evidence.”
In reality, the testimony offered by the government raised more questions than answers — while revealing that DOJ higher-ups were involved at every step leading up to Abrego’s indictment. Though Woodward cast the prosecution as one steered by law enforcement officers duty-bound to the evidence and their own moral compass, this was hard to take seriously. Donald Trump, after all, has spent the past 15 months trying to transform the DOJ into his personal law firm, demanding that prosecutors go after his political enemies.
In their own post-hearing brief, Abrego’s lawyers argued that the government has “tried to sanitize the origins of this prosecution.” Its story is “at odds with both the documentary record in this case and common sense.”
Abrego arrived at the hearing on February 26 in a black pea coat, black zip-up sweater, and black shirt. It was a gray, humid morning in downtown Nashville as TV cameras set up outside the federal courthouse plaza. While a line formed at security, Abrego, 30, headed toward the elevators with his legal team and supporters. Crenshaw’s fifth-floor courtroom quickly filled up; Abrego was given headphones to listen to the hearing in Spanish. An overflow area was provided for press.
Representing the federal government was Woodward, a former assistant to Trump who previously helped orchestrate his defense in the classified documents case. He sat alongside three members of Task Force Vulcan, a multiagency body created by the Trump administration to go after international gangs.
Woodward called Rana Saoud, a former special agent at the Nashville office of Homeland Security Investigations, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. According to Saoud, who retired last December, she first heard that Abrego had been stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol through an article in the conservative Tennessee Star. She did not remember who sent it to her. “I don’t have my phone anymore,” she said.
The story was published on April 23, 2025 — five days after DHS announced its reopening of the Baltimore investigation — and was heavily based on the government’s claims. While it was not clear when Saoud read the article, she called Robert McGuire, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, the following Sunday, April 27. McGuire apparently was not yet aware of the traffic stop or the Baltimore investigation either. He agreed they should take a closer look.
Although Abrego was famous by then for his exile to CECOT, Saoud testified that this had no bearing on her actions. “We’re not waived by political attention or political posturing,” she said.
On cross-examination, one of Abrego’s lawyers asked Saoud if she’d seen the DHS press releases publicizing the traffic stop. She said no. Nor did she apparently see Trump boast about it in the press. Saoud said she had “stopped listening to the news. … I had other priorities to investigate and focus on.”
Saoud conceded that she was not privy to the decision-making process at DOJ. But she insisted that the evidence supported charges against Abrego. “The facts were leading us towards an individual who was involved in a human smuggling crime,” she said.
In a list of witnesses in advance of the hearing, the DOJ had included a second HSI investigator, Special Agent John VanWie, who led the investigation in Baltimore. But since then, Woodward had apparently changed his mind. Rather than calling the man who could explain why his office reopened the investigation into Abrego after the Supreme Court ruling, Woodward went straight to his second and last witness: Assistant U.S. Attorney McGuire.
Wearing a dark suit and his hair parted to the side, McGuire took the stand with the air of a seasoned but humble public servant. Once an unsuccessful candidate for local district attorney, McGuire found himself in charge of the Nashville U.S. attorney’s office by chance. He joined the office in 2018, working as a line prosecutor until back-to-back resignations catapulted him to the top just weeks before Trump was inaugurated in 2025. “Here I am, kind of the accidental acting U.S. attorney,” he told the Tennessee Banner that February. A few months later, he was in charge of the Abrego prosecution.
“I’d like to get right to the heart of the matter everyone is here for,” Woodward began. “Who made the decision to seek an indictment of Mr. Abrego?”
“Who made the decision to seek an indictment of Mr. Abrego?”
“I did,” McGuire said.
“Did Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche direct you to do so?”
“No.”
“Anyone at Main Justice?”
“No sir.”
“What about the White House?”
“Absolutely not.”
McGuire reiterated what he’d previously written in a sworn affidavit, insisting that the decision to prosecute Abrego was his alone. He said he recognized signs of human smuggling in the footage from the traffic stop, which showed Abrego driving eight other Latino men in a van with no luggage, and decided to pursue the case personally.
Yet McGuire’s written narrative contained a key omission. Email records had subsequently revealed that another DOJ prosecutor played an active role — a man with a reputation as Trump’s “brashest enforcer when it comes to clamping down on US attorneys’ autonomy”: Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh.
Singh, it turned out, had written to McGuire about Abrego’s case on the same Sunday he got the call from Saoud — the first of several emails from the D.C.-based prosecutor. Singh wanted to meet the next morning with McGuire and two other AUSAs who’d been involved in providing evidence for the Baltimore investigation. There was nothing unusual about this, McGuire maintained. Singh was simply a point person for U.S. attorneys across the country when it came to communicating with the deputy attorney general’s office in Washington. “If there was a noteworthy case — if there was an important matter that happened in the Middle District of Tennessee — he would be my conduit to let them know what was going on,” he said.
McGuire insisted that he was in charge of Abrego’s prosecution at every step. His correspondence with Singh was simply intended to provide updates on his work. But Abrego’s lawyers zeroed in on the emails as proof that the prosecution was being driven by officials in D.C. On cross-examination, defense attorney David Patton went through the correspondence one email at a time. The first message concerned a confidential informant who would later testify against Abrego before the grand jury. Singh “knew about that witness before you did,” Patton pointed out. In another, Singh wrote to McGuire thanking him for his work on the case, writing, “It’s a top priority for us.”
Who was the “us” in this email?
“I presumed it was Main Justice leadership,” McGuire replied.
In another email, Singh pressed McGuire for an update on the timing for a possible indictment even though McGuire had already updated him earlier that day. “He’s pretty eager here isn’t he?” Patton asked. McGuire demurred. It was pretty typical for the DAG’s office to ask for updates “in any high-profile matter,” he said. Yet “high-profile” — a term McGuire repeatedly invoked on the stand — did not begin to capture the extent of the Trump administration’s particular fixation on Abrego.
Patton also grilled McGuire about his correspondence with his own staff. In one email, McGuire wrote to several members of the Nashville U.S. attorney’s office to provide them with a memo laying out the potential charges against Abrego, noting that he’d heard anecdotally that Blanche and then-Principal Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove “would like Garcia charged sooner rather than later.” According to McGuire, this was merely an attempt to keep his colleagues in Nashville apprised of the situation. “I just wanted to be transparent with my team that I hadn’t been told to do anything but there was some interest,” he said.
Yet, in the same message, McGuire told the recipients not to put their thoughts on the matter in an email. “Isn’t it true that you didn’t want people putting in writing that they opposed the prosecution?” Patton asked. McGuire said he just preferred to hash things out face to face.
One person, however, had replied in writing: Ben Schrader, chief of the criminal division at the Nashville U.S. attorney’s office, who firmly opposed the prosecution. He sent back a memo of his own, asking McGuire to “please pass it along to relevant parties in D.C.” McGuire said he didn’t recall if he did. On the day that Abrego was indicted, Schrader resigned.
Although McGuire denied ever discussing his decisions with the highest Trump officials, Patton pointed to at least one conversation. Records showed that, on June 6, the same day Abrego was returned from El Salvador, Blanche personally called McGuire. It was a “very brief phone call,” McGuire said. The deputy attorney general simply wanted to notify him that Abrego was headed back to the country. “I’ll be honest, I don’t totally remember all the things he said.”
Over the past year, Abrego’s case has faded amid the constant chaos and upheaval of Trump’s second term. Today it is impossible to keep track of all the resignations and firings across the federal government. The DOJ has itself lost thousands of employees.
Yet Abrego’s ordeal was one of the first shocks of Trump’s second term, revealing the chilling lengths to which his administration would retaliate against employees who failed to fall in lockstep behind the president. It was Abrego’s case that spurred veteran prosecutor Erez Reuveni to become a whistleblower after he was punished for conceding that Abrego had been erroneously deported to El Salvador.
This recent history loomed large over the hearing — and will inevitably inform Crenshaw’s ultimate decision. At one point, Patton pulled up the infamous February 2025 memo issued by Pam Bondi, which cast DOJ attorneys as the president’s lawyers. It warned that “any attorney who, because of their personal political views or judgments, declines to sign a brief or appear in court, refuses to advance good faith argument on behalf of the administration, or otherwise delays or impedes the department’s mission will be subject to discipline and potentially termination.”
“It wasn’t very subtle, was it, Mr. McGuire?” Patton asked.
“I understood the policy,” McGuire replied.
The post Who Decided to Indict Kilmar Abrego Garcia Over a Years-Old Traffic Stop? appeared first on The Intercept.
Hi all,
Had a moment the other day when i was going faster then i thought i was. Looked back after the ride a hit a speed i don't usually travel at on a road that wasn't super familiar with.
No issues, but had me thinking i could easily of had an accident traveling over 20mph and has made me rethink my safety gear (just wearing a bmx helmet atm).
I guess my question boils down to. Do armoured clothing e.i motorcycle kit, cover all the bases? Or do people also add extra gear.
If i had a helmet, padded/armour shirt/top and some wrist guards. Is that the same or better than buying individual pads like knee pads elbow pets etc?
Was hoping for something simple and less fuss. Also i think the aesthetics look a bit nicer than having a bunch of individual pads strapped on.
The female-created YouTube sketch series Smatouha Minni – You Heard It From Me – uses satire to confront misogynistic attitudes
In Beirut’s Gemmayzeh neighbourhood a rented flat has been transformed into a film set: bright studio lights in a cosy living room. At its centre is Maria Elayan – though she is barely recognisable. Filming for the third season of Smatouha Minni (You Heard It From Me), a feminist series in Arabic, the actor is in a padded muscle suit, wearing a slicked-back black wig and beard.
“If your wife asks you to change the diapers, you should change her,” the Palestinian-Jordanian barks, mimicking an aggrieved self-help podcaster. An hour later, she is slouched in a hoodie, shisha pipe in one hand and a gaming console in the other, shouting: “Mama, I’m hungry. Can you make me a sandwich?”
Continue reading...Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has asked a federal judge to overturn the judge's own ruling that blocked construction of the White House ballroom, in the wake of the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting.
The Trump administration says it will reimburse energy companies $885 million to cancel two planned offshore wind farms, with the firms in turn agreeing to put money into oil and gas projects instead. "The deals are modeled after a similar agreement last month with the French energy giant TotalEnergies," notes the New York Times. "TotalEnergies forfeited its leases for two wind projects planned off the coasts of New York and North Carolina, while committing to a range of fossil-fuel investments." From the report: [...] The first new agreement affects Bluepoint Wind, a wind farm in the early stages of development off New York and New Jersey. The project was proposed by Global Infrastructure Partners, a part of asset manager BlackRock, and Ocean Winds, which is itself a joint venture between Engie and EDP Renewables, two European clean-energy firms. The second deal would cancel Golden State Wind, another early-stage venture off California's central coast. Golden State Wind is a 50-50 partnership between the developers Ocean Winds and Reventus Power. Both Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind agreed not to pursue any new offshore wind projects in the United States, although that pledge would not necessarily apply to the companies behind the ventures. Ocean Winds has also been developing another giant wind farm known as SouthCoast Wind, off Martha's Vineyard, Mass., that is much further along in the planning and permitting process. That project is not affected by Monday's announcement, although it has essentially been paused since Mr. Trump took office last year. [...] It is also unclear how much the companies will actually invest in new fossil fuel infrastructure. In documents released this month, Interior revealed that it would count investments that TotalEnergies made before the deal toward its pledge, raising questions over whether the company had any obligations to make additional investments.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Claim by environment minister opens new report into profound ecological damage allegedly done by IDF forces
Lebanon’s minister for the environment has accused Israel’s military of committing “an act of ecocide” in the foreword to a report detailing the harm done to the country’s natural resources during the invasion of 2023 to 2024.
Israeli military aggression “reshaped both the physical and ecological landscape” of southern Lebanon, according to the report, which does not consider the impacts of Israel’s latest barrage of attacks this spring.
Damaged 5,000 hectares (12,350 acres) of forest cover, including broadleaf, pine and stone pine stands, destroying habitats, disregulating local climates and causing soil erosion.
Destroyed $118m (£87m) of physical agriculture assets, including crops, livestock facilities, forestry resources, fisheries and aquaculture infrastructure.
Caused further losses of $586m (£433m) in lost agricultural production as a result of disrupted harvests and reduced yields.
Destroyed 2,154 hectares (5,320 acres) of orchards, including 814 hectares of olive groves and 637 hectares of citrus plantations, and caused extensive damage to banana plantations.
Contaminated soils with phosphorus concentrations up to 1,858 parts a million, with particular contamination hotspots in south Lebanon and Bekaa valley in the east.
Caused widespread air pollution episodes extending well beyond immediate strike zones and releasing particulates; sulphur and nitrogen oxides; and toxic compounds such as dioxins and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
Continue reading...Coordinated attack by JNIM and the Tuareg minority inflicted significant casualties on government forces and Russian auxiliaries
When al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic militants launched a series of attacks on military bases and raids into major towns in Mali and neighbouring Burkina Faso last summer, observers suggested they had been inspired by their counterparts in Syria, who had overthrown the regime of Bashar al-Assad and taken power six months or so earlier.
Despite the tactical successes that earned them the fearful title of the “Ghost Army”, seizing swathes of territory and denying cities and the military of fuel and other essentials, the chances of Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) definitively defeating Mali’s military regime and the thousand or so Russian mercenaries hired to defend it looked poor.
Continue reading...Apple laptop sets new performance bar with more storage, new chips and plenty of options, but now has two-tier specs depending on processor
Apple’s Macs have been on a roll this year with the brand new budget MacBook Neo and a faster MacBook Air M5, but now it’s time for its workhorse MacBook Pro to be upgraded with the fastest, most powerful M-series chips.
The latest MacBook Pro comes in two screen sizes and a large range of chip and configuration options. The 14in version starts with the M5 chip costing £1,699 (€1,899/$1,699/A$2,699) and then jumps to the more powerful M5 Pro from £2,199 (€2,499/$2,199/A$3,499) before climbing further for the 16in version or the top M5 Max chip. A pricey machine for professional workloads.
Continue reading...First lady accuses the comedian of ‘hateful and violent rhetoric’ over joke made days before the White House press dinner shooting
Jimmy Kimmel has refused to apologise for a joke made days before the White House correspondents’ dinner shooting in which he described Melania Trump as glowing “like an expectant widow”, after both Donald Trump and the first lady accused him of inciting violence.
On Monday Melania Trump accused Kimmel of “hateful and violent rhetoric” and “atrocious behavior”, and said it was “time for ABC to take a stand” against the comedian, who has long been critical of Trump and his policies.
Continue reading...  | I’m having this intermittent engagement issue on my GT. It only seems to happen after I ride off road or in dusty/dirty conditions. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks Update: contacted future motion. They’re sending me a new footpad, no charge. [link] [comments] |
Positions ‘terminated, effective immediately’, says email to scientists sent on president’s behalf, in move labelled ‘dangerous attack’ on US innovation
The Trump administration has fired members of an independent board that oversees the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Members of the National Science Board received an email on Friday sent from the Presidential Personnel Office “on behalf of President Donald J Trump” stating that their position was “terminated, effective immediately”.
Continue reading...Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for April 28
Journalists face rising threats while media ownership is concentrated in fewer hands, leading civil liberties group warns
Journalists in the EU face increasing levels of harassment, threats and violence, while news outlets are owned by a shrinking number of proprietors and public trust in the media has plummeted, a report has found.
The Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties) said the findings of its fifth annual media freedom report, released on Tuesday, should place EU officials “on high alert”, with media freedom and pluralism “under sustained attack” across mainland Europe.
Continue reading...The RSF leadership, accused of committing genocide, used UAE as a ‘safe haven’ for family members and their wealth, records show
A network linked to the leadership of a militia accused of genocide has amassed a vast property portfolio in Dubai as part of a sprawling “paramilitary-industrial complex” across Africa and the Middle East, an investigation has revealed.
Family members, sanctioned individuals, and entities linked to the leader of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, have acquired more than 20 luxury properties, worth £17.7m, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to the Sentry, a US investigative group.
Continue reading...Rabbis Charley Baginsky and Josh Levy say criticising Israeli government is not disloyalty but a Jewish obligation
The UK’s most senior progressive rabbis have warned that Israel’s current political direction risks becoming “incompatible with Jewish values”, while insisting that criticism of the country’s government is “a Jewish obligation” rather than an act of disloyalty.
Rabbi Charley Baginsky and Rabbi Josh Levy, co-leads of Progressive Judaism – the newly formed movement representing around a third of synagogues in the UK – said Israel’s trajectory could pose an “existential threat” not just to the country itself but to Judaism.
Continue reading...The Italian PM has walked a tightrope between Europe and the US. But the Iran war – and Trump’s attacks on her – have changed everything
The news last week that the Trump administration sounded out Fifa, world football’s governing body, about replacing Iran with Italy at this year’s World Cup jolted insiders and pundits on the beautiful game. It has also cast fresh light on the unusual and evolving relationship between Donald Trump and Giorgia Meloni.
In recent weeks, the Italian prime minister’s standing as the darling of the US right has been imperilled by an unexpected rift with the Oval Office. Trump dramatically distanced himself from his Italian ally over her refusal to join US attacks on Iran in an interview. “I’m shocked at her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong,” the US president told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
Riccardo Alcaro is head of research at IAI, Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome
Continue reading...Severing ties with the US can take more than a year and cost thousands of dollars. But Paul, Ella, Margot and thousands of others feel they have no choice
When Margot went to renounce her US citizenship earlier this year, she wasn’t able to do it in the UK, her home of 30 years. The waiting list to renounce US citizenship at the London consulate is more than 14 months. It’s a similar story in Sydney and most major Canadian cities. Many European cities currently have six-month waiting lists.
So Margot found herself in the lobby of the consulate in Ghent, Belgium. One wall was covered by a picture of Boston Harbour, where she was born. The other had three portraits: Donald Trump, JD Vance and Marco Rubio, their faces glistening – to her mind, with sadistic triumph (the lighting may have been a factor). Momentarily, she felt caught in a vice: everything she loved about her nation; everything she hated. Then she went in, swore under oath that she knew what she was doing, wasn’t being coerced, and wasn’t renouncing her citizenship for the purposes of tax avoidance. The official’s tone was neutral, slightly bored.
Continue reading...Why wealthy elites come to regret their bargains with authoritarians.
America should end the war but keep up the pressure.
Fans of late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel and Hollywood residents pushed back against Melania Trump's demand that the American Broadcasting Company and parent company Walt Disney Co fire the comedian over a monologue he delivered in a parody segment days before the shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner over the weekend. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denounced Kimmel, saying he 'disgustingly called first lady Melania Trump "an expectant widow"'
Continue reading...An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Technology tycoons Elon Musk and Sam Altman are poised to face off in a high-stakes trial revolving around the alleged betrayal, deceit and unbridled ambition that blurred the bickering billionaires' once-shared vision for the development of artificial intelligence. The trial, which started Monday with jury selection, centers on the 2015 birth of ChatGPT maker OpenAI as a nonprofit startup primarily funded by Musk before evolving into a capitalistic venture now valued at $852 billion. The trial's outcome could sway the balance of power in AI -- breakthrough technology that is increasingly being feared as a potential job killer and an existential threat to humanity's survival. Those perceived risks are among the reasons that Musk, the world's richest person, cites for filing an August 2024 lawsuit that will now be decided by a jury and U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California. The civil lawsuit accuses Altman, OpenAI's CEO, and his top lieutenant, Greg Brockman, of double-crossing Musk by straying from the San Francisco company's founding mission to be an altruistic steward of a revolutionary technology. The lawsuit alleges they shifted into a moneymaking mode behind his back. OpenAI has brushed off Musk's allegations as an unfounded case of sour grapes that's aimed at undercutting its rapid growth and bolstering Musk's own xAI, which he launched in 2023 as a competitor. Gonzalez Rogers questioned potential jurors Monday about their views on Musk, Altman and artificial intelligence. Some jurors said they had negative views of Musk, but most said they would still be able to treat him fairly and focus on the facts of the case. [...] "Part of this is about whether a jury believes the people who will testify and whether they are credible," Gonzalez Rogers said during a court hearing earlier this year while explaining why she believe the case merited a trial. The judge will make the final decision on the case, with the jury serving in an advisory role. The latest development is that a jury has been seated. During selection, several prospective jurors expressed negative views of Elon Musk, but Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected attempts by Musk's lawyer to remove some of them solely on that basis, saying dislike of Musk does not automatically mean someone can't be fair. The court is selecting nine jurors, and the case is expected to wrap by May 21, when it would go to the jury. Tomorrow, April 28th, will feature opening statements.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Japan Airlines will introduce the robots for trial run at a Tokyo airport amid country’s surge in inbound tourism and worsening labour shortages
Japan’s famously conscientious but overburdened baggage handlers will soon be joined by extra staff at Tokyo’s Haneda airport – although their new colleagues will need to take regular recharging breaks.
Japan Airlines will introduce humanoid robots on a trial basis from the beginning of May, with a view to deploying them permanently as a solution to the country’s chronic labour shortage.
Continue reading...19-year-old edges Knueppel by just 26 points
Flagg is first teen to score 50 points in an NBA game
Cooper Flagg edged his former Duke roommate to win the NBA rookie of the year award on Monday night. Flagg is the first rookie since Michael Jordan in the 1984-85 season to lead his team in points, rebounds, assists and steals.
Flagg and Knueppel were first and second in rookie scoring, the first former college teammates to achieve the feat since UConn stars Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon in 2004-05. Philadelphia’s VJ Edgecombe was the other finalist for this year’s award.
The 19-year-old Flagg is the second-youngest player to win the award behind LeBron James.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed.
Here’s more about the timing of King Charles’s visit today with Donald Trump at the White House.
According to Trump’s official schedule, the president will greet King Charles and Queen Camilla at the White House at 4.15pm ET. Shortly after, they’ll have tea and then tour a beehive at the White House.
Continue reading...Alleged shooter, identified as Cole Tomas Allen, charged with three federal crimes in White House press gala attack
The suspected gunman who tried to storm the White House correspondents’ dinner appeared in federal court on Monday and was charged with three federal crimes, including attempting to assassinate the president.
The alleged shooter, identified by law enforcement agencies as Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old man from Torrance in southern California, was charged with attempting to assassinate the US president, transportation of firearms to commit a felony, and unlawful discharge of a firearm during violence.
Continue reading...Efforts continue to free two trapped passengers in wreckage after long-distance train collides with commuter train outside Jakarta, injuring 81
The death toll from a train collision near the Indonesian capital Jakarta has risen to 14 with another 84 injured, the train operator said on Tuesday, as rescuers worked to extract survivors still trapped in the wreckage.
The collision between a commuter train and a long-distance train happened late on Monday in Bekasi, just outside Jakarta.
Continue reading...An appeals court has ruled that the Defense Department can require journalists to be escorted on Pentagon grounds while the Trump administration appeals a judge's decision to block its enforcement of a press access policy challenged by The New York Times.
Facebook was the most popular platform for social media scammers, the FTC reports.
Ahead of Tuesday's debate in the California governor's race, it's still a wide-open contest, CBS News' latest poll finds.
I spoke with a doctor at Apple to learn more about the Apple Watch health features that you might not currently be using to support your wellness.
Ahmad Abugharbieh, the younger brother of the man suspected of killing two University of South Florida doctoral students, told CBS News, "My entire family feels so much shame and guilt."
Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for April 28, No. 1,774.
Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for April 28, No. 1,052
Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for April 28, No. 582.
 | I was riding in the rain for a while yesterday and there were some larger puddles I went through. This morning I wake up and have this grinding/rubbing/friction type sound. Bearing has a little visible surface rust but nothing out of the ordinary. Has anyone experienced this sound before? [link] [comments] |
Pakistan officials dismiss Afghan media reports and official statements about strikes on university in Kunar province as ‘blatant lie’
Mortars and missiles fired from Pakistan on Monday struck a university and civilian homes in north-eastern Afghanistan, killing seven people and wounding at least 85, Afghan officials said.
Pakistan denied the accusation of targeting a university.
Continue reading...The "Dances With Wolves" actor was accused by three Indigenous women and girls, including one who was 14 when the assaults began. He was convicted in January on 13 of the 21 charges he faced.
An FBI affidavit filed in federal court lays out more details about Cole Allen's alleged actions before and during the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
On March 31, 1981, when President Reagan was shot by John Hinckley, Jr., the Washington Hilton ceased to be just another venue for the Secret Service.
Soldiers are training for drone-on-drone combat using Bumblebee drones, which have been used in Ukraine and are being sent to U.S. training centers in the Middle East.
Taylor Swift can't just shake it off. She's going the extra mile to make sure AI tools can't copy her.
NAHT survey says widespread disrepair forcing closure of playgrounds and classrooms, with Send facilities also hit
Half of headteachers say parts of their school are either out of use or unfit for purpose due to leaks, damp, mould, asbestos, ageing boilers and malfunctioning fire doors, according to a new survey by the National Association of Head Teachers(NAHT).
Among those who say their schools are suffering, almost three-quarters (73%) say they have toilet blocks that are either closed (8%) or not fit for purpose (65%).
Continue reading...Resolution Foundation report says ‘crisis’ stems from rising ill-health and a failing system of benefits and job support
Britain has the third-highest rate of young people not in work or education among Europe’s richest countries because of rising ill-health and a failing system of benefits and job support, a report has warned.
The Resolution Foundation thinktank said the UK was facing a “crisis” in youth jobs amid a dramatic rise in the number of 16- to 24-year-olds who are not in education, employment or training (Neets) to almost 1 million – the highest level in more than a decade.
Continue reading...Police warn of violent pornography and ‘toxic’ influencers as suicides outstrip homicides for third year running
The first teenage girl has been identified as having been driven to kill herself after domestic violence, as police chiefs blamed violent pornography and “toxic” influencers for being behind a rise in teen abuse.
Suicides after domestic abuse have outstripped homicides for the third year running, according to the Domestic Homicide Project, which records deaths in England and Wales after domestic abuse.
Continue reading...alternative_right shares a report from 404 Media: Researchers working with data from the Internet Archive have discovered that a third of websites created since 2022 are AI-generated. The team of researchers -- which includes people from Stanford, the Imperial College London, and the Internet Archive -- published their findings online in a paper titled "The Impact of AI-Generated Text on the Internet." The research also found that all this AI-generated text is making the web more cheery and less verbose."The proliferation of AI-generated and AI-assisted text on the internet is feared to contribute to a degradation in semantic and stylistic diversity, factual accuracy, and other negative developments," the researchers write in the paper. "We find that by mid-2025, roughly 35% of newly published websites were classified as AI-generated or AI-assisted, up from zero before ChatGPT's launch in late 2022." "I find the sheer speed of the AI takeover of the web quite staggering," Jonas Dolezal, an AI researcher at Stanford and co-author of the paper, told 404 Media. "After decades of humans shaping it, a significant portion of the internet has become defined by AI in just three years. We're witnessing, in my opinion, a major transformation of the digital landscape in a fraction of the time it took to build in the first place." Maty Bohacek, a student researcher at Stanford and one of the co-authors of the paper, added: "As AI-generated content spreads, the challenge is finding a role for these models that doesn't just result in a sanitized, repetitive web," he said. "Rather than forcing models to be perfectly compliant and agreeable, allowing them to have a more distinct personality or 'friction' might help them act as a creative partner rather than a replacement for human voice."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Royals pose for photographs with president and first lady at start of state visit before heading inside for private tea
King Charles and Queen Camilla arrived at the White House on Monday for a state visit in Washington, a city still rattled by a weekend shooting and a transatlantic alliance showing fresh signs of strain.
British flags could be seen lining lamp-posts outside the White House, where Donald Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, greeted Charles and Camilla with handshakes. The four appeared to exchange pleasantries and posed for several photographs before heading inside the White House for a private tea.
Continue reading...Jay Bryant’s admission came more than two decades after the rapper’s killing, but he didn’t name others involved
Nearly a quarter century after rap star Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC was shot to death, a man admitted in court Monday to a role in a killing that stymied investigators for decades.
Jay Bryant pleaded guilty to a federal murder charge, telling a judge that he helped other people get into a recording studio to ambush the DJ, born Jason Mizell.
Continue reading...Attack in Adamawa state continues wave of violence across the country, including armed raid on orphanage in Kogi
Gunmen have killed at least 29 people in north-east Nigeria, a state governor said on Monday, with local people saying the attackers targeted young people gathered at a football pitch, the latest bout of deadly unrest in Africa’s most populous nation.
The attack on Sunday occurred in Adamawa state, which borders Cameroon, and is a hotspot for violence by jihadists and criminal gangs. Communal violence over conflict for land is also rife in the state.
Continue reading...Your next chance to see two full moons in one month won't come until December 2028.
Lawyer for DoJ argued actions taken in public while in possession of a smartphone afforded no expectation of privacy
The US supreme court is considering whether sprawling warrants for smartphone location data infringe on Americans’ privacy rights and violate the constitution.
Justices heard opening arguments in Chatrie v United States on Monday that concerned law enforcement’s reliance on so-called “geofence warrants” in difficult cases. The case was originally brought by Okello Chatrie, whose phone location data helped police in Richmond, Virginia, track him down after he robbed a bank at gunpoint and escaped with $195,000 in 2019. Chatrie pleaded guilty to armed robbery and was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but his lawyers argue none of the evidence against him should have been admissible in court.
Continue reading...The case is part of a national redistricting fight with high stakes for the November midterm elections
Virginia supreme court justices on Monday questioned whether the state’s Democratic-led legislature complied with constitutional requirements when it sent a congressional redistricting plan to voters, in a case that carries high stakes for the balance of power in the US House.
The new districts, which could net Democrats four additional seats, won narrow voter approval last week. But a Republican legal challenge contends the general assembly violated procedural rules by placing the constitutional amendment before voters to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. If the court agrees that lawmakers broke the rules, it could invalidate the amendment and render last week’s statewide vote meaningless.
Continue reading...An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In January, the European Commission began an initial investigation, known as a specification proceeding, into how Google has implemented AI in the Android operating system. The results are in, and the EU says Android needs to be more open, which is not surprising. Meanwhile, Google says this amounts to "unwarranted intervention," which is equally unsurprising. Regardless of Google's characterization of the investigation, the commission may force Google to make Android AI changes this summer. This action stems from the continent's Digital Markets Act (DMA), a sweeping law that designates seven dominant technology companies as "gatekeepers" that are subject to greater regulation to ensure fair competition. Google has consistently spoken against the regulations imposed under the DMA, but it and the other gatekeepers have been subject to the law for several years now, and there's little chance the commission backs away from it. The issue before the commission currently is the built-in advantage for Gemini on Android. When you turn on any Google-powered Android phone, Gemini is already there and gets special treatment at the system level. The European Commission is taking aim at the lack of features available to third-party AI services. The commission believes that there are too many experiences on Android that only work with Google's Gemini AI, and as a gatekeeper, Google must change that. "As we navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of AI, it is clear that interoperability is key to unlocking the full potential of these technologies," said Commission VP for Tech Sovereignty Henna Virkkunen in a statement. "These measures will open up Android devices to a wider range of AI services, so that users will have the freedom to choose the AI services that best meet their needs and values, without sacrificing functionality." The commission does have a solid track record pushing for openness so far. Since the DMA came into force, Google has been required to make numerous changes to its business in Europe, like implementing search choice screens on Android, allowing alternative payment methods in the Play Store, and limiting data sharing across services. Now, the EU wants Google to make the Android platform more hospitable to third-party AI services. Google's objection focuses on preserving the autonomy for device makers (including Google) to customize AI services. "This unwarranted intervention would strip away that autonomy, mandate access to sensitive hardware and device permissions; unnecessarily driving up costs while undermining critical privacy and security protections for European users," said Google senior competition counsel Claire Kelly. The problem isn't that you can't install ChatGPT or Grok; it's that these chatbots don't have the same access to data and features as Gemini. To address that imbalance, the EU is considering several requirements that would force Google to give third-party AI assistants deeper access to Android, closer to what Gemini currently enjoys. The proposed requirements include: - Letting alternative AI tools be launched system-wide through hot words, gestures, or button presses. - Allowing third-party assistants to see screen context when users invoke them. - Giving non-Gemini AI tools access to local device data, with user permission, so they can generate proactive suggestions, summaries, and contextual help. - Allowing other AI services to control installed apps and Android system features on the user's behalf. - Ensuring third-party developers can access the necessary device hardware to run local AI models with strong performance, availability, and responsiveness. - Requiring Google to create APIs that let outside AI providers plug into Android more deeply. - Requiring Google to provide technical assistance to those AI providers. - Making those APIs and support available free of charge.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Dillo is an amazing web browser for those of us who want their web browsing experience to be calmer and less flashing. Dillo also happens to be a very UNIX-y browser, and their latest release, 3.3.0, underlines that.
A new
↫ Dillo 3.3.0 release notesdillocprogram is now available to control Dillo from the command line or from a script. It searches for Dillo by the PID in theDILLO_PIDenvironment variable or for a unique Dillo process if not set.
You can use this program to control your Dillo instance, with basic commands like reloading the current URL, opening a new URL, and so on, but also things like dumping the current page’s contents. I have a feeling more commands and features will be added in future releases, but for now, even the current set of commands can be helpful for scripting purposes. I’m sure some of you who live and die in the terminal are already thinking of all the possibilities here.
You can now also add page actions to the right-click context menu, so you can do things like reload a page with a Chrome curl impersonator to avoid certain JavaScript walls. This, too, is of course extensible. Dillo 3.3.0 also brings experimental support for building the browser with FLTK 1.4, and implemented a fix specifically to make OAuth work properly.
You can display a favorite image or select colorful lighting effects.
Ubuntu, being one of the more commercial Linux distributions, was always going to jump on the “AI” bandwagon, and Jon Seager, Canonical’s VP Engineering, published a blog post with more details.
Throughout 2026 we’ll be working on enabling access to frontier AI for Ubuntu users in a way that is deliberate, secure, and aligned with our open source values. By focusing on the combination of education for our engineers, our existing knowledge of building resilient systems and our strengthening silicon partnerships, we will deliver efficient local inference, powerful accessibility features, and a context-aware OS that makes Ubuntu meaningfully more capable for the people who rely on it
Ubuntu is not becoming an AI product, but it can become stronger with thoughtful AI integration.
↫ Jon Seager at Ubuntu Discourse
The problem with this entire post is that, much like all other corporate communications about “AI”, it’s all deceptively vague, open-ended, and weasely. Adjectives like “focused”, “principled”, “thoughtful”, and “tasteful” don’t really mean anything, and leave everything open for basically every type of slop “AI” feature under the sun. Their claims about open weights and open source models are also weakened by words like “favour” and “where possible”, again leaving the door wide open for basically any shady “AI” company’s models and features to find their way into your default Ubuntu installation.
There’s also very little in terms of concrete plans and proposed features, leaving Ubuntu users in the dark about what, exactly, is going to be added to their operating system of choice during the remainder of the year. There’s mentions of improved text-to-speech/speech-to-text and text regurgitators, but that’s about it. None of it feels particularly inspired or ground-breaking, and the veneer of open source, ethical model creation, and so on, is particularly thin this time around, even for Canonical.
I don’t really feel like I know a lot more about Canonical’s “AI” intentions for Ubuntu after reading this post than I did before, other than Ubuntu users might be able to generate text in their email client or whatever later this year. Is that really something anybody wants?
BrianFagioli writes: Notepad++ has finally made its way to macOS, and this time it is not through a compatibility layer. A new community-driven port brings the long-standing Windows text editor over as a fully native Mac application, built with Cocoa and compiled for both Apple Silicon and Intel systems. Instead of relying on Wine or similar tools, the project replaces the Windows-specific interface with a macOS-native one while keeping the core editing engine intact, allowing longtime users to retain the same workflow, shortcuts, and overall feel. The port is independent from the original Notepad++ project but tracks upstream changes closely, with development happening in the open. It is code-signed and notarized, and notably avoids telemetry or ads. Plugin support is being rebuilt for macOS and is still evolving, but the groundwork is in place. While macOS already has several established editors, this effort is aimed squarely at users who want the familiar Notepad++ experience without relearning a new tool. You can download the app here.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei says actions of the United States ‘strike at the heart of international law’ as blockade continues in strait of Hormuz
Iran is proposing that shipping companies should pay charges for specific services when they cross the strait of Hormuz, in a move that would enable it to raise money from shipping traffic without presenting the payment as a toll.
Iran’s framing is designed to maximise political and legal support for the plan it is developing with Oman. Iran has made a solution to its demands an essential precondition to winding down the conflict, including an end to its effective blockade of the Strait and the counter-blockade of Iranian ports being mounted by the US Navy.
Continue reading...
It’s a common, misleading refrain in anti-vaccine circles: Childhood vaccines may be unsafe because few if any have been tested in placebo-controlled trials before being approved. But that claim misunderstands the vaccine safety testing process and takes advantage of a narrow definition of a placebo, scientists told us.
“Not a single childhood vaccine on the schedule has ever been through a double-blind placebo-based trial prior to licensure,” Del Bigtree, a prominent activist with ties to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said at a March 9 conference that billed itself as being about a “massive epidemic” of vaccine harm. “It is now a known fact they were never done. No placebo trial anywhere in sight,” Bigtree went on to say.
Kennedy has been making similar claims for years. He previously led Children’s Health Defense, a group that says its “mission is ending childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposures” and writes frequently about alleged harms from vaccines, and hired Bigtree as his communications director during his 2024 presidential run. Kennedy has generally refrained from speaking about vaccines in recent months, but in a congressional hearing on April 21, he repeated the claim when stating that he’s “never been anti-vax.”
“I don’t believe all vaccines are bad. I’ve never said that. What I’ve said is they should be safety tested,” Kennedy said, noting that the government is funding the development of a universal flu vaccine and cancer vaccines. (In a 2023 podcast, he said that “no vaccine” is safe and effective, and later denied making those remarks.)
“With one exception, none of the 92 doses of 18 vaccines now given to our kids has ever gone through a randomized, controlled placebo trial,” he continued. “And all I’m saying is we should know a risk profile so that we can inform parents.”
Kennedy made the same basic appeal about placebo-controlled trials on at least three occasions in January.
“Today’s children get between 80 and 92 vaccines and the only ones that have been safety tested in a randomized placebo-controlled trial is the COVID vaccine. None of the other ones have,” Kennedy said in an interview with USA Today on Jan. 16. (As we have written before, this number of routinely recommended vaccines was only ever possible when counting each dose, including annual flu and COVID-19 shots through age 18 and separating out combination vaccines.) “So we do not know whether those vaccines are causing downstream effects,” such as chronic diseases.
And in similar remarks at a Jan. 21 rally in Pennsylvania, he said that without such trials, “we don’t know what the risk profile is.”
On the surface, it seems to be a compelling argument. Most Americans have enough familiarity with science to know that testing a medical product against a placebo control is the most rigorous way to determine if the product works. Such trials can also reveal common side effects.
All approved vaccines have been tested for safety, experts say, but that does not always involve a saline-only placebo, as Kennedy and others often contend must be used. There are scientific and ethical reasons to choose other controls, such as another vaccine or a solution with inactive ingredients, as Johns Hopkins’ International Vaccine Access Center explains.
Moreover, while the trial process ensures a certain level of safety, trials are unlikely to be large enough to rule out side effects that are rare, the center says. That information can only come from vaccine safety surveillance systems and population-level studies with tens of thousands or millions of people.
“Safety is not determined by any one study,” John Grabenstein, a vaccinologist and director for scientific communications for the nonprofit Immunize.org, told us. “It’s determined by the collection of all of the studies.”
Kennedy’s statement that the “risk profile” of childhood vaccines is unknown without placebo-controlled trials is “clearly false,” Jeffrey S. Morris, director of the division of biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, told us, because it “dismisses all of the other studies and data that are present.”
“Many of these vaccines have been given for a long, long time,” Dr. Kathryn Edwards, a now-retired Vanderbilt University vaccinologist, told us. “Their safety profiles have been confirmed with observational studies involving millions of children.”
With Kennedy at the helm of HHS, the focus on narrowly defined placebo-controlled trials for vaccines has begun to shape messaging and policy. In May, as we wrote, an HHS spokesperson said “very little” is known about “the actual risk profiles” of vaccines because of a lack of testing against an “inert placebo,” and suggested that regulators would require placebo testing for all “new” vaccines. A few weeks later, the Food and Drug Administration indicated it would now require new placebo-controlled trials to approve updated COVID-19 vaccines for lower-risk populations.
In December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which Kennedy had remade earlier in the year, hosted Aaron Siri, a vaccine injury lawyer, who emphasized the lack of pre-licensure placebo-controlled trials for routine injected childhood vaccines in a more than 90-minute presentation.
And when the CDC unilaterally cut the number of universally recommended childhood vaccines in January, officials noted a lack of placebo-controlled trials for some shots. (On March 16, a judge temporarily blocked that policy and all others made by the current ACIP, preliminarily finding that the government likely had not followed proper procedures when making vaccine schedule changes and appointing committee members. HHS has since issued a new charter for ACIP, altering the rules to permit other experts, including those specializing in “recovery from serious vaccine injuries.”)
While we’ve addressed the vaccine-placebo claim several times before, it remains a persistent misconception. Here, we discuss it in detail, explaining why certain childhood vaccines were not tested against saline placebos — and why scientists say that’s not a reason for concern.
As we’ve explained before, those making these claims are very strict in their definition of a placebo. They accept saltwater, or saline, as a placebo control, or another substance they say would be “inert” — but often don’t count similar controls that contain inactive ingredients to match aspects of the vaccine’s formulation but lack the antigen, which is the key part of the vaccine that the immune system responds to in order to generate protection.
These inactive ingredients can include surfactants to keep the vaccine well-mixed; stabilizers, preservatives or buffers to keep the vaccines safe and long-lasting; as well as trace ingredients leftover from the vaccine manufacturing process.
“Even though it’s not a saline placebo, it is considered a valid placebo,” Morris said.
In fact, perhaps the most famous placebo-controlled vaccine trial — the massive 1954 Salk polio vaccine trial — used a reddish liquid virtually identical to the one in the vaccine, but without killed polio virus, as a placebo. As the pediatrician Dr. Vincent Iannelli explains on his Vaxopedia blog, this was done to help keep participants and the people running the trial unaware of who got a placebo versus a real vaccine, or what’s known as blinding.
The varicella, or chickenpox, vaccine, was also tested against a placebo that contained a stabilizer and a trace amount of the antibiotic neomycin. The vaccine contains trace neomycin because it is made by growing weakened virus in cells and the antibiotic is used to prevent contamination. While most of the neomycin is removed in purification, a residual amount remains.
There is no evidence that this trace antibiotic causes any problems, except for rare individuals who are allergic, the University of Oxford’s Vaccine Knowledge Project explains. Even for those who are allergic, the risk is theoretical, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia notes, as minute amounts of antibiotics in vaccines “have never been clearly found to cause severe allergic reactions.”
“Studies involving approximately 11,000 children and adults followed for periods ranging from 2 to 12 years showed the vaccine to be safe and effective,” two FDA scientists wrote in the Journal of Pediatrics, explaining the agency’s decision to approve the chickenpox vaccine in 1995. “No severe side effects attributable to vaccination were reported in healthy recipients,” they added.
Continued safety monitoring — including a review of 22 years of postmarketing safety data — has borne out the overall safety of the chickenpox vaccine.
The two available rotavirus vaccines, which are given orally, also used solutions with various inactive ingredients as placebo controls when they were evaluated in randomized controlled trials.
Activists opposed to the childhood vaccination schedule also don’t accept controls that include adjuvants, which are ingredients that help the immune system respond to a vaccine and create a more protective response, sometimes lowering the number of needed doses or the amount of antigen. Adjuvants often cause temporary, local reactions, such as redness and swelling at an injection site, and therefore can be useful when a trial is blinded.
One of the issues with a saline placebo is that there usually isn’t any kind of typical, mild vaccine reaction, which could tip someone off that they received a placebo. If people know they received a placebo, they might alter their behavior, which could change their risk for the disease in question, or change their perception of any side effects.
Trials that use adjuvant controls isolate the effect of the vaccine’s active ingredient, or antigen, and determine if it is responsible for additional side effects, Johns Hopkins and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia explain. One commonly used adjuvant is aluminum, which groups such as Children’s Health Defense have long claimed is problematic. But the available scientific evidence does not indicate it is dangerous in the small amounts present in vaccines, as we’ve explained when reporting on such claims in the past.
“The way aluminum is processed is that the vaccine stays near the injection site and is released more slowly over time,” Charlotte Moser, co-director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told us. The prolonged exposure makes for a strong immune response, but does tend to cause pain, redness and inflammation at the injection site. Including the adjuvant in the control “makes the experiment more robust,” Moser said.
In other cases, other vaccines are used as a control, both to preserve blinding and because of ethical concerns.
“Often what you’re doing is comparing a new vaccine with an old vaccine,” Edwards said. If a vaccine against a particular pathogen already exists, it usually is unethical to withhold the vaccine. “Unvaccinated children can contract dangerous illnesses,” the American Academy of Pediatrics explains. “Parents of children in the placebo group would not know they didn’t get the vaccine and that their child is unprotected.” And in many cases, part of the scientific question is whether the new vaccine is at least as good as the old one.
Other vaccines may still be used as controls even with a new vaccine if it’s determined that doing so would be needed to provide some benefit to all participants.
The New York University medical ethicist Arthur Caplan and colleagues wrote in a July 2025 article published in EMBO Reports that placebo controls “are very rarely ethical in vaccine trials,” and only permitted if there is genuine uncertainty — or what researchers call equipoise — about the benefit of the vaccine.
The issue of placebos is particularly fraught with studies involving children. Although the FDA has not traditionally had its own guidelines for placebos in vaccine trials, it has issued specialized guidelines for medical products involving children, emphasizing that trials should “maximize benefit and minimize risk.”
The agency told us in 2023 that a “placebo control, such as saline, is not required to determine the safety (or effectiveness) of a vaccine” and that in some cases is “considered unethical.”
The use of an adjuvant or other vaccine as a control does not mean the vaccine hasn’t been sufficiently studied for safety, experts told us.
“The concerns being raised around the need for fully inert placebos aim to distract,” Moser said, adding that the “notion that companies are making vaccines and not testing them appropriately is completely unfounded.”
“Every childhood vaccine is studied extensively before licensing, and the FDA and its counterparts around the world have to agree to the study designs before those studies are even conducted,” Grabenstein said. “It’s up to the FDA to choose the acceptable comparator.”
When the FDA reviews a product, Grabenstein noted, regulators scrutinize the data by reviewing information on each study participant.
“You’re seeing a part of the tip of the iceberg,” he said of the information presented in a vaccine’s package insert. “Regulators have reviewed far more extensive original data.” (Grabenstein worked for Merck Vaccines for more than a decade. He said he has no financial ties to the company now.)
Before licensure of any major new vaccine, an independent committee of experts typically also advises the agency on whether to approve the vaccine; a similar process occurs within the CDC when the agency decides how approved vaccines will be used.
In an email, Bigtree objected to the notion of accepting non-inert placebo trials if the FDA allows them, saying “that this is what consumer advocacy groups like ICAN,” Bigtree’s nonprofit, “are for,” and going on to point to instances of FDA failures. He allowed that efficacy trials could use other controls, but said that for safety trials, the placebo must not have any pharmacological effect. “To establish a true safety baseline equivalent to a person receiving ‘nothing at all’, only a saline placebo is acceptable,” he said. “That is not my opinion, that is scientific fact.”
Bigtree also said that “virtually every independent expert who has evaluated systems like VAERS,” the CDC and FDA’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, “describes them as inaccurate, underpowered, and fundamentally unreliable,” although he still thought they could “yield meaningful studies … if there were any institutional appetite for transparency and honest inquiry.”
As we have explained before, VAERS is just one of several surveillance systems the government uses to monitor vaccine safety. While VAERS is passive, accepting voluntary, unverified reports of potential vaccine side effects, other systems are active, automatically collecting information at regular intervals. While no system is perfect, the surveillance systems have successfully identified problems with certain vaccines, which led to restrictions on or the removal of some from the market.
A placebo “can mean saline, and it can be something else considered inert. However, that would not include, for example, adjuvants,” a senior partner for Siri’s law firm said when we asked several questions about Siri’s statements in his presentation before ACIP. “Mr. Siri’s publicly available presentations and writings make plain the issues with post-licensure safety.”
HHS did not respond to a request for comment.
It’s worth noting that for some vaccines, placebo or other randomized controlled trials have also occurred after licensure. Activists’ claims about placebo-controlled trials often focus on pre-licensure studies, but studies done after U.S. approval are part of the overall evidence on a vaccine or general vaccine antigen.
Scientists “continue to study vaccines after they are licensed, and yes, controls are included,” Moser said.
In his presentation before ACIP, Siri repeatedly claimed that childhood vaccines had been insufficiently tested for safety.
“The concern is that not one of them was licensed based on a inert, a placebo-controlled clinical trial,” he said, referring to the “standalone, routine, injected” childhood vaccines on the vaccine schedule. “Nor was any vaccine used as a control to license any of those vaccines licensed based on a placebo-controlled trial.”
As one key example, Siri highlighted the pneumococcal vaccine, noting that the current childhood pneumococcal vaccines were licensed based on trials with earlier versions of the vaccine, but that the first licensed vaccine — Prevnar 7 — had been tested against an investigational vaccine that had not yet been approved.
“That’s not an appropriate control. It does not establish a baseline of safety,” he said. Earlier in the meeting, he said that since Prevnar 7 was the first of its kind, “there was certainly no excuse to not use an inert control for that trial.” Siri, who has represented and advised Kennedy, has filed petitions on behalf of ICAN to pause distribution of vaccines or remove them from the market. He also said that the pneumococcal vaccine trial data “raises some very serious safety concerns.”
Scientists, however, told us there were ethical reasons for choosing an investigational vaccine as the control, and that safety was extensively studied.
“Subjecting what turned out to be half of more than 37,000 children to four injections — and these are infants and young children — with no potential benefit whatsoever was not ethical,” Dr. Steven Black, a pediatric infectious disease specialist and veteran vaccine clinical trialist who was involved in the original Prevnar trial, told us. The pneumococcal vaccine is given at 2, 4, 6 and 12 through 15 months of age.
The initial decision to use another vaccine as the control was his, he said, but when he presented the plan to the study’s Institutional Review Board, an independent committee that protects the rights and welfare of trial participants, he said the group “concurred that given the option of an active control vaccine that could provide benefit, that vaccinating so many children with four doses of saline was unethical.”
“We felt that by providing a control vaccine against meningococcal disease, for which there was not a vaccine in use in the United States at that time, would provide the potential of some protection for those infants,” Black said.
The decision to use an investigational vaccine was out of necessity.
“There was really a limited menu,” Black explained. “Most of the vaccines that you might have chosen were already recommended routinely,” preventing their inclusion as a control in a trial.
The team therefore chose a meningococcal vaccine that, like the pneumococcal vaccine, had been through phase 2 trials. Phase 2 is the step before the main, large trial, but after basic safety testing in phase 1.
Black, who is the co-director of the Global Vaccine Data Network, noted that following the Prevnar trial, the investigational vaccine was used in the U.K. during a meningococcal outbreak. “The U.K. felt comfortable with the safety data from the control,” he said.
Black said the safety assessment in the Prevnar trial “was the most extensive of any safety evaluation for a phase 3 trial that had been conducted in the United States prior to that.” Medical professionals looked each time a child in either vaccine group sought medical attention to see if there was a potential vaccine concern, he said, and any serious event was reported to the FDA.
“When the trial results were presented to the FDA review committee, the chair of the committee commented that in terms of the safety assessment, the bar had been raised by this trial for the conduct of future trials,” Black said.
The data safety monitoring board monitored all the safety events as they were occurring, Black added, and if there had been a cluster of events, the trial would have been unblinded. “We would have notified the FDA,” he said. “So we were not only looking at individual events, we were looking for patterns as well and didn’t see any.”
Additional safety data accrued in post-licensure studies of the original vaccine, as well as in the trials testing newer versions of the vaccine against its predecessors. Today’s pneumococcal vaccines for children target either 15 or 20 pneumococcal bacterial serotypes.
The vaccine, Black said, has been “extremely effective in reducing the risk of invasive pneumococcal disease in children” and indirectly has reduced carriage of the bacteria and disease in parents and grandparents. “The number of lives saved has been tremendous,” he said. “And serious confirmed safety concerns have not been identified despite millions of doses having been given.”
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The post The Persistent Misleading Claim That Vaccines Aren’t Properly Tested for Safety appeared first on FactCheck.org.
Case centers on glyphosate, pesticide used in Roundup and other products that has been linked to cancer in some studies
Members of the US supreme court peppered lawyers for the former Monsanto Company with a barrage of questions over pesticide regulation on Monday, wrestling over whether federal law preempts state actions that permit consumers to sue companies for failing to warn of product risks such as cancer.
The case, Monsanto v Durnell, centers on glyphosate – a weedkilling chemical used in the popular Roundup brand and numerous other herbicide products sold by the former Monsanto company, which is now owned by Germany’s Bayer.
Continue reading...The pageantry began Monday amid heightened security concerns and a growing rift over the Iran war. The U.K. hopes the president’s love of pomp and the king’s “poker face” can help heal their alliance.
You'll now be able to access workouts in the same place you stream music.
Regime used its isolation after closing borders to escalate killings when global scrutiny disappeared, NGO claims
North Korea dramatically increased its use of the death penalty after closing its borders during the Covid-19 pandemic, using its isolation to escalate killings when international scrutiny disappeared, according to a report mapping 13 years of executions under the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un.
The number of documented cases of executions and death sentences increased by 117% in the nearly five years after North Korea sealed its borders in January 2020 compared with an equal period before the closure, according to a report by the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), a human rights NGO in Seoul.
Continue reading...Teammates said they were dating last year
Fudd was drafted No 1 overall by Wings this year
Paige Bueckers has said her relationship with her new Dallas Wings teammate Azzi Fudd “is nobody’s business but our own”.
Bueckers and Fudd were college teammates at UConn and were reunited when the Wings chose Fudd with the No 1 overall pick in this year’s WNBA draft. The pair confirmed they were dating last year, but have offered few details of their relationship since and it is uncertain if they are still even together.
Continue reading...In an open letter, Google workers say doing a deal with the Department of Defense would hurt the tech giant's reputation.
As more and more information is published about the suspect in the latest possible assassination attempt on President Donald Trump, commentators are in a typical scramble to assign an ideology or clear politics to the 31-year-old man.
There’s not a lot to glean so far about Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California. A since-deleted Bluesky account reportedly linked to the suspect included run-of-the-mill criticisms of the Trump administration; he lists himself as a self-employed video game designer and part-time teacher. According to reports, he studied mechanical engineering and computer science, was part of a Christian fellowship, and also a nerdy-sounding club for students to have battles with foam toys. He reportedly donated $25 to ActBlue in 2024 earmarked for Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. He was a registered voter with “no party preference” in California. From the evidence available so far, the suspect seems to be a normie.
Trump’s regime can give rise to a normie suspected assassin because the brutality and violence it has so wholly normalized, and the impunity it has reveled in, is deranging. In a piece of writing Allen left behind before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, derangement peeks through between clear reasons for targeting administration officials.
He includes chirpy asides (“stay in school kids”), and bounces between formal and casual registers throughout. He lists as his targets “Administration officials (not including Mr. Patel),” without explaining why FBI Director Kash Patel is named for exemption. His final message is more a summary explanation than a manifesto.
But in his more lucid moments, Allen cites concerns that people from across the political spectrum share about Trump and his administration.
“I am a citizen of the United States of America. What my representatives do reflects on me,” Allen wrote in the missive covered by multiple outlets. “I’m no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” he added, without specifically naming the president.
Republicans have, of course, been swift to blame Democrats for the shooting. Trump, who earlier this month threatened to annihilate the “whole civilization” of Iran and revels in his regime’s anti-immigrant violence, told CBS News on Sunday that he thinks the “hate speech of the Democrats … is very dangerous.”
The president described the suspect’s message as “anti-Christian,” though Allen identifies with Christian faith in his writing. “Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial. I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration,” Allen wrote. “Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.”
The reasons Allen cites for his fury are not conspiratorial or weighted with ideology. He points to crimes and acts of extreme violence that the administration has either committed or been complicit in, while seeming to fear no constraints or consequences.
The suspect appears to be no devotee of the Democratic Party and no committed leftist. Republicans haven’t even bothered to wheel out the antifa boogeyman; nothing points to any such identification. Allen expressed anger about the Trump administration’s crimes, its acts of oppression, alleged connections to Jeffrey Epstein’s pedophile ring, and impunity. Such anger is not the preserve of the left, or even of liberals.
Allen reportedly targeted Trump and members of his administration, whereas the three previous attempted attacks on Trump’s life appeared to aim only at the president. There is little uniting the suspects involved, except that they were all men in a country awash with guns and threadbare mental health care and support resources at a time of normalized deadly violence and U.S.-backed genocide.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, whose bullet scraped Trump’s ear at a Pennsylvania rally in 2024, was a registered Republican but not active in right-wing organizing. Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, convicted of plotting to kill Trump at his West Palm Springs resort in Florida in 2024, espoused eclectic anti-establishment politics, having voted for Trump in 2016 before becoming an ardent critic; he was also an obsessive supporter of Ukraine. Austin Tucker Martin, 21, was fatally shot by Secret Service agents after crashing his vehicle into the security perimeter of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in February of this year. His loved ones said he was never interested in politics.
There is no consistency in the varied and messy worldviews of Trump’s would-be assassins. If media commentators and politicians want to make banal points about the rise in political violence, there is only one consistently violent ideology to trace throughout these cases: the fascistic ideology of far-right Republicans and their leader.
After expressing gratitude for his family, friends, colleagues, and church, Allen ended his message, “I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done.”
The post How Trump’s America Produces Normie Assassins appeared first on The Intercept.
Musk’s lawsuit accuses Altman of fraud, while OpenAI says that Musk is ‘motivated by jealousy’
A trial between two of Silicon Valley’s biggest tycoons kicked off on Monday in California, the culmination of a years-long bitter feud. Elon Musk has accused Sam Altman of betraying the founding agreement of the non-profit they started together, OpenAI, by changing it to a for-profit enterprise.
Jury selection began at a federal courthouse in Oakland with Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers presiding. As she began, she assured the dozens of prospective jurors that this trial wasn’t going to be highly technical, despite it centering around artificial intelligence. “This is just a case about promises and breaches of promises, it won’t get technical at all,” she said.
Continue reading...Fiona Hill tells MPs UK is ‘vulnerable’ because it does not educate people on how to deal with information warfare
Britain is becoming a soft target for Russian and other state propaganda because the UK is not prepared to educate people on how to deal with information warfare, according to a former White House adviser and security expert.
Fiona Hill told a parliamentary committee that she feared the UK had become “extraordinarily vulnerable” to online manipulation feeding into the electoral system because there was a lack of discussion about civil defence.
Continue reading...Surviving troops disputed Pentagon's account of the attack on the command post in Kuwait, saying the unit "was unprepared" to defend itself.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla are aiming to strengthen the "special relationship" the U.S. and United Kingdom have had since World War II.
Cole Allen, the man accused of opening fire at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, was charged with trying to assassinate President Trump.
Cole Allen was charged Monday in federal court with three counts including attempt to assassinate the president.
China has blocked Meta's planned $2 billion acquisition of AI startup Manus, ordering the deal withdrawn after months of scrutiny from both Beijing and Washington. "The decision to prohibit foreign investment in Manus was made in accordance with laws and regulations," reports CNBC, citing the National Development and Reform Commission. "It added that it has asked the parties involved to withdraw the acquisition transaction." From the report: The deal had attracted scrutiny from both China and Washington, as lawmakers in the U.S. have prohibited American investors from backing Chinese AI companies directly. Meanwhile, Beijing has increased efforts to discourage Chinese AI founders from moving business offshore. The Chinese government's intervention in the transaction drew alarm among tech founders and venture capitalists in the country who were hoping to take advantage of the so-called Singapore-washing model, where companies relocate from China to the city-state to avoid scrutiny from Beijing and Washington. Manus was founded in China before relocating to Singapore. The company develops general purpose AI agents and launched its first general AI agent in March last year, which can execute complex tasks such as market research, coding and data analysis. The release saw the startup lauded as the next DeepSeek. Manus said it had passed $100 million in annual recurring revenue, or ARR, in December, eight months on from launching a product, which it claimed made it the fastest startup in the world at the time to hit the milestone from $0. The company raised $75 million in a round led by U.S. VC Benchmark in April last year.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A reputable leaker says new Samsung foldables will get smaller selfie cameras.
First lady Melania Trump said that jokes Jimmy Kimmel made on his show days before the White House Correspondents' Dinner were "hateful and violent rhetoric."
The prime minister faces a standards investigation over Mandelson affair and testimony from Morgan McSweeney
Keir Starmer has told Labour MPs to “stick together and fight together” as ministers launched a massive operation to shore up his fragile position before a critical day for his premiership.
The prime minister faces the double threat of a standards investigation into his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US and a potentially damaging testimony from Morgan McSweeney, his former chief of staff.
Continue reading...This morning my Onewheel showed an error saying my foot was on the footpad even though it wasn’t.
Here’s what I tried:
I’m planning to replace the footpad soon, but for now I’m wondering if it’s safe to ride.
Should savers lock in a CD account interest rate after this week's Fed meeting? It could be a smart move. Here's why.
The move against Manus AI is Beijing’s most aggressive step yet to stanch the loss of AI talent to the United States, setting up a complicated legal and political fight.
The London-based consumer electronics brand released and then removed its new file-sharing app in favor of a more cumbersome tool.
Also: Sporting Kansas City are on pace for one of MLS’s worst-ever season, and Matt Turner is giving USMNT fans something to think about
In his near-30-year run as a head coach in the elite tier of American soccer, Bruce Arena has never claimed to be a tactical genius. In fact he has expressed open contempt for the concept, routinely brushing off well-meaning questions from journalists about formations and strategic approaches. He once memorably said that “we have a very important analytic, and that’s the score.”
It’s an attitude that’s almost wholly out of step with the way managers operate in 2026. Arena gets away with it because he wins, and he wins in large part because of the way he sets out the roles and expectations for his players. Robbie Keane, Arena’s star striker at LA Galaxy, once called him the “Sir Alex Ferguson of America.” Matt Turner, who during Arena’s tenure at the New England Revolution rose to be a USMNT starter, praised the “super powerful thing” Arena offers his players through man management.
Continue reading...Trips is a new feature that recognizes and curates important details from plane tickets, event bookings and more.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: When the Call Federal Credit Union outside Richmond, Va., was robbed at gunpoint in 2019, the suspect took $195,000 from the bank's vault and fled before the police arrived. A detective interviewed witnesses and reviewed the bank's security footage. But with no leads, the officer relied on a so-called geofence warrant to sweep up location data from all the cellphones in the vicinity of the bank for the 30 minutes before and after the robbery. The data he gathered eventually led to the identification and conviction of Okello T. Chatrie, now 31, a Jamaican immigrant who came to the United States in 2017. Geofence searches have become increasingly popular as a tool for law enforcement, but critics say they put at risk the personal data of everyday Americans and violate the Constitution. Mr. Chatrie challenged the use of a geofence warrant in his conviction, in a case that will be heard by the Supreme Court on Monday. The justices will examine how the Constitution's traditional protections apply to rapidly changing technology that has made it easier for the police to scoop up vast amounts of data to assemble a detailed look at a person's movements and activities. It has been eight years since the court last took up a major Fourth Amendment case involving the expectations of privacy for the millions of people carrying cellphones in the digital age. In that 2018 case, the court ruled that the government generally needs a warrant to collect location data drawn from cell towers about the customers of cellphone companies. The court has also limited the government's ability to use GPS devices to track suspects' movements, and it has required that law enforcement get a warrant to search individual cellphones. In Mr. Chatrie's case, the government did obtain a warrant, but one that his legal team said was overly broad, violating Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Residents and visitors in California alert each other whenever they spot the above average size animal at Pier 39
A gigantic 2,000lb Steller sea lion nicknamed “Chonkers” has become an unexpected local celebrity after taking up residence in the San Francisco Bay.
The massive sea lion swam up to a dock on Pier 39 in San Francisco about a month ago and has remained in the area since, drawing attention from residents, visitors and social media users who have been sharing frequent photos and videos of the animal looming over its peers.
Continue reading...Verizon lowered the costs of its plans this year. We pick our favorites.
German chancellor suggests Trump administration is being outwitted at negotiating table by Tehran
The US is being “humiliated” by Iran’s leadership, according to Friedrich Merz, Germany’s chancellor, who suggested the Trump administration was being outwitted at the negotiating table by Tehran.
Two days ago Donald Trump cancelled a trip by US negotiators to Islamabad for indirect talks with an Iranian delegation. A previous round in the Pakistani capital two weeks earlier, when JD Vance, the American vice-president, led the US delegation, broke up without progress.
Continue reading...Ellen Mulvey ran up huge betting losses online and wrote ‘addiction is the worst disease’ before she died
A family is calling for wholesale reform of the gambling industry after an inquest heard details of the life and death of Ellen Mulvey, a “generous and caring” woman with a high-flying City job who also had a secret addiction.
Mulvey’s family believe she lost hundreds of thousands of pounds gambling without their knowledge, first via mainstream operators and then on unlicensed platforms.
Continue reading...Fans warned of uncertainty around protests and policing
Lise Klaveness set to raise concerns over ICE with Fifa
This summer’s World Cup will be a “bonanza of sportswashing” according to human rights organisations, who claim the Trump administration is using sport as a political tool to “cover up abuses”.
With supporter groups warning they have “absolutely no clue” what will happen to fans if they do “stupid stuff” in the US during the tournament, the Sport and Rights Alliance (SRA), which includes Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International, has called for more to be done to ensure the protection of individual rights at the World Cup, which begins in six weeks.
Continue reading...  | Hey folks. My aunt gave me her Onewheel yesterday, and I’m trying to find mine info on it. Specifically the model and possibly the age? On the deck it says “PR” and on the side rail it just says “onewheel +”. I’m having fun learning to ride it, but if anyone can help me figure out exactly what I have, it would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks! [link] [comments] |
The cost of vet care keeps climbing, but skipping a visit isn't your only option when your budget runs short.
Long-running dispute could be resolved as improved offer is made to workers, who first began strike in January 2025
The end of the year-long Birmingham bin strike is now “within sight”, the city council leader has said after committing to an improved offer for refuse workers.
On Monday, John Cotton, the Labour leader of Birmingham city council, said a new, improved offer could be made to workers that he hoped would “end the strike once and for all”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Sources say chancellor is examining exceptional measures to protect household budgets
Rachel Reeves is considering imposing a one-year rent freeze on private sector homes amid growing alarm in government about the impact of the Iran war on voters’ budgets.
Landlords in England would be banned from raising rents for a limited period of time under the proposals, which are being debated within government as part of a major cost of living package to be launched in the coming weeks.
Continue reading...Archaeologists found the victim holding a terracotta mortar, which they interpret as an improvised attempt to shield his head.
GitHub said in a blog post today that it is moving Copilot to usage-based billing starting June 1. Base subscription prices will remain the same but premium requests will be replaced with monthly AI Credits that are consumed based on token usage. "Instead of counting premium requests, every Copilot plan will include a monthly allotment of GitHub AI Credits, with the option for paid plans to purchase additional usage," the platform said. "Usage will be calculated based on token consumption, including input, output, and cached tokens, using the listed API rates for each model. This change aligns Copilot pricing with actual usage and is an important step toward a sustainable, reliable Copilot business and experience for all users." Documentation for individuals, businesses and enterprises, and an FAQ can be found at their respective links.
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Sources say staff have been asked to pack up final stock and equipment after waves of closures
Jewellery and accessories chain Claire’s is closing its final UK stores on Tuesday with the loss of more than 1,000 jobs and ending three decades on British high streets.
Sources said staff at Claire’s, which had 154 stores when it collapsed in January, had been asked to pack up the final stock and equipment with the remaining outlets to formally close on Tuesday after successive waves of closures in recent weeks.
Continue reading...Claudia Sheinbaum says Mexico was not aware of US participation until four officials were killed in car crash
Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, said on Monday that her government told the United States, in a diplomatic note, that the unauthorized presence of US officials at an anti-narcotics operation in the northern state of Chihuahua should not be repeated.
The incident came to light after two US officials, along with two Mexican officials, were killed in a car crash on 19 April after the operation. Sheinbaum has said the federal government was not aware of the participation of the US officials, who were widely reported to be CIA officers.
Continue reading...The measure would impose a one-time, 5% tax on the state's roughly 200 billionaires to fund public programs.
Rapid development has been shrinking the jungle habitat of the critically endangered species, and fatal conflicts with people have been increasing.
Deal comes five years after Shell sold its US shale business and is its biggest acquisition for a decade
Shell has agreed to buy Canadian shale producer ARC Resources for $16.4bn, five years after Europe’s biggest gas and oil producer sold its US shale business.
The deal, which includes $13.6bn in cash and shares and taking on ARC’s $2.8bn debt, would be Shell’s biggest acquisition since it bought BG Group a decade ago.
Continue reading...The monarch must do his best to wrest some diplomatic advantage from an ill-timed trip, which Donald Trump will treat as a personal tribute
When King Charles’s mother became the first British monarch to address the United States Congress in 1991, she spoke in the aftermath of the US-led response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, in which more than 50,000 UK troops participated. Queen Elizabeth II used the occasion to celebrate the role of the transatlantic alliance in upholding the rule of international law: “Some people believe that power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” she told her Capitol Hill audience. “So it can, but history shows that it never grows well nor for very long.”
Different monarch, different times and a very different America. As the king embarks on a four‑day state visit to the United States, a foiled assault by a gunman believed to be targeting members of the Trump administration illustrated the extent to which political violence has become endemic in a deeply polarised country. Globally, Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran (and prior to that the abduction by US special forces of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro) underlines that in the view of the present White House, the possessors of military might have the right to set their own rules.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...After she had to travel out of state to access care, Rachel Fulton joined the Center for Reproductive Rights’ suit, which an appeal has now halted indefinitely
It was the worst day of Rachel Fulton’s life. She stood outside her doctor’s office, reeling with the news that her dearly wanted pregnancy needed to end. But her day would, somehow, become even worse: Fulton lives in Tennessee, where abortion is banned except for very narrow threats to the patient’s life. She had to travel hours to another state to receive care from an unfamiliar doctor far from home.
Fulton joined a lawsuit, along with five other patients, in 2023 against the state of Tennessee for violating their right to life. The American Medical Association and two doctors also joined the lawsuit because they say they have been prevented from providing the standard of care for their patients.
Continue reading...Friedrich Merz says he cannot see what exit strategy US has in its war with Iran, warning 'an entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards'
Continue reading...Man, 57, was watching snake-charming show when reptile crawled into his trousers, say German police
A German tourist has died after a snake crawled into his trousers and bit him as he watched a show in Egypt on a family holiday, police in Germany have said.
The 57-year-old man was watching the snake-charming show at a hotel in Hurghada, a popular beach holiday destination on the Red Sea, in early April.
Continue reading...The day after a gunman attempted to storm the White House Correspondents' Dinner, President Trump sat down with CBS News' Norah O'Donnell for a "60 Minutes" interview to talk about his experience.
Cocaine-trafficking rebels blamed for worst attack on civilians in decades, which also left 56 people injured
The death toll in a Colombian highway bombing blamed on cocaine-trafficking rebels has risen to 21, the government said on Monday, in the country’s worst attack on civilians in decades and just ahead of elections.
The attack on Saturday left 56 injured and buses and vans mangled on the Pan-American Highway, in the restive south-western Cauca department.
Continue reading...Proposal from Ron DeSantis would net Republicans up to four additional US House seats ahead of midterm elections
Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, on Monday unveiled his proposal for redistricting his state’s congressional maps, a move he hopes will net his party up to four additional House seats in November’s midterm elections.
The long-awaited reveal, which will be debated during a special session of Florida’s legislature called by DeSantis beginning on Tuesday, is the latest, and possibly final, act of a nationwide “gerrymandering” battle for control of Congress sparked by Donald Trump that looks increasingly to be moving back in Republicans’ favor.
Continue reading...Supreme Court justices often gain colorful epithets. John Marshall Harlan is “The Great Dissenter.” William Rehnquist is “The Lone Ranger.” There is only one justice, however, who is referred to with the unqualified “The Great,” who was not only an influential jurist but “The Definer of a Nation”: Chief Justice John Marshall. In the words of longtime friend and colleague Justice Joseph Story, “[h]is proudest epitaph may be written in a single line—‘Here lies the expounder of the Constitution.’”
John Marshall was born in September 1755 in Fauquier County, Virginia. His paternal ancestors were typical working-class landowners. Marshall’s father, Thomas Marshall, became a successful surveyor and spent several years in local and state government. On his mother’s side, Marshall was the descendant of the Scottish and English upper classes, connecting him with the wealthy Jeffersons and Randolphs. Unlike his well-to-do relatives, Marshall had a humble upbringing on the Virginia frontier.
In 1775, when news of the battles of Lexington and Concord spread throughout the colonies, Marshall was just 19 years old. At that time he was second in command in the local militia, and was called upon to rally and drill his men. He soon joined the newly established Virginia Minute-Men, becoming first lieutenant of the Fauquier Rifles. Marshall traveled north to join George Washington’s Continental Army in January 1777 where he served during the terrible winter at Valley Forge. Marshall weathered the storm, and by the end of the war he was not only promoted to captain but was selected by George Washington to serve as deputy judge advocate of the Continental Army.
An early career of public service
After concluding his military service, Marshall enrolled in law lectures with George Wythe, a course of study which would shape the mind of the future chief justice. Under Wythe, Marshall read seminal works like Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, participated in moot courts, and produced a remarkable 238-page commonplace book filled with all he had learned as a student. After completing his studies, Marshall successfully ran for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1782. Marshall would resign from his government post in 1785 to focus on his law practice, but he rejoined the House in 1787 due, in part, to his concern about the state of the nation in the aftermath of Shays’ Rebellion, a violent protest against high taxes and oppressive debt collection that highlighted the weakness of the Articles of Confederation.
Marshall was reelected to Virginia’s House of Delegates in 1787 which allowed him to join the fight in Virginia over ratification of the Constitution in March 1788. While the major debates played out between James Madison, Patrick Henry, and Edmond Pendleton, Marshall’s speeches offered succinct articulations of core Federalist arguments such as the importance of the states’ banding together for mutual security. In perhaps his most important speech, Marshall defended the federal judiciary. “If [Congress] were to make a law not warranted by any of the powers enumerated,” argued Marshall, “it would be considered by the Judges as an infringement of the Constitution which they are to guard. . . . They would declare it void.” This statement, which foreshadows Marshall’s greatest decision as chief justice, emphasized his belief that federal courts exist to safeguard the Constitution. After much debate, the final vote was 89 to 79 in favor of ratification.
Following Virginia's ratification of the Constitution, Marshall focused on his law practice in Richmond, even turning down appointments to be U.S. attorney of Virginia and Attorney General. Marshall did eventually agree to join a special delegation to Paris in 1797 in an attempt to negotiate a new treaty. The French ambassadors, labeled X, Y, and Z by their American counterparts, demanded a bribe. The Americans refused to pay, but the situation became a public scandal, known as the XYZ Affair, which increased hostilities with France. After returning to America, Marshall briefly served in the Sixth Congress before accepting an appointment as Secretary of State to John Adams in May 1800.
Marshall on the Supreme Court
In January 1801, President John Adams signed the commission making John Marshall the fourth Chief Justice of the United States. The Supreme Court on which Marshall found himself was not yet a coequal constitutional actor. His first acts subtly strengthened the Court as an institution and his preeminent place within it. Beginning in 1801, whenever the Court convened, Marshall saw to it that they all stayed in the same place, a decision which led to greater unanimity and camaraderie among the justices.
The first major case of his tenure, Talbot v. Seeman, is important not for its facts but for the manner in which the Court chose to express itself: for the first time, the decision was labelled “Opinion of the Court.” Before this case, the Court wrote seriatim opinions, meaning that each justice would write separately and there was no one majority opinion. Chief Justice Marshall ensured that the Court spoke with one voice.
“It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is,” wrote Chief Justice Marshall in Marbury v. Madison. The controversy behind the case began when the outgoing President John Adams signed a commission appointing William Marbury to a judicial post. The Jefferson administration refused to deliver Marbury’s commission. Marbury asked the Court to issue a writ of mandamus, essentially an order, to compel the Secretary of State to deliver the commission. In 1803, the Court dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction and, in so doing, established that the Supreme Court had judicial review over acts of Congress.
While the concept of judicial review was nothing new, and the Court had considered the constitutionality of an act of Congress in Hylton v. United States, the Court never fully articulated or used this power before Marbury.
In this step lies Marshall’s legal genius. Judicial review, argued Marshall, was necessary to maintain the separation of powers. Without this power, the Constitution would give to Congress “a practical and real omnipotence, with the same breath which professes to restrict their powers within narrow limits.” Furthermore, judicial review is incidental to deciding cases “arising under the Constitution.” Could it be possible, asked Marshall, “[t]hat a case arising under the constitution should be decided, without examining the instrument under which it arises?” In the estimation of biographer Jean Edward Smith, Marshall’s opinion in Marbury remains “one of the greatest constitutional documents in American history.” The Chief Justice’s incisive logic, which made judicial review seem both obvious and necessary, has withstood the test of time.
Alongside Marbury, McCulloch v. Maryland is undoubtedly one of the most important (and quoted) decisions of the Marshall era. In 1818, Maryland imposed a tax on bank notes aimed at the Bank of the United States, a financial institution chartered by Congress to handle the federal government’s finances. The case raised the question of whether Congress had the power to establish the Bank.
In finding that Congress had the requisite authority, Marshall set down timeless principles that influence our government even today. He wrote that when one looks at the words of the Constitution, express terms such as “bank” or “corporation” do not exist, but instead powers “to lay and collect taxes,” “to borrow money,” “to regulate commerce” are present. To enumerate these powers, Marshall concluded, implies the means to carry them out, lest the Constitution is merely “a splendid bauble” devoid of effect. This doctrine, often called “implied powers,” has paved the way for numerous modern constructions of national power. In the estimation of biographer Kent Newmyer, McCulloch is “possibly the most far-reaching decision ever handed down by the Supreme Court.”
In David Currie’s searching study of constitutional law, he found that, in the 35 years John Marshall served on the Court, there was “but one constitutional case in which the Chief Justice recorded a dissent” and “only a handful in which he did not deliver the Court’s opinion.” For over three decades the Court was led by one man, almost always speaking in his voice and following his vision.
Chief Justice Marshall died in January 1835. It is said that the Liberty Bell, while ringing out in his honor, cracked. While this story is likely apocryphal, it gives a measure of the significance of Marshall’s death. Justice Joseph Story wrote a touching discourse on his life: “He was one of those, to whom centuries alone give birth; standing out, like beacon lights on the loftiest eminences, to guide, admonish, and instruct future generations, as well as the present.”
Tristan Worsham is a National Constitution Center content fellow and a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.
References:
David Currie, The Constitution at the Supreme Court: The First Hundred Years, 1789-1888 (1985)
Charles F. Hobson, “Defining the Office: John Marshall as Chief Justice,” 154 Pennsylvania Law Review (2006)
Michael J. Klarman, “How Great Were the “Great” Marshall Court Decisions?,” 87 Virginia Law Review (2001)
John Marshall, The Life of George Washington (1804)
Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall: Definer of a Nation (1996)
Pineland Road fire and Highway 82 fire have destroyed over 100 homes, and are part of large number of wildfires this spring in the US south
Heavy rain slowed the progress of two sprawling southern Georgia wildfires over the weekend, allowing crews to make some progress in containing the blazes that have destroyed more than 100 homes.
Although the rain helped the firefighting efforts, it wasn’t “nearly enough to put the fires out” and crews responded to 10 new blazes throughout the drought-stricken state Sunday, the Georgia Forestry Commission said on Monday.
Continue reading...It's a fantastic Steam Deck extension for your TV, and a lot more.
Bloomberg reports that Microsoft is ending revenue-sharing payments to OpenAI (paywalled; alternative source) and making the partnership non-exclusive. "The rapid pace of innovation requires us to continue to evolve our partnership to benefit our customers and both companies," Microsoft said Monday in a blog post. Bloomberg reports: The revised deal is meant to simplify a complicated relationship between two partners that has been foundational to OpenAI's rise and the broader AI boom. OpenAI has since pursued partnerships with multiple cloud providers, including Microsoft rival Amazon.com Inc., to meet its growing computing needs to build and service AI software to a wider audience. As part of OpenAI's restructuring last year as a for-profit business, Microsoft received a 27% ownership stake in the AI startup.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Families say ‘Ulm 5’ have been detained under extreme prison conditions since arrest last September
Five pro-Palestinian activists have appeared in court over an attack on an Israeli arms company in Germany, charged with causing approximately €1m of damage.
Prosecutors say the defendants, aged 25 to 40, trespassed and yelled pro-Palestinian statements as they destroyed office equipment, sensitive measuring devices and smashed windows at a site linked to Elbit Systems in the southern city of Ulm.
Continue reading...Details about the shooting at the White House correspondents' gala have started to surface as the alleged shooter is set to be charged. The suspect was able to get close to where Donald Trump and many other senior officials were gathered, before law enforcement officers stopped him. It happened less than two years after the US president was the target of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, and a subsequent attempt at a golf course in Florida. Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian's Washington bureau chief David Smith, who was in attendance
Continue reading...The trial comes at a pivotal moment for AI, a technology poised to bring advancement that could also drastically reshape humanity.
Severe storms put nearly 50 million at risk and follow a deadly weekend after tornado killed two people in Texas
Severe storms are expected to sweep across the mid-Mississippi valley and midwest regions of the US on Monday, putting nearly 50 million people at risk.
The storm prediction center has issued a level 4 out of 5 risk for severe thunderstorms across south-west Illinois and south-east Missouri, including major cities such as St Louis. Forecasters warned of “multiple strong to intense tornadoes, widespread severe/damaging wind gusts and scattered large to very large hail”, with some hail potentially reaching baseball size.
Continue reading...The singer’s company filed three applications on Friday after Matthew McConaughey launched similar strategy
Taylor Swift has filed applications to trademark her voice and image in a move seemingly designed to protect against AI misuse.
On 24 April, Swift’s company TAS Rights Management filed three trademark applications, Variety reports. Two of these are sound trademarks that cover Swift saying the phrases “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift” and “Hey, it’s Taylor.”
Continue reading...NASA's plan has three major components, which would eventually culminate in a constant human presence on the moon.
China sold goods worth about $148bn to EU in first quarter of year, but imported just $65bn
The EU is experiencing a prolonged “China shock” as a flood of Chinese EVs into Europe helped push Beijing to a record surplus with the bloc.
New data showed China’s trade surplus – where its exports to the EU exceeded imports from the bloc – was $83bn (£61bn) in the first three months of 2026.
Continue reading...Reports at the White House Correspondents' Dinner quickly began sharing what they knew when gunfire was heard outside the ballroom.
Aaron MacLean, a CBS News national security analyst who attended the White House Correspondents' Dinner, said he "was perplexed even before the incident" about security for the event.
“This war should not have taken place,” Sihasak Phuangketkeow said in an interview, adding that Thailand is approaching Russia and China amid its economic crisis.
California's proposed billionaire tax appears headed for the November ballot after backers said they gathered more than 1.5 million signatures, well above the threshold needed to qualify. SF Standard reports: Backers of the initiative announced this weekend that more than 1.5 million people signed a petition to bring the one-time, 5% wealth tax to a statewide vote come November. That's well beyond the 875,000 names needed to qualify the measure, and likely sufficient to account for illegible or invalid signatures. The Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers West, a union representing more than 120,000 healthcare workers, pitched the tax to make up for federal spending cuts that threaten to shutter hospitals(opens in new tab) and kick millions of people off medical insurance. Proponents of California's wealth tax estimate it would raise $100 billion in one-time revenue, even if some billionaires leave because of the measure. The nonpartisan California Legislative Analyst's Office forecasts tens of billions in upfront revenue, but cautioned that the tax could cost hundreds of millions or more a year if some billionaires move out of state. The proposal, which needs a simple majority to pass, would apply to assets of people with net worth of $1 billion or more who lived in California as of Jan. 1 this year. That means it would affect about 200 people, according to the SEIU-UHW.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Past rumors have speculated that the company behind ChatGPT could have several different devices in the works.
Plus, watch a new teaser for the Game of Thrones prequel.
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
Shares in athletic apparel and footwear company Adidas have jumped by almost 1.75% in early trading after three of its athletes shone at the London Marathon yesterday.
Sabastian Sawe and Yomif Kejelcha both smashed the two-hour barrier in the men’s marathon race, and Tigst Assefa set a women-only world record in the women’s race.
The adidas family is incredibly proud of Sabastian and Tigist’s historic achievements, marking the fastest times humans have ever run in a marathon.
This is a testament to the years of hard work and dedication they have made, alongside our innovation team, who have built a supershoe which breaks new ground in the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3.”
Continue reading...Top aide says SNP leader will seek approval to press for independence even if he fails to win majority on 7 May
John Swinney will call a vote seeking independence powers on the first day of the next Scottish parliament even if he fails to win an overall majority, his aides have said.
The Scottish National Party leader’s senior adviser indicated that if necessary, he would rely on support from the pro-independence Scottish Greens to win that vote in order to demand the UK government gives Holyrood the legal powers to hold a second referendum.
Continue reading...Mystery of who the child known as Baby Auckland was and how he died has not been solved
A baby boy whose skeletal remains were found wrapped in a 1910 newspaper and with twine around his neck has, finally, been laid to rest.
The child has become known as Baby Auckland after he was found at a property in the centre of Bishop Auckland, County Durham.
Continue reading...Hisham Abugharbieh has been charged in the deaths of his roommate and his roommate’s girlfriend
The man charged with killing two University of South Florida doctoral students from Bangladesh allegedly asked ChatGPT about what happens if a person has been put in a garbage bag and “thrown in a dumpster”, according to prosecutors in a court filing.
He also allegedly bought duct tape and trash bags in the days leading up to the students’ disappearance.
Continue reading...Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle earlier confirmed that MPs will decide whether to let inquiry into Keir Starmer’s statements over Peter Mandelson proceed
Downing Street has said that the UK is “in a good position” to handle the global supply problems caused by the Iran war not being resolved.
Speaking at the morning lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson said:
We remain focused on a long-term, permanent solution to the crisis. As a result of the forward-planning, the government undertook over the past few months, the UK is in a good position.
We’re ramping up planning for all different potential impacts on the UK economy and consumers, and that means focusing on a live monitoring of stock levels and what plans are in place for addressing supply chain disruption.
Even Boris Johnson didn’t block his MPs voting for scrutiny. Labour MPs must be given a free vote on any motion to refer Starmer to the privileges committee, not forced into being accomplices to a cover-up.
If Keir Starmer has misled the House and the public, he must be held to the same standard that we should expect of any prime minister.
Continue reading...Falling behind on debt relief payments doesn't mean you've failed. It means you need to come up with a new plan.
Commons speaker grants application by Tories for vote on investigation into whether PM misled MPs, say sources
Keir Starmer will face a vote on whether to launch a standards investigation into his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.
The speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, has granted a debate on Tuesday on potentially referring the prime minister to the privileges committee over claims he misled the Commons.
Continue reading...Redrawn map could flip up to five seats to Republicans as Trump’s party seeks to keep control of Congress
The US supreme court formally reinstated on Monday a redrawn Texas electoral map that was designed to add more Republicans to the US House of Representatives, as Donald Trump’s party seeks to keep control of Congress in the November congressional elections.
The move by the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, formalizes an interim decision it made in December to revive the map of US House districts in Texas.
Continue reading...An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: The whale has resurfaced. DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup offshoot of High-Flyer Capital Management quantitative analysis firm, became a near-overnight sensation globally in January 2025 with the release of its open source R1 model that matched proprietary U.S. giants. It's been an epoch in AI since then, and while DeepSeek has released several updates to that model and its other V3 series, the international AI and business community has been largely waiting with baited breath for the follow-up to the R1 moment. Now it's arrived with last night's release of DeepSeek-V4, a 1.6-trillion-parameter Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) model available free under commercially-friendly open source MIT License, which nears -- and on some benchmarks, surpasses -- the performance of the world's most advanced closed-source systems at approximately 1/6th the cost over the application programming interface (API). This release -- which DeepSeek AI researcher Deli Chen described on X as a "labor of love" 484 days after the launch of V3 -- is being hailed as the "second DeepSeek moment." As Chen noted in his post, "AGI belongs to everyone". It's available now on AI code sharing community Hugging Face and through DeepSeek's API. The new DeepSeek-V4-Pro model delivers "near-frontier performance" at a much lower price, costing $5.22 for 1 million input and 1 million output tokens compared with $35 for GPT-5.5 and $30 for Claude Opus 4.7. That makes it roughly 1/7th the cost of GPT-5.5 and 1/6th the cost of Claude Opus 4.7, reinforcing VentureBeat's point that DeepSeek is "compressing advanced model economics into a much lower band." While GPT-5.5 and Claude Opus 4.7 still lead on most benchmarks, DeepSeek-V4-Pro gets close enough that its lower cost could "force a major rethink of the economics of advanced AI deployment."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
There are multiple factors to consider for those wondering where mortgage rates could be headed this May.
Across country, at least 14 have been injured as Zelenskyy highlights importance of air defences
Top EU officials and Hungary’s incoming government will discuss on Wednesday the changes Budapest needs to push through to release €17bn in EU funds that have been blocked due to rule-of-law concerns under the outgoing government of Viktor Orbán.
Some of the frozen funds, such as €11bn euros ($13bn) from the post-pandemic Recovery Fund, must be drawn by mid-August, or be irrevocably lost, Reuters noted.
Continue reading...Russian backing for the ruling junta has not stopped rebel fighters striking significant blows in recent days
When Assimi Goïta, the leader of Mali’s military junta, sat down with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in the Kremlin last summer, it symbolised Moscow’s commanding sway over Mali at the expense of the west.
As the two men spoke, roughly 3,500 miles to the south, about 2,000 Russian troops were propping up the regime in the landlocked desert country, as part of Moscow’s broader push for influence across the Sahel region.
Continue reading...Beijing says domestic tech companies must seek explicit government approval for accepting US investment
China has blocked Meta’s $2bn (£1.5bn) acquisition of an AI startup as it cracks down on US investments in domestic tech companies.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced the acquisition of Manus, a developer of autonomous AI agents, in December.
Continue reading...Michael Glantz, a senior talent agent, says he ‘wasn’t scared’ and ‘wanted to watch’ as chaos unfolded at the event
A guest at the White House correspondents’ dinner retained his table manners and was spotted calmly tucking into his salad course on Saturday, soon after gunfire rang out and heavily armed Secret Service agents swarmed into the ballroom of the Washington Hilton hotel.
A video clip captured Michael Glantz, a senior talent agent with the Creative Artists Agency, leisurely forking leaves from his burrata salad into his mouth against a backdrop of a stage just yards away, by then empty of everyone save a rifle-wielding officer in tactical combat gear.
Continue reading...Kirby argued that a merger would create jobs, offer more affordable flying options and allow the airline to compete with foreign carriers.
Proposal for a one-time 5% tax on billionaires in the state is opposed by Silicon Valley tech titans and Gavin Newsom
The backers of a proposal to levy a one-time tax on California billionaires say they have gathered enough signatures to place the measure on the ballot in November. The initiative has become one of the most politically contentious issues in the state over the past year, spurring tech moguls to spend tens of millions of dollars to oppose it.
The campaign, which is sponsored by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West labor union, has collected more than 1.5m signatures, according to a statement from the organization. The measure required 870,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot.
Continue reading...Buffalo’s Rohingya community pushes for NY state law to protect immigrants after Nurul Amin Shah Alam’s death
Since Nurul Amin Shah Alam’s death in February, the fear across Buffalo’s East Side has been palpable.
Alam, a 56-year-old Rohingya refugee from Myanmar, who spoke no English and had mental health issues, was dropped by federal immigration officers outside a closed coffee shop in the middle of a brutal winter. He had spent months in custody following a confusing encounter with local law enforcement, then was released – alone, in the cold – far from the Rohingya community hub where he might have found help. Days later, he died.
Continue reading...Apple TV's got some big projects landing this month.
Developers at the studio Wizards of the Coast cited AI and layoff protections as some issues driving unionization effort
Magic: the Gathering is casting lots for a union. Game developers at the popular digital and tabletop studio Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro that develops online versions of the popular card game are seeking to join the Communications Workers of America.
The workers announced their intent to unionize on Monday to join the CWA, which has organized thousands of workers in the tech and video game industry in recent years, including the largest certified union in the US video game industry in 2024 representing 600 quality assurance workers at Activision.
Continue reading...The Supreme Court turned away an appeal from a Florida couple who alleged their parental rights were violated by a now-revised school board policy on students' gender identity.
At the Vatican, the Anglican archbishop met a pope who has signaled no intention to change Catholic doctrine to allow ordaining women.
ETHAN GRANDIN
Editor-in-Chief
Tucked away on 321 Bucktoe Road in Avondale, Pennsylvania, White Feather Farm operates on an entirely different premise than the residential developments that encompass its surroundings.
The farm is the life’s work of Diane Mayer, an animal-human therapist whose practice spans what she calls “interspecies healing,” or the idea that humans and animals exist within shared energetic and emotional fields, and that restoring the right relationship between them is itself a form of therapy.
Mayer did not arrive at this work through a conventional path. Within the first minutes of conversation, she mentioned the gravitas of the farm’s energy and how she knew, once stepping foot on the property, that this would be the place.
“The reason we bought the property was that when I walked out here, it had been left vacant for eight years, and when I walked here, I felt the power of the property,” Mayer said.
Settled on a biodynamic land model, Mayer treats the land holistically and focuses on a regenerative system so that plants, whether for the chickens roaming in their pen or the new evergreen trees planted through a grant from the state of Pennsylvania, highlight the dynamic between the occupant of the land and the land itself.
That contrast became the engine of her work.
She draws on trans-species psychology and the concept of morphogenic fields, the invisible energetic forces believed to surround and connect all living beings, to guide both humans and animals toward healing.
At White Feather Farm, this looks like warm water therapy, canine rehabilitation for traumatized dogs, seasonal workshops and one-on-one sessions designed not to fix, but to reconnect.
The farm’s mission is rooted in what it calls the “Seven Natural Laws” embodied by animals: respect, courage, honesty, wisdom, humility, love and integrity.
Years of travel, surfing and extended time living among native cultures — Tibetan, Lakota and African — impressed upon her something the Western world had quietly lost.
“What I drew on was my childhood, as most stories begin,” recalls Mayer. “I felt safer and better and more comfortable with animals, so I was always outside, and it’s what led me to an adult life of being outside and traveling, which is where I ended up marrying nature with unknowingly being introduced and oftentimes living with, for brief periods, different native cultures.”
What Mayer returns to again and again, though, is stillness.
In her years of home visits helping people with their dogs, the solution was rarely a training technique.
“Let’s turn off the television. Let’s get the household calmed down,” she would say. When the chaos settled and people dropped back into themselves, the animals followed.
White Feather Farm is not just for canine and feline therapy. The human connection is where, according to those who come to the farm, they feel the link between the land and themselves.
Kirsten Hudson, a Wilmington resident and photographer, knew Mayer before the farm existed, having met her through her husband when Mayer ran a practice called Happy Dog Healthy Dog.
When Mayer first acquired the Avondale property, Hudson was among the first to witness the transformation.
“It was definitely a work in progress,” Hudson said. “It looks wildly different now than it did, and it’s going through a really cool evolution thanks to the work that they’ve done.”
For Hudson, whose visits to the farm deepened into what she describes as earth-based medicine and alternative healing therapies, the relationship became personal in ways that conventional medicine care had failed to address.
She was born with asthma, and has spent her life managing polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), low thyroid function and a prolactinoma, a type of tumor on the pituitary gland.
Despite access to world-class facilities, including Walter Reed Military Medical Center when her father served in the military, the answers from Western medicine rarely went deeper than symptom management.
PCOS affects 10-13% women globally, and the lack of substantive care for women’s health has led many to search for alternatives. Hudson says the diagnosis was largely a catch-all, and that doctors offered little beyond birth control to manage the pain and hormone imbalance.
“Coming here and working with Diane, and working with other therapists that I met as satellites to the farm, was really helpful, and especially insightful for my own health,” Hudson said. “But it’s given me a bit of empowerment over that, rather than feeling like a passive patient, is what I would say.”
The spiritual dimension of the farm proved equally impactful for Hudson. Raised through several Christian traditions — Lutheran, Episcopalian, Methodist, Catholic — she found organized religion left her with what she called a kind of spiritual apathy.
It was at the farm, through Mayer’s introduction to the Cherokee Medicine Wheel and a book on Cherokee healing, that something shifted.
“When I read that book, I felt like I was coming home,” Hudson said.
The farm’s integration of multiple healing methodologies, from Taoism and Buddhism to nature spirituality and Indigenous traditions, struck Hudson not as appropriation, but more as a reverence.
She described the farm’s ability to hold those practices simultaneously as one of the reasons it feels unlike anything she has encountered elsewhere.
That feeling crystallized in one of Hudson’s hardest moments. Her mother died on a Monday. She had a wedding to photograph that Friday. Unable to cancel and unsure how to function, she drove to the farm.
“I came in sad, depressed, nervous, anxious, shaking, feeling like I was about to climb an insurmountable hill,” she said. “And I left happy and joyful and singing in the car and honoring my mom that way.”
She was careful to note that she did not leave healed, but she was able to carry through. That, she said, is the distinction the farm makes.
Kathy Schauber, a massage therapist and Reiki practitioner who has known Mayer for more than 30 years, found her way into the farm’s orbit through a different kind of crisis. Growing up in a traditional religious household, she found the dogma hollow.
When her back gave out, and three herniated discs left her unable to walk 100 feet down her driveway, or sit, stand or lie down with pain, the medical system compounded the isolation.
“I saw 10 doctors. I exhausted three insurance plans and a PT. Two surgeons refused to operate on me,” Schauber said. “So I found a natural way of healing because they gave up on me.”
Mayer, whom Schauber had found through a Tai Chi classmate who handed over her masseuse’s name without charge, referred her to a homeopathic doctor.
In homeopathy, practitioners use highly diluted natural substances — mineral, plant, animal or derived from disease processes — formulated to match the specific symptom profile of each patient.
Rather than treating ailments categorically, a homeopath hones in on how each person experiences illness differently: what makes it better, what makes it worse and what the body is signaling beneath the surface.
The results, for Schauber, were immediate and disorienting in the best possible way.
It was through that same orientation — seeking energy rather than diagnosis — that Schauber found Reiki. Chronic ailments that had shadowed her since childhood began to recede. The moment of discovery was not in a clinic or classroom, but in a crystal store one street north of Rehoboth Avenue called Celestial Light.
“Some guy came off the street, and I could overhear them speaking,” said Schauber. “He says, ‘What’s this Reiki anyway?’ He was referring to her business card on the counter. And all she said was, ‘It’s a type of hands-on healing.’ I said, ‘God, I need that. I need that.’ And as soon as that guy left, I said, ‘Can you teach me that?’”
Schauber recalled that story as if it had happened the day prior. The reason, she said, is that it changed her life.
The process of becoming a Reiki practitioner included rigorous and intensive schooling, along with a demanding certification exam. At the time, there was only one school close enough to do it.
But what she came out of it with was not just a credential. It was a framework for understanding energy as something that flows through all living beings, not only humans.
In practice, Schauber describes herself not as a healer but as a conduit — a hollow reed, in her words, through which universal energy passes. Whether she is doing massage, reflexology or sitting quietly and sending intentions to a suffering animal across the state, she says the channel opens the same way.
“I do not do the healing,” she said. “But I get one every time I give it.”
That reciprocity, she said, is a core tenant of what White Feather Farm embodies.
Energy flows through all living beings, and tending to one is an act of tending to all.
The farm hosts a warm water therapy pool used predominantly to assist with mobility issues in both canines and felines.
For Caitlin Greenamoyer, owner of Rescue for the Misunderstood, which places dogs with foster families, the pool represents something more than hydrotherapy. It represents the place where traditional medicine stopped and something else began.
Greenamoyer’s introduction to the farm came in layers.
First, a hike with her volunteers. Then, the death of Brick — her best dog, she says with no qualification — who was laid to rest in front of the pool before making his final trip to the crematorium.
She felt something there she couldn’t name, and kept coming back.
It was Macho who sealed it. A handicapped bully with back issues, dragging hind legs and polycystic kidney disease, Macho was the first dog in Greenamoyer’s 15-year rescue career that conventional medicine could not touch. His kidney disease made traditional pain medication toxic and his back made everything else a brick wall.
“It was the first time I’ve been in rescue for 15 years and it was the first time I really hit a wall with traditional medicine where his dog is in pain, they can’t help him, but he’s not ready to be put down,” Greenamoyer said.
Through swim therapy, acupuncture, essential oils and the farm’s approach of letting animals choose what they need, Macho bounced back.
Greenamoyer described a nightly ritual at home where she holds different oils to his nose and he tells her either by sniffing or turning away which one he wants. A drop goes on his head, then he selects another. They have, she said, a little conversation.
Articulating what the farm does to other dog owners has been a persistent challenge. “Interspecies healing” does not translate easily to someone who has never heard of it, and the rescue world Greenamoyer operates in does not, as she noted, typically send dogs for massages.
But she has found her words. She tells adopters that this is the most basic, natural way of being.
“There are no words in the vocabulary to say how much I admire her and have learned from her,” Greenamoyer said of Mayer. “One of the biggest and the first things that I learned was choice. Giving the dogs choice.”
That choice to enter the pool or take the trail, to accept an oil or refuse it, to approach or retreat is what all returned to when describing what sets the farm apart from any clinical space they have encountered.
Increasingly, it is a place that grows. The biodynamic land model Mayer has pursued is not only a philosophy of healing but a philosophy of restoration — returning the soil, the flora and the ecosystem to something closer to what the land was before human interaction.
The evergreen trees, the chicken coop, the yurt, the trails. Each one is a piece of a landscape being reclaimed, not for nostalgia, but for the same reason Mayer built the practice in the first place: healing.
Trump officials use incident at correspondents’ dinner to pitch case for $400m project, arguing it will be ‘safe space’
The US Department of J Justice has used the weekend shooting in Washington DC to pressure a preservation group to drop a lawsuit seeking to halt the construction of Donald Trump’s White House ballroom.
Several Trump administration officials, including the president, seized on the incident at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner to advance their case for the completion of the controversial $400m project, for which the White House’s East Wing was suddenly demolished, arguing the new ballroom was needed as a “safe space”.
Continue reading...Critics hit out at ‘dire’ situation in the country which has the strictest laws around abortion in western Europe
Rights campaigners have affixed lockboxes containing abortion pills to sites across Malta, in a campaign designed to highlight the country’s near-total ban on abortion.
The 15 black boxes aim to provide practical help to women grappling with the EU’s strictest abortion laws; anyone who is less than nine weeks pregnant and in need of an abortion is invited to send an email to obtain the location and codes to access the pills.
Continue reading...Teatro La Fenice says Beatrice Venezi let go for making ‘repeated offensive’ statements
Teatro La Fenice, the prestigious Venice opera house, has fired its incoming music director after she insinuated its hiring practices were nepotistic, with jobs “practically passed down from father to son”.
After months of controversy over the appointment of Beatrice Venezi, La Fenice Foundation said on Sunday it had decided to “cancel all future collaborations” with the 36-year-old conductor and pianist.
Continue reading...Apple's first foldable may launch in 2026. Rumors point to a $2,000-plus price, a September release and a possible new name: the iPhone Ultra.
Hisham Abugharbieh, 26, has been charged with the murders of Nahida Bristy and Zamil Limon, whose body was found Friday.
President Trump was safely evacuated from the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner Saturday night after shots were fired outside the ballroom of the Washington Hilton Hotel.
Energy prices keep rising with no sign of progress toward a deal to end the U.S.-Iran standoff and Hezbollah rejecting the Lebanon ceasefire.
2026 estimates for wolves on island highest since late 1970s but moose population declining dramatically
Wolves on a remote island in Lake Superior appear to be thriving, but they are making deep dents in the moose population that they rely on as a leading food source, according to a report released on Monday.
Isle Royale is a 134,000-acre (54,200-hectare) national park in far western Lake Superior between Grand Marais, Minnesota, and Thunder Bay, Canada. The island is a natural laboratory, offering scientists a rare opportunity to observe wolves and moose largely free from human influence.
Continue reading...The supreme court justice recently condemned an entire philosophy of government. How can we believe in his impartiality?
I’ve long assumed that Samuel Alito was the worst.
Alito – who authored the majority opinion in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), the case that ended constitutional abortion rights by merely asserting that the high court’s prior opinion in Roe v Wade (1973) was wrongly decided; who accepted a 2008 luxury fishing trip to Alaska, including private jet travel, from hedge fund billionaire and GOP donor Paul Singer yet failed to disclose it on Alito’s financial forms and didn’t even recuse himself from decisions involving Singer’s subsequent business before the supreme court; who hoisted an inverted American flag outside his Virginia home shortly after the January 6 Capitol riot, a symbol of support for Trump’s false claims of a stolen 2020 election – has the moral and intellectual stature of a poisonous toad.
Continue reading...Google's developer conference will have AI at every corner. Here's what we think will be announced.
In a clash of book-style foldable debuts, Motorola may have only a few months before Apple's reveal steals the spotlight.
Military intelligence chief reportedly also killed in sweeping attacks by jihadists and separatist rebels
Mali has been left reeling from sweeping attacks by jihadists and separatist rebels who seized several towns and military bases and killed the defence minister and military intelligence chief.
The weekend assault on the west African state’s security architecture was coordinated by al-Qaida-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the separatist Tuareg-led movement Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) – former foes with distinct agendas.
Continue reading...Norway can teach the UK about energy security – but the lesson is not more North Sea drilling Expert comment jon.wallace
Norway is a leader in electrification. Following that example will reduce exposure to energy crises – unlike trying to turn back the clock on North Sea oil and gas.
The US-Israel attacks on Iran have triggered a global energy supply shock more severe than those of 1973, 1979 and 2022 put together, according to the head of the International Energy Agency.
Following Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, shipments of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Gulf have been reduced to a trickle. Over 60 oil and gas facilities across the region, including major plants like Ras Laffan Industrial City in Qatar, have been damaged.
This has resulted in an acute supply-demand imbalance, causing prices to surge. Countries which depend heavily on oil and gas – like the UK – feel the most pain when prices go up.
There is substantial domestic oil and gas production in the UK, although the country is a net importer. International firms like BP, Shell and ExxonMobil operating in UK waters extracted quantities of oil and gas equivalent to around half of UK consumption in 2025.
This production close to home has a benefit in securing energy supply – clearly, at present, it’s preferable to have gas flowing through a pipeline under the North Sea than sequestered aboard ships in the Gulf. But it offers little relief from high oil and gas prices – which are decided by the international market.
Oil accounts for 37 per cent, and gas 38 per cent, of the UK’s total energy supply. This means that fully three-quarters of the energy on which the UK depends day-to-day is exposed to developments in the Gulf. What can be done to improve the UK’s position?
It is tempting for those in the import-dependent UK to look enviously across the water to a northern neighbour. Norway meets all its oil and gas needs through domestic production. It then exports 10 times as much oil, and 25 times as much gas, to mainly European customers, including the UK.
You might assume that, given its extraordinary fossil fuel endowment, oil and gas would account for a large share of Norway’s energy consumption. In fact, it’s considerably less than in the UK: oil accounts for 28 per cent of energy supply, and gas a mere 14 per cent.
This is because Norway’s government has prioritized using electricity, rather than fossil fuels, to provide the ‘energy services’ – such as transportation, and warming homes – on which citizens rely in their daily lives.
Take heating: Most homes in Norway are heated not by burning gas in boilers, but by electric heat pumps – the result of sustained policy interventions.
When oil prices spiked by nearly 300 per cent due to the 1973 Arab oil embargo, Norway resolved to move away from oil for heating and towards electric resistance heating. Then, in the early 2000s, a period of elevated electricity prices prompted the government to promote the adoption of heat pumps, which had become significantly more cost-effective than resistance heaters.
Subsidies and grants to offset the up-front cost, and programmes to train a workforce of installers, were key to the widespread adoption that followed.
Technological improvements have continued, and today’s heat pumps are three to five times more energy efficient than the traditional gas boilers common in UK homes.
Yet the UK energy security debate currently revolves almost entirely around whether to issue new licences for oil and gas exploration (which the current Labour government has said it will not do). The argument, made by President Donald Trump and others, is that the UK could reduce exposure to energy shocks by trying to exploit more of its fossil fuel resources.
But this is not a solution. The North Sea is a mature basin. Production on the UK Continental Shelf peaked in 1999, and it is estimated that as much as 90 per cent of its fossil fuels have already been extracted. Even Norway’s boom is coming to an end, with the government regulator forecasting peak production before 2030.
The UK’s reserves of oil and gas, as of 2020, stood at 0.1 per cent of the global total (Norway holds 0.6 per cent). Further extraction following the issuance of new licences, if it were to occur, would constitute a limited stay of execution. It would also deliver little in the short- to medium-term: new oil and gas projects take an average of 15 years to begin producing.
And focusing on the singular issue of licensing diverts attention from the most effective way of making the UK resilient to future energy crises: swapping oil and gas for electricity, just as Norway has.
There is enormous scope to permanently drive down the UK’s exposure to oil and gas shocks through electrification. At present, a comparatively small share of UK energy, around a fifth, is consumed in the form of electricity.
More gas is burned to heat British homes than for any other purpose, approximately 23 billion cubic metres (bcm) in 2025, accounting for 37 per cent of total gas consumption. Heat pump adoption is sluggish, with 24 heat pumps for every 1,000 households. In Norway, there are 662, the highest rate in Europe.
Over half of the oil that the UK uses each year – 32 million tonnes in 2024 – is consumed by cars and trucks, in the form of petrol and diesel. Electric vehicles (EVs) are beginning to push this down, but the share on the roads remains modest, at just under 6 per cent. In Norway, 32 per cent of passenger cars are fully electric.
And EVs accounted for 98 per cent of all new vehicles sold in Norway in the first three months of 2026. UK EV sales have grown in recent years, but still only account for under a quarter of new car sales.
There is, then, a clear energy security case for policies that encourage the rapid adoption of heat pumps and EVs. This will reduce the UK’s energy import dependency and blunt its exposure to volatile oil and gas prices – the ‘fossil fuel rollercoaster’ – all while improving air quality and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
This should not be mistaken for a simple solution, however. Installing a heat pump can be complex. Often it needs to be accompanied by insulation upgrades to ensure maximum efficiency. Up-front costs are considerable. And managing a declining gas distribution network will not be easy.
Norway also has significant structural advantages. The Norwegian state is the main shareholder in Equinor, the country’s dominant energy producer, giving it substantial oil and gas revenues to fund electric transitions. In contrast, UK oil and gas production was fully privatized in the 1980s.
"There are about 70% more bookstores now than there were six years ago in the United States," says Andy Hunter, the founder/CEO of Bookshop.org. Fast Company checks in on his site, which gives over 80% of its profit margin to independent bookstores, structuring itself as a B Corporation (a for-profit company certified for its social-impact) while providing an alternative to Amazon and other online booksellers: Hunter created Bookshop.org in January 2020 to help independent bookstores survive by utilizing e-commerce... "There were over 5,000 bookstores in the American Booksellers Association in 1995, which is one year after Amazon launched. By 2019, that had gone down to 1,889, so more than half of them disappeared." He says he never could have predicted how the pandemic would accelerate his company's growth... "All these stores that had been trying to get around e-commerce or never really launching or building their website, they had to sell online. That was the only way they could survive during the pandemic...." "Our goal is to help independent local bookstores get their fair share of online sales, which would end up being maybe 10% of Amazon's market share," he says. "And right now we're at about 2%, so we have a long way to go. But a lot of people didn't even think we could ever get 1%...." Bookshop.org has given almost $47 million back to local bookstores. For Hunter, it's not just about the money but changing the way society thinks. He's delighted that many big organizations no longer use Amazon affiliate links, choosing to send people his way instead. "People have absorbed the message that they should support independent bookstores when they buy books," he says.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Outrage is a legitimate political emotion. It is not, by itself, a politics
Before sexual assault allegations ended his California gubernatorial bid, representative Eric Swalwell had carved out a niche as one of the Democrats most enthusiastically willing to swear on the record. On 9 April, the New York Times ranked him fourth among lawmakers by frequency of online F-word use. Later, Swalwell responded to their article on Twitter/X: “Here, add two more to my name. Fuck Donald Trump and fuck Ice.”
The Democratic party has many problems. One of them is that Swalwell will likely lose the distinction of being its fourth-most prolific swearer within months. His colleagues, unburdened by scandal, will carry on cursing their way toward relevance. Since 2020, Democrats have outsworn Republicans on social media by nearly four to one – they’ve used 197 F-words to Republicans’ 49, by the Times’s accounting.
Continue reading...Small towns across the US have elected animals to the pinnacle of civic leadership – and it seems to work for them
It was a fiercely contested election.
Seven candidates, each bringing a unique set of skills and perspectives, battled to be the next mayor. Locals followed every twist and turn, in a race that lasted weeks. The political hopefuls made repeated, frequently loud, appearances on TV news, and posed for photos on social media. By the end of the election onlookers agreed that any of the candidates would make a very good mayor.
Continue reading...The long-troubled air carrier is in bankruptcy court as the Trump administration scrambles to save the company
Soaring fuel prices are threatening air carriers around the world, and in the US the White House is scrambling to save the long-troubled Spirit Airlines.
The carrier is in bankruptcy court and is quickly running out of cash. Reports last week suggested that the Trump administration was in talks to loan as much as $500m to the company as it teetered on the brink of liquidation. Then on Thursday, Donald Trump told reporters the federal government might buy the ailing airline.
Continue reading...Musician Chris Martin, tennis star Iga Świątek and footballer Robert Lewandowski join Łatwogang in epic fundraiser
A Polish social media influencer has raised more than £50m after a nine-day, nonstop online stream during which he was joined by a parade of celebrity guests to help a charity supporting children battling cancer.
Streaming from a studio flat in right-bank Warsaw, the 23-year-old influencer, known by his nickname Łatwogang, listened to a charity song dedicated to children battling cancer on loop for nine days straight, filling time with entertaining dares and celebrity appearances.
Continue reading...King Charles is making his first state visit to the U.S. as monarch, though he traveled here 19 times before his coronation. Many of his royal relatives have also made memorable trips over the years.
CBS News senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang was sitting next to President Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner when the chaos unfolded.
The group, returning home after a vacation in Thailand, had Kush — a potent strain of cannabis — hidden in their luggage, officials said.
I suspect the main reason they avoid criticizing Israel is that they believe that would be antisemitic. But this is both dangerous and wrong
In an extraordinary article published on 7 April, the New York Times described how Donald Trump decided to go to war with Iran. It is highly unusual for the White House Situation Room to be used for in-person meetings with foreign leaders. But this time, the Situation Room was not just used for a meeting with a foreign leader. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin, Netanyahu took over the presentation space, backed on a screen by the leader of the Mossad as well as Israeli military officials.
As the New York Times describes the scene, “Arrayed visually behind Mr. Netanyahu, they created the image of a wartime leader surrounded by his team.” The article makes it clear that Netanyahu’s “hard sell” of a quick war was pivotal to the US president’s decision to partner with Israel in attacking Iran.
Continue reading...With the king expected to visit the US, here’s a look back at when he didn’t quite understand America’s favorite pastime
In the lead-up to then Prince Charles’s first official White House visit 56 years ago, the Washington Post published a story headlined: Baseball: A Guide for Royal Visitors.
“Prince Charles and Princess Anne of England will attend a baseball game when they come to America next month. No doubt, their Royal Highnesses will be baffled by the whole thing,” wrote Henry Owen in a 21 June 1970 story. “They will be too polite to say so, but later on, in the privacy of the embassy, they will probably ask their attendants: ‘Why do people go to baseball games?’”
Continue reading...Enough family reference samples collected to identify at least 60% of disinterred USS Arizona crew members
The United States government could move to disinter the remains of unidentified USS Arizona crew members who were killed in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 after the clinching of a key DNA-related milestone, officials recently announced.
Before that announcement, officials determined enough family reference samples had been collected for comparison with DNA taken from remains – along with medical and dental records – for the individual identification of at least 60% of the battleship crew members to be disinterred, said a statement on Friday from the agency tasked with identifying US military personnel who are unaccounted for after past conflicts.
Continue reading...
Why Should Delaware Care?
The popularity of artificial intelligence has sparked a boom in the construction of energy hungry data centers. In response, the Delaware Electric Cooperative requested that state lawmakers pass a bill that it says would shield its system from being overwhelmed by the energy demands of the facilities.
Southern Delaware’s primary electric utility may soon be able to reject requests from large new energy consumers, including data centers, seeking to connect to the grid.
The State Senate on Thursday unanimously passed Senate Bill 276, which frees the Delaware Electric Cooperative from a requirement to serve “large loads” – defined as facilities that consume 50 megawatts of electricity or greater. That amount of electricity can power up to 50,000 homes.
Delaware Electric Cooperative CEO Rob Book said his utility had asked lawmakers to pass the bill.
He said the legislation would protect existing customers from price spikes if a national surge in the construction of data centers spreads to southern Delaware. Under current law, the utility would have to provide those facilities with power, even if it caused rates to go up.
“What this bill will really do is help us shield our existing members from that very high price spike,” Book said.
Several data centers have been proposed in northern Delaware recently. The largest could consume up to 1.2 gigawatts — or more than double the amount of electricity that the cooperative delivers to its entire coverage area at its peak time, Book said.
Book said if the requirement is lifted and a data center proposal comes to his utility’s service territory, he would require the facility to either generate its own power or contract with a third-party supplier.
State Sen. Stephanie Hansen (D-Middletown), the bill’s primary sponsor, said she “applauds” the utility for requesting this bill and planning to require data center developers to provide their own power.
“They’ve approached energy generation and supply to their customers in a reasonable way,” Hansen said of the utility.
Following its passage in the Senate, SB 276 will be next considered by a committee in the House of Representatives.
Delaware’s largest utility, Delmarva Power, also operates under the same state requirement to provide power to any company that requests it.
The utility’s Region President Marcus Beal previously cited this law when discussing potential electricity price increases that could follow new data center energy demand.
Those price increases could be substantial. Earlier this month, a state-commissioned study found that energy demand from data center proposals in Delaware could almost double wholesale energy prices.
While those potential price increases may still affect Delaware Electric Cooperative customers, Book said his utility is partially shielded from the full effects of such market trends because it owns power generation assets.
Unlike the Delaware Electric Cooperative, Delmarva Power has not asked state legislators to take away the requirement that it serve all potential customers, including large-load facilities, Hansen said.
When asked why the utility has not requested a similar bill, Delmarva Power spokesman Matthew Ford said in an emailed statement, “We do not believe it is appropriate for the company to serve as the sole arbiter of whether certain customers receive service.”
Ford pointed out that, unlike electric cooperatives, Delmarva Power is regulated by the Delaware Public Service Commission. He said the utility evaluates large loads “with the goal of supporting economic development while protecting existing customers from inappropriate cost shifts.”
“We believe that decisions of this magnitude are best addressed through that regulatory framework rather than through legislation granting unilateral discretion to utilities,” Ford said.
Asked whether the state legislature could unilaterally pass a bill that takes away Delmarva Power’s obligation to provide power to all potential customers, Hansen said “that is an interesting question and it’s one that I am looking into.”
Delaware’s state law does not require the Delaware Municipal Electric Cooperative — the third utility in the state that serves municipalities — to provide power to all that request it, Hansen said.
The post Bill would allow Delaware Electric Cooperative to reject data centers appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
After Donald Trump’s second election, I realised the insidious hold my phone had over my life. So I turned to something I’d loved in childhood to better occupy my attention
After a long day of looking at screens for work, I used to go to bed and stare at my phone until I fell asleep. When not doomscrolling news headlines, I’d crash out to hateful comments on social media or revisit workplace dramas via mobile versions of Teams and Slack. I was always plugged in.
It was a ritual that would start well before bedtime. As the evening wound down, I’d surf algorithms for hours on end, barely paying attention to whatever television programme was on in the background, only half-listening to conversations around me. Whether it was the incessantly dystopian news cycle, toxic opinions on pop culture, or posts railing against obtuse LinkedIn speak, there was always another online scab to pick.
Continue reading...Secret Service director says security succeeded in stopping shooter before he could do further harm but others disagree
The shooting in the White House correspondents’ gala has prompted questions over security with some asking how a shooter was able to get close to where Donald Trump and many other senior administration officials were gathered and many others praising the actions of law enforcement that swiftly stopped the attack.
As details about the shooting at the Washington Hilton continued to surface, the alleged shooter Cole Tomas Allen, 31, mocked an “insane” lack of security at the Washington dinner in a manifesto reportedly sent to his family 10 minutes before his assault started.
Continue reading...
Why Should Delaware Care?
The First Amendment protects the right to free speech, but a city-hosted open mic event has raised concerns among community members after an email from Mayor John Carney’s office asked participants to avoid discussing two specific minority groups.
A backlash emerged against Wilmington Mayor John Carney last week after his administration directed artists performing at a city-sanctioned open mic to not talk about homelessness or LGBTQ issues.
Hours before the Thursday event, which the city sponsored at The Queen music hall, the mayor’s special assistant sent an email to performers announcing restrictions on what they could discuss.
“Please be advised that we ask each act to stay away from subject matter around homelessness and the LGBTQ community. Other than that, please feel free to express yourselves!” special assistant Ashley Christopher said in the email.
Over the 24 hours following the email, several individuals and organizations — including the American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware, Delaware Democratic Socialists of America, and Food Not Bombs — made statements claiming the directive amounted to censorship and could violate the First Amendment.
“When the city undertakes sponsoring an event — especially a forum marketed as an ‘Open Mic’ — it must take great pains to ensure that any guidelines produced adhere to its commitments to the First Amendment,” ACLU executive director, Mike Brickner, said in an open letter to Carney.
During the event, someone had also posted flyers outside of The Queen that included Christopher’s email, along with the words “Public Notice” and a claim that the city was demanding that artists avoid topics that “might upset” Carney.
In response to the backlash, the city posted a statement to social media on Friday, saying the intention of the email was to ask participants to “avoid jokes made at the expense of communities that were recently the subject of negative attention.”
When asked why the city did not specify that in the original email, and why homelessness and the LGBTQ+ community were singled out specifically, Carney’s spokeswoman Caroline Klinger said again that those groups had been “subject to negative attention in recent weeks.”
“The intention behind this directive was only to ensure that no one felt singled out, unwelcome, or disrespected at a city-sponsored event. We will ensure that this goal is clearer in future communications,” Klinger said.
Klinger did not respond to a question of why the city believed it was appropriate to tell performers what they can or cannot discuss at a public event.
The incident came just weeks after Carney faced sharp criticism over his policies around homelessness, and particularly a decision to move residents of a city-sanctioned encampment out of their tents and into government-issued ones.
On Friday, some of the same critics responded to the Carney administration’s public statement about the open-mic controversy.
Food Not Bombs, an organization that supports the unhoused, characterized the statement as the mayor’s office “trying to save face.”
“Otherwise they would have said don’t discriminate against any groups,” the organization said in a statement to Spotlight Delaware.
Shyanne Miller, a city housing advocate, told the mayor on Facebook to “just stop. You want to censor people. Own up to it and do better.”
Another activist, Jea Street Jr., whose Facebook post about Christopher’s original email drew more than a hundred comments, was more charitable. In a subsequent post, he said he might have “misunderstood what the city was attempting to communicate.”
Even current and former politicians weighed in. Former Christina school board member Shannon Troncoso, who represented Wilmington, noted that the city email included the phrase, “Please be advised,” which she said reads like a directive and could “raise real First Amendment concerns,” among other questions.
City Councilwoman Shané Darby replied to Troncoso’s post, stating that governments shouldn’t host these types of events. She also claimed that Carney “is so disconnected and out of touch with [the] community.”
Following Klinger’s initial response, Spotlight Delaware again asked for the particular reasons the city singled out homeless and LGBTQ+ communities in the email.
In response, Klinger said comedy sets often draw from current events, and noted that officials were concerned performers might joke about homelessness, or target LGBTQ+ people amid what she described as “a growing tendency for media personalities across the country to poke fun at LGBTQ+ individuals.”
Homelessness has been a hot topic after the Carney administration created a city-sanctioned encampment at Christina Park last year, which sits in the East Side community.
The city’s most recent plan to reorganize the camp by pushing park residents to stay inside of city-owned tents within a grid system sparked criticism from housing advocates and from unhoused individuals who feared the changes could threaten their property and disrupt the community.
State legislators are also debating the issue with a bill to strengthen protections for the homeless, which has sparked calls from Republicans and real estate advocacy groups, who said it would hurt small businesses and make local governments the target of costly civil suits.
While homelessness has been a topic of debate, one performer at The Queen’s open mic said the city directive wasn’t necessary. And he said it caused confusion because it had not appeared in original sign-up materials.
“I think at the end of the day, it really would have just been nice to get up there and not have to think about this,” said the performer, Brian Piccolomini.
Spotlight Delaware also spoke with an employee at The Queen, who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation. The employee said they were “deeply disturbed” by the email sent by Christopher.
“There was no communication to my knowledge and to other people’s knowledge in the staff about anything related to that email at all, and they would not have gotten approved by the venue for sure,” the employee said.
The post Restrictions on city-hosted open mic sparks a backlash appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
Why Should Delaware Care?
Government works best when its citizens are knowledgeable and engaged. Delaware’s government has scores of commissions, working groups, agencies and legislative committees. All must hold meetings that are open to the public. Below we highlight a few of those minutes that are happening this week.
Here is a look at some of the most important or interesting public meetings happening around the state this week:
The General Assembly’s Bond Bill Committee will meet for several days this week to consider proposals by state agencies to fund capital building projects using state bonds.
Each year, the state issues about $1 billion in debt through the bond market on the back of state taxpayers in order to fund large construction projects like road improvements, new schools and upgraded state facilities. That debt is repaid over multiple years to reduce its financial impact on a single year.
Officially called the Joint Capital Improvement Committee, the group of lawmakers from both the House and Senate, led by retiring Rep. Debra Heffernan (D-Bellefonte) and State Sen. Jack Walsh (D-Stanton), will meet from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
During those committee meetings, lawmakers will hear presentations from agencies like the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control and the Delaware State Housing Authority about the capital projects they would like to see included in the legislature’s omnibus spending package later this spring.
Monday’s hearing will include presentations from:
Tuesday’s hearing will include presentations from:
Wednesday’s hearing will include presentations from:
Thursday’s hearing will focus on education projects in the First State, with presentations from:
📍 The Joint Capital Improvement Committee is scheduled to meet from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday inside the Joint Finance Committee Hearing Room at Legislative Hall, located at 411 Legislative Ave. in Dover. For the full schedule of presenting agencies and information about virtual attendance, scroll through the “What’s Happening” tab here.
A group of state revenue analysts will vote Wednesday to determine the level at which Delaware hospitals will be held accountable for increasing their financial burden on state taxpayers in 2027.
The Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council, better known as DEFAC, sets what is called the “health care spending benchmark” in an attempt to keep hospital spending — that is often passed on to Delawareans — at a manageable level. Since 2018, Delaware has blown past its spending benchmarks almost every year they have been in effect.
A board meant to keep hospitals within the spending benchmark had a powerful enforcement lever in its arsenal until earlier this year, but that mechanism to modify or veto hospital budgets not in line with the benchmark has since been repealed following a lawsuit with the state’s largest hospital system.
📍 The DEFAC Healthcare Spending Benchmark Subcommittee is scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. Wednesday inside the DHSS Chapel at the Herman M. Holloway Sr. Campus, located at 1901 N. Dupont Highway in New Castle. For more information, including about virtual attendance, click here.
Dover City Council members will discuss on Monday how to spend the city’s portion of the state’s opioid settlement funds.
Earlier this year, a commission stood up by Dover Mayor Robin Christiansen concluded the city should spend its share of the funds, about $250,000 this year, on a youth-focused initiative meant to prevent and combat opioid drug use among kids in the capital city.
Members of that commission will now advance their recommendations to the full city council for final consideration.
📍 The Dover City Council is scheduled to meet at 6:30 p.m. Monday inside City Hall Council Chambers, located at 15 Loockerman Plaza in Dover. For more information, including about virtual attendance, click here.
Town leaders in Delmar – both in Delaware and neighboring Maryland – will hold a joint meeting of their town councils Monday night to introduce a proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
While the Delaware and Maryland sides of Delmar each technically have their own governments with separate mayors and town councils, the municipalities often operate jointly on key issues like education policing and sewage treatment.
Because of these joint operations, the towns split the cost of running the shared operations each year.
📍 The Delmar Joint Town Council is scheduled to meet at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Delmar Town Hall, located at 12 E. State St. in Delmar. For more information, including about virtual attendance, click here.
Reporter Nick Stonesifer contributed to this report.
The post Get Involved: Bond bill hearings, hospital spending, opioid fund options, more appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
In February, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit accusing Dallas officials of failing to adequately fund the city’s police department and violating a voter-approved measure requiring it to hire up to 900 new officers.
“I filed this lawsuit to ensure that the City of Dallas fully funds law enforcement, upholds public safety, and is accountable to its constituents,” Paxton said in a news release demanding that the city adhere to a 2024 change in its charter. “When voters demand more funding for law enforcement, local officials must immediately comply.”
The reason Paxton could pursue such action, the reason the Dallas city charter even requires hiring more officers, was due in large part to a man named Art Martinez de Vara. A private attorney with a law practice based in Houston and a tiny South Texas town called Von Ormy, Martinez de Vara was one of the driving forces behind the changes in the charter that opened Dallas up to such a lawsuit in the first place.
Martinez de Vara’s personal website lists him as a state historian, an anthropologist and an attorney, in that order. He’s also the mayor of Von Ormy, a community of 1,100 people. But over the past two decades, Martinez de Vara has been much more than that. He has made a name for himself in Texas conservative circles as the architect behind the formation of a handful of small towns with austere — nearly nonexistent — local governments.
His push for limited-government concepts is not out of the norm in Texas, a state that has long worn that badge with pride. But the so-called “liberty city” experiment, in which communities agree to lean governments, little to no taxation and scant regulation, never grew into a large-scale movement. So in recent years, Martinez de Vara and other limited-government advocates have taken a different tack: They’ve ramped up efforts to restrict local governments’ ability to decide how they spend their money and which policies they can adopt.
That’s what happened in Dallas.
Two years ago, Martinez de Vara joined a coalition of power players associated with a nonprofit called Dallas HERO, a group funded in part by Republican megadonor and Dallas-area hotelier Monty Bennett.
As HERO’s attorney, Martinez de Vara helped draft and lobby for ballot measures that required the city to dedicate a large share of its budget to hiring more police officers and significantly increase starting pay, even if it meant cutting other public services. Last year, the city agreed to fund hiring 350 more officers to begin meeting the new requirement, which has no timeline for compliance.
Another measure Martinez de Vara helped draft made the city more vulnerable to lawsuits from opponents of its actions, by stripping the city of its immunity from litigation.
The measures, the group argued, would make Dallas safer and ensure local officials were more accountable to their constituents. But Dallas’s elected officials, nearly all of whom were opposed to the measures, say the reality has been detrimental. They are cutting city services and staff to ensure they have the money for the new recruits, even as crime continues to drop. And they’ve already had to spend additional money to defend themselves against a lawsuit brought by a couple who argued that the city violated its own noise regulations by allowing the construction of a church basketball court near their home. (A judge dismissed the couple’s claims tied to the city charter amendment, but that ruling is now on appeal.) Paxton’s lawsuit — which Dallas maintains it still has immunity from — now puts a new microscope on the city more than a year after the propositions passed.
“The Republican officials running Texas have long sought to gain leverage over the Democrat officials running the state’s largest cities, so I am not surprised that Attorney General Paxton joined with HERO lawyers to sue Dallas,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University.
Dallas is not the only city dealing with the fallout from efforts pushed by Martinez de Vara.
Earlier in his career, he persuaded five small towns to incorporate. At least two of them still struggle to provide basic services.
In Von Ormy, just outside of San Antonio, the town still doesn’t have a sewer system 18 years after it was created, relying entirely on septic tanks. And about 60 miles away in the town of Kingsbury, Mayor Shirley Nolen, a supporter of Martinez de Vara, acknowledged that the low-tax, small-government model has been hard to maintain. “That’s kind of a double-edged sword,” she said. “There’s no regulation.”
During the past year, Martinez de Vara also served as the attorney for the nonprofit Texas Government Accountability Association. According to Republican former Texas Rep. Matt Krause, previously a member of the association board, the organization is funded in part by Bennett, who has used his fortune to advocate for the passage of school vouchers, end transgender care for youth and upend homeless services in big cities.
Bennett and Martinez de Vara declined to talk to WFAA for this story. When WFAA traveled to Von Ormy to ask Martinez de Vara about HERO, he declined to talk, citing pending litigation. When asked about his work in Von Ormy, he said, “I can’t because it’s all tied in.”
The accountability association’s leaders spent most of 2025 trying to entice, and sometimes force with petition drives, various cities and other government entities across Texas to enter into contracts that required them to pay membership fees to the organization and adhere to a set of prescribed accountability and transparency requirements. If they failed to do so, they risked being sued.
Odessa, a Republican stronghold in West Texas, became one of the first cities to sign on. But the city quickly sued TGAA to get out of the deal, arguing in court documents that the group sought to “illegally transfer” local rulemaking power to itself and wanted the right to veto decisions made by city leaders.
Elected officials should not give up government immunity or their ability to make their own decisions, said Bill Helfand, a municipal law expert and Houston attorney.
“I cannot imagine how any responsible government official or body would agree that they are not capable of self-governance, literally,” Helfand said. “I would vote against any person running for any elective office who agreed they need outside oversight to ensure they are doing their elected duties.”
Over the course of a career that began nearly two decades ago, Martinez de Vara has worked for two state lawmakers and served as assistant general counsel for the Republican Party of Texas. He also has at least 15 years of experience in local government, including terms as either mayor or city attorney in several small towns near San Antonio.
That journey started in 2006, when Martinez de Vara was still a law school student at St. Mary’s University and he began a campaign to incorporate Von Ormy, a 2-square-mile community just southwest of San Antonio on Interstate Highway 35. By forming their own local government, Von Ormy citizens would have the legal authority to make their own laws.
Martinez de Vara worked with residents who feared annexation from sprawling San Antonio, framing the effort as an example of how Texans could resist what he saw as creeping municipal overreach. Von Ormy, he said, would form a government that would work toward eliminating property taxes while still providing basic services to its residents, and would offer free business permitting and few regulations.
“We were fighting not only for sewer, potholes and police protection but for self-determination and empowerment of our community,” Martinez de Vara wrote in a firsthand account of the incorporation campaign. In May 2008, Von Ormy residents said yes to becoming their own city in a vote of 117 to 16.
Martinez de Vara, who did not grow up in Von Ormy but whose family has lived there for generations, became its first mayor. The town’s incorporation and his election garnered statewide attention for the model of government he proposed, one he said made Von Ormy the “freest little city in Texas,” according to a 2017 story in the Texas Observer. He later called the community “a unique opportunity to experiment with democracy,” describing it as the kind of place where people can freely set off fireworks and smoke cigars wherever they want.
But cracks quickly began to form. Martinez de Vara had pushed incorporation partly to help fund construction of a sewer system for the community, whose residents relied on septic tanks. But the sewer service was going to cost millions of dollars and would require the city to borrow money. Martinez de Vara opposed taking on any extra debt.
Tensions escalated over Martinez de Vara’s plan to eliminate property taxes, according to interviews, City Council minutes and previous news accounts. Some City Council members began to question whether the zero property tax approach was sustainable, possibly creating an overreliance on sales taxes.
Martinez de Vara eventually succeeded in eliminating the city’s property taxes. But the move threw the City Council into disarray and eventually led to misdemeanor charges against council members who were charged with violating the Texas Open Meetings Act in an attempt to override his action. Those charges were later dropped, and Martinez de Vara eventually decided not to seek a subsequent term as mayor amid the turmoil. Council members reinstated the property tax in his absence.
The challenges, however, were not a deterrent for his vision of expanding the liberty cities model. Over the years, he helped various communities in some capacity to incorporate and eventually started working to enshrine the liberty cities model into law.
Doing so, Martinez de Vara told attendees at a January 2015 forum sponsored by the influential conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, would prevent future elected leaders from abandoning the model by, for instance, raising taxes. The group supported such legislation in a policy brief calling the liberty city model a “new concept for self-governance.”
Martinez de Vara by then had become chief of staff for state Sen. Konni Burton, a Republican who represented portions of North Texas west of Dallas and was a leader in one of the founding tea party chapters. In February 2015, Burton filed a bill that would bar leaders of liberty cities from adopting a property tax without approval from at least 60% of voters, mandate voter approval before taking on public debt and allow a citizen’s bill of rights “expressly limiting” city authority. The bill did not pass. Burton, who left office in 2019, declined to speak to WFAA for this story.
The idea behind the liberty city movement in Texas, especially for small rural cities, was to promote incorporation for basic public services at low cost. But in practice, the model has not proven successful, said Jillson, the SMU political science professor.
“A few towns, like Von Ormy, tried it, but the results were disappointing,” Jillson said. “Turns out meaningful public services do cost money, so mayors and city councils were left fighting over tax cuts and poor services until everyone simply threw up their hands.”
More than a decade after its formation in 2015, the town of Kingsbury, which Martinez de Vara helped to incorporate, has only one paid employee. Everything else is handled by volunteers. “We don’t have water or sewer. We don’t have trash pickup,” said Nolen, the town’s longtime mayor. “It’s all very self-reliant farmers and ranchers out here. We don’t want any property tax.”
The liberty cities model of fewer regulations, however, has also brought with it the challenge of dealing with a landfill that moved in just outside the tiny city’s boundaries. Some balked when Nolen began talking about passing zoning rules, she said.
“People are like, ‘Well, I don’t want anybody telling me what to do on my own property,’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t either.’ However, I don’t want Joe Bob’s unlined-hole-in-the-ground battery disposal coming in next to my house,” she said.
Sixty miles away in Von Ormy, two truck stops make up a significant part of the city’s revenue. Residents and businesses still rely on septic tanks, and locals say larger businesses have been hesitant to relocate there because of the lack of sewer service.
“I’m sure you’ve driven around,” said Alex Quintanilla, a former city commissioner. “There’s nothing around here. What is there?”
Martinez de Vara’s vision for a liberty city, and whether he can carry it out, will be tested once again. Von Ormy reelected him as mayor last year, a few months after the passage of the Dallas HERO initiatives.
Even as he returned to the leadership role of the town, Martinez de Vara and his allies, through the Texas Government Accountability Association, continued efforts to dictate how other cities make budget and policy decisions.
The TGAA branded itself as an initiative focused on helping local governments embrace stronger ethics and transparency. But officials in cities that encountered the new organization questioned that goal. Some argued the organization’s real aim was to find a way to control cities, similar to what happened with Dallas HERO in 2024.
The connections between Dallas HERO and TGAA go beyond kindred philosophies and the legal services of Martinez, who also served as TGAA’s lawyer. The man who handles finances for TGAA is the chief accounting officer for a hotel company founded by Bennett, the business owner who provided financial support for the Dallas HERO propositions. Dallas HERO and TGAA share a mailing address, according to the organizations’ 990 tax forms from 2024. The same mailing address is also listed on the 2024 IRS filing for Dallas Express Media, the parent company for the conservative online site Dallas Express, of which Bennett is publisher. The website posted several pieces championing Dallas HERO and lambasting city leaders who opposed it. Similarly, the site criticized city council members of one community for declining to join TGAA.
Krause, the former state representative and former TGAA board member, said he has known Bennett and Martinez de Vara for years through his work in conservative politics. As with HERO, he said, Bennett financially supports the accountability association.
“When I knew I was going to be working with Art again on TGAA, I was really excited,” Krause said. “He’s just a brilliant guy. It doesn’t surprise me that that’s somebody that Monty would have trusted and respected to be kind of the final voice on these kinds of things.”
TGAA’s model has been to hold cities to frequent audits and, in general, bind future councils to an externally written rulebook that limits local officials’ discretion, critics say. If a member entity is accused of violating the agreement, the TGAA agreement requires it to waive governmental immunity from citizen lawsuits.
TGAA tapped at least two of the cities Martinez de Vara had helped incorporate to sign on, including Kingsbury, where he is still city attorney. The town was the first to join.
The group also approached Providence Village, a planned community in North Texas that Martinez de Vara had helped to incorporate more than a decade earlier. Leaders of the town declined. Representatives from TGAA started a door-to-door campaign in the small city. They sought to gather signatures to “force the town to hold and pay for, at taxpayers’ expense, an election to add a provision to our town charter requiring TGAA membership,” Mayor Linda Inman posted on Facebook last June.
Inman, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment, wrote on Facebook that TGAA was using a recruitment strategy “that relies on buzzwords and scare tactics to mislead voters into signing their tax dollars away to a nonpublic, third-party entity with no interest in the towns and cities they’re targeting.”
In the end, only Kingsbury and Odessa, a city of 124,000 people, joined the organization. Von Ormy officials considered joining but took no action.
Odessa signed on at the behest of its conservative city manager, John Beckmeyer, former head of the state GOP. Beckmeyer did not return messages seeking comment for this story.
After new City Council members were elected in Odessa in November 2024, the city sued to get out of the deal. The terms of the contract were steep: After a grace period, Odessa would have to pay roughly $24,000 annually to maintain its membership, an amount that could increase and had no cap. The contract had no end date. And the only way the city could get out of the agreement was to hold a citywide election.
Layne Rouse, an attorney representing Odessa in the case, said the TGAA is an example of “dark money controlling politics through a backdoor contract” because its donors aren’t public.
In December, a judge declared Odessa’s TGAA contract “void and unenforceable.” The association appealed the ruling but, on Feb. 12, withdrew the appeal without explanation.
TGAA officials did not respond to questions about the lawsuit or its efforts to recruit cities.
Now TGAA’s future, and Martinez de Vara’s role with the group, appear up in the air. Besides withdrawing its appeal of the Odessa lawsuit, the group hasn’t had any meetings since December. Recent efforts to contact TGAA employees and board members have resulted in emails bouncing back.
But Martinez de Vara remains busy. When Paxton, the state attorney general, filed the lawsuit in February suing Dallas, a P.O. Box associated with Martinez de Vara’s law office in Von Ormy was listed on the petition. He represents two Dallas residents in the lawsuit who say they’ve been harmed by the city’s failure to grow its police force.
He told The Dallas Morning News that Dallas HERO had “no formal role in the litigation” but confirmed that he remains its attorney.
“I coordinated with the attorney general’s office. They were in need of someone to represent the private plaintiffs and I agreed to do so,” Martinez de Vara said. “I was a logical person to reach out to.”
The post Meet the Mayor of a Tiny Texas Town Who Wants to Limit How Cities Can Govern appeared first on ProPublica.
Rightwing Naftali Bennett and centrist Yair Lapid announce new party before Knesset vote expected later this year
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is facing the prospect of running against a rightwing-centrist super coalition in elections later this year after two of his most formidable political rivals combined forces in an attempt to oust him, inviting a third party leader to join them.
In a move that some analysts compared to the centre-right coalition that removed Viktor Orbán from power in Hungary, the former prime ministers – rightwing Naftali Bennett and centrist Yair Lapid – issued statements announcing the merger of their parties, Bennett 2026 and Yesh Atid (There is a Future).
Continue reading...  | My onewheel charger was lost for over a year and I finally found it and when I went to charge it and ride it for the first time. It powers on and then quickly depowers. Probably a dead battery, any ideas on how to replace? In Australia. [link] [comments] |
Heatwaves reach 45C across India as unseasonably cold weather affects parts of central Canada
Widespread heavy rain is sweeping over southern China. By Wednesday, rainfall totals are expected to exceed 100mm across many parts of Guangxi, Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Hunan provinces, and in some areas as much as 150-200mm.
As a result, the Office of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters and the Ministry of Emergency Management have been holding meetings with meteorological and hydrological departments to emphasise the importance of reinforced patrols and emergency responses to mitigate against the probable flooding that the intense rainfall is expected to bring. In particular, reservoirs with known safety concerns must remain empty during the period, as well as through the coming rainy season.
Continue reading...A messy fight over whether the U.S. government can conduct warrantless surveillance of American citizens could come down to whether four Democrats endorse Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s latest plan.
Johnson was stymied this month when he attempted to push through a reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The roadblock came thanks to opposition from most Democrats, plus 20 hard-right members of the GOP caucus.
The four Democrats are Reps. Gottheimer, Suozzi, Gluesenkamp Perez, and Golden
Still, four Democrats crossed party lines to vote for a procedural motion to advance the bill, despite instructions from House Democratic leaders to the contrary. Whether those four support Johnson during a vote this week could prove crucial.
The four Democrats are Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Tom Suozzi of New Jersey, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, and Jared Golden of Maine, who is not seeking reelection this year. None responded to requests for comment.
One advocate said the outcome of the vote could hinge on their decision.
“It all comes down to those four and where they are going to land,” said Hajar Hammado, a senior policy adviser at the left-leaning advocacy group Demand Progress, “and if they are going to continue to try to hand Trump and Stephen Miller warrantless surveillance authorities without any sort of checks or reforms that make sure they’re not violating civil liberties.”
Given the skepticism of hard-right Republican lawmakers, Johnson needs every vote he can muster. On Thursday, he put forward a new proposal to extend the law for three years, with additional layers of oversight and auditing.
The latest proposal does not address reformers’ highest priority: a warrant requirement that would force FBI agents and National Security Agency analysts to get a court order before they search for information on Americans from ostensibly “foreign” communications — material collected abroad as the NSA scoops up emails, text messages, and the like.
Kia Hamadanchy, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said Johnson’s latest proposal does little to change existing law. Under Johnson’s proposal, searches would be reviewed after the fact by a privacy officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and potentially later by an inspector general.
“This just follows the old pattern of adding layer after layer of oversight,” he said. “The idea that the inspector general of the intelligence community is going to stand up to Trump on any sort of abuses is just not going to happen.”
“The idea that the inspector general of the intelligence community is going to stand up to Trump on any sort of abuses is just not going to happen.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York threw cold water on the idea of Democratic leadership formally supporting Johnson during a press conference Thursday before the latest draft was released. He said it would be “extremely difficult” for Democrats to find common ground with Republicans on the issue so long as Kash Patel — who has been embroiled in controversy over allegations about his drinking habits — remains director of the FBI.
Johnson may not need to make major concessions to bring a handful of Democrats over to his side.
A large group of centrists has signaled that they would support a “clean” extension of FISA — without major reforms — if it comes to the House floor. But they have so far followed the advice of Jeffries to oppose a procedural vote to bring the bill to the floor.
On April 17, the smaller group of four Democrats took the additional step of crossing party lines to support Johnson on the procedural vote, which ultimately failed, thanks only to hard-right members of the GOP.
After that defeat, Johnson secured a short, 10-day extension of the spying law to come up with new legislation. Members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus hope to use the next vote series to secure their long-standing, and unrelated, goal of banning a central bank digital currency.
Advocates are warily watching that debate. They worry that the digital currency ban could win over enough right-wing Republicans to hand Johnson a victory — a strategy that only works if the four Democrats continue to play along.
Progressive groups outside Congress are already targeting the four with an aggressive pressure campaign. One group, Fight for the Future, has dubbed them “the Fascist Four.”
Another supporter of existing law, House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Jim Himes, D-Conn., told Politico on Thursday that he has gotten an earful from constituents who oppose extending it without a warrant requirement.
“I’ve been taking a ton of risk, I’ve been doing a ton of explanations,” Himes said.
Himes said he has been talking to individual Republicans to craft a compromise, but Johnson’s leadership team has not engaged with him.
The post Meet the Four Democrats Who’ll Decide If Trump Gets His Domestic Spying Law appeared first on The Intercept.
It can take years to properly evaluate if a prospect works out. But here are a few early takes on the ups and downs from this year’s selection process
Grading a draft immediately after it happens is an interesting concept – a bit like giving out marks for a meal in a restaurant right after you order. But the NFL Draft Industrial Complex will not rest until verdicts are handed out, so here we are.
So, with the standard disclaimer that we won’t know for years just how these moves turn out – who had the last pick of the 2022 draft leading his team to a Super Bowl appearance? – here’s a rundown of what caught our eye over the last few days.
Continue reading...
Connecticut legislators overhauled the state’s towing law last year to make it more fair for low-income residents who couldn’t afford the fees to get their cars back. Those residents sometimes saw their cars sold after being towed for breaking one of their landlord’s parking rules.
The new law, which took effect in October, requires tow truck companies to give owners notice before hauling away a car for minor issues like failing to display an apartment complex’s parking permit or parking in the wrong space. They also now have to be available after hours to allow people to retrieve their vehicles. They have to accept credit cards and provide change when people pay in cash.
But when Elias Natal went to work one evening in December, he discovered his Buick had been towed from his home at Sunset Ridge Apartments in New Haven. And the towing company seemed to ignore the new rules.
The law requires apartment complexes to post signs warning of towing, but interviews with tenants and visits to Sunset Ridge show there were none at the complex, where many people receive state or federal rental aid. The towing company, Lombard Motors, told Natal he was towed for not having a parking permit, even though Natal has photos showing the sticker was displayed on the windshield, as he said the apartment manager instructed him.
When Natal and his partner, Jasmin Flores, discovered where the car was and went to pick it up, Lombard was already closed, and no one was available to return their car, triggering additional storage fees.
By the time they got the money together to pay the fees, it had only been four days, and the tow didn’t require excessive mileage charges since Lombard’s lot was a few blocks away. But Lombard’s fees stacked up to nearly $500. The company demanded cash, which the couple paid. They got their car back but had to argue to get any change.
“Especially after the copious amounts of money that they asked of us, to then not give us back like our minuscule change is just, it’s dehumanizing,” Natal said.
Over the past year and a half, the Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica have investigated towing practices in Connecticut, revealing how state laws favored towing companies, particularly at the expense of people with low incomes. The stories led to a new law, but reporting shows that some towing companies aren’t following it. While the legislature required most involuntary tows from apartments to be triggered by specific complaints, residents said towing companies are continuing to patrol public housing and low-income apartment complexes and tow cars for minor violations.
Few landlords had more tows in New Haven from 2022 to 2024 than the company that owns Sunset Ridge. And residents say the frequency of towing has picked up even more in recent months after the owner, Capital Realty Group, became more aggressive in response to the formation of a tenants union. In the five months since the new law took effect, Sunset Ridge has had 64 tows, compared with 146 from 2022 to 2024, according to police data. Capital Realty did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment.
Whether landlords and towers are following the law matters because towing in Connecticut has disproportionately occurred in low-income areas. In many cities, public housing complexes and low-income apartments were some of the biggest hot spots for towing before the reforms passed, according to a new CT Mirror and ProPublica analysis of police department tow logs.
The analysis of data from nine of the largest Connecticut cities showed that census tracts where the most tows occurred from 2022 to 2024 tended to have larger populations of renters, larger Black and Hispanic populations and much higher rates of poverty than the state as a whole. The census tract where Natal and Flores live had the second-most tows in the city and a high population of Hispanic and Black residents. In Norwalk, the top seven property parcels for tows belong to the public housing authority.
“It’s such a fish-in-a-barrel situation where people have to put their car somewhere,” said Luke Melonakos, vice president of the Connecticut Tenants Union, about the difficulty finding parking in some of these housing complexes. “They have no choice but to try to abide by these often very arduous, confusing, often-changing-frequently parking rules.”
Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles spokesperson Shaun Formica said that the agency hasn’t received any complaints of towing companies not following the law, but that complaints about towing overall have gone down. Since the law went into effect in October, there have been seven complaints, compared with 32 from October 2024 to March 2025, records show. Natal did not file a complaint.
Lombard Motors and another company owned by the same group, Anthony’s Hightech Auto Center, were the subject of nine complaints that resulted in fines between 2023 and 2025 before the law took effect, records show. In two cases, the DMV fined them a total of $5,000 for overcharging people to get their vehicles after a tow and ordered Lombard to return more than $1,000 to the vehicle owners. Lombard did not attend the hearings to offer a defense in either case, records show.
The owners of Lombard and Anthony’s did not respond to multiple calls for comment.
Like at Sunset Ridge, the effects of towing have been felt most by people of color and poor families in Connecticut, in part because they are more likely to rent than own their home.
Statewide, about a third of people are renters. In census tracts where the most tows occurred, more than three-quarters are renters. The 50 census tracts where tows occurred most were about 27% Black and 38% Hispanic, compared with 10% and 18% statewide. Connecticut’s overall poverty rate is 10%, but it’s 26% in these census tracts.
Residents of these areas say they face higher levels of towing because public housing authorities and landlords of low-income apartment complexes often have towing companies on contract to patrol their areas. Though the intent might be to deal with abandoned cars or a lack of parking for residents, they say it’s led to overly aggressive towing for minor mistakes that people in wealthier neighborhoods don’t have to worry about.
One of the most common towing spots in Waterbury from 2022 to 2024 was the Berkeley Heights public housing complex with 318 tows — more than one tow for each of the 254 apartments there.
Dyshawn Key was visiting his mother there in April 2024 when shortly after 11 p.m. he noticed a tow truck lifting his car, which was parked outside his mother’s apartment.
He had forgotten to move his car from his mother’s spot, which required a parking permit, and rushed out and begged the driver to stop, but it was too late. Key’s car has been towed at least eight times from Berkeley Heights since 2022, mostly for parking without a sticker.
“They make sure that people are sleeping and there’s nobody around, and they just tiptoe through here and take your vehicle,” Key said. Data shows that almost 90% of tows there happened between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., when apartment offices are typically closed and it’s unlikely that property managers would complain about parking.
Fewer tows have happened at Berkeley Heights since the law passed, according to Waterbury tow logs.
Waterbury Housing Authority executive director Chris D’Orso said there is a public road that runs between two of the buildings at Berkeley Heights, and the city monitors it carefully to ensure that people don’t block emergency vehicle or bus access. He said there have also been problems with people leaving stolen cars in the parking lot.
“We were turned into a dumping ground for stolen cars for a while,” D’Orso said.
Still, there isn’t enough parking, he conceded. Though he said most of the tows are driven by complaints, the agency contracts with a towing company.
Like Capital Realty in New Haven, several other landlords showed up multiple times in the data. Zvi Horowitz, a New Jersey-based landlord, through several companies, owns three of the biggest towing locations in Waterbury — Diamond Court Apartments, Wyndham Court Apartments and Bunker Hill Apartments. The three locations, which have 256 apartments combined, had 522 tows over two years.
Horowitz also owns Seramonte Estates in Hamden, a large town north of New Haven, where a tenants union held protests after residents said they were frequently towed for small infractions. The complex accounted for more than half the city’s tows from January 2022 to June 2024.
Paul Boudreau, one of the tenants union’s founders, said it had negotiated for towing to stop at all of Horowitz’s apartments. But since then, he’s gotten calls from tenants who say the towing hasn’t stopped despite the new law.
Horowitz didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Boudreau said that in his work as an organizer around the state, he often hears of people getting towed soon after asking for repairs or reporting problems with housing conditions at their properties.
“They’re still using these tow trucks like hired hitmen to go after tenants, to take their stuff when they complain,” Boudreau said.
Natal and Flores said they believe they were targeted by their landlord in retaliation for joining a tenants union that is trying to improve conditions at Sunset Ridge.
The day before their car was towed they had canvassed the complex with neighbors and outside organizers as part of the Sunset Ridge Tenants Union, a group of renters calling on Capital Realty to make changes at the apartment complex. In addition to requesting repairs at the complex, tenants said they have been towed unfairly.
“Everyone has had an issue with management or with parking or with the towing company, because it’s so retaliatory,” Flores said.
Tawana Galberth, a union leader, said one of the top complaints about the apartment complex when the union polled residents was towing. Many people reported being towed for small reasons, like being parked over the line. A tow truck driver often patrols the complex at night to look for vehicles, she said.
“When I moved in, I never received clarification. How do we park? Where do we park? Where do we have visitors?” Galberth asked.
Kristy Kaik said the use of parking stickers at the Rockview public housing complex in New Haven hadn’t been enforced for more than a decade. But when her son came home from college for Christmas after the new law took effect, he discovered his car had been towed for not having a sticker.
“I live there for a reason,” she said, describing the assistance including the public health insurance she receives. “I have food stamp benefits, Husky medical, my son is in school. I’m struggling.”
Kaik said there were no signs about parking rules at the complex, which a visit to the site confirmed. So Kaik asked the housing authority to reimburse her for what she says was a wrongful tow. It refused.
The New Haven housing authority, Elm City Communities, did not respond to requests for comment.
Like Flores and Natal, Kaik found that the company, York Service & Towing, would only take cash, telling her that sometimes, people would pay with a credit card then cancel the card before payment went through. She said she also had to argue to get them to hand over her change.
Cheryl Maselli, owner of York, said her company follows all the new laws, although something like what happened to Kaik could occur if the person working doesn’t know how to use the credit card machine. She said some of the drivers “are not capable of learning new things.” They also don’t keep much cash on hand in case of robbery, she said, which could have led to the issue with change.
Maselli said her company is “one of the nicest towing companies out there.”
But she said she has to respond to her clients. “My client is a property manager. They want their property neat, clean,” Maselli said. “They don’t want people hanging out. They don’t want cars with faulty equipment, and these are some of the rules that we enforce. So when we do tow a car, the people are obviously angry.”
The post Some Connecticut Towing Companies Are Ignoring New Law Aimed at Helping Low-Income Residents appeared first on ProPublica.
This professional traveler knows the importance of staying hydrated without wasting money on bottled water. Here's the travel mug I use and why I wouldn't trade it for any other.
Help us crown the 2026 winners by taking our People's Picks survey.
A $50 billion federal fund is supposed to modernize rural healthcare. But community clinics and advocates fear that the contractors administering the money for states will bite off a big chunk before it reaches patients.
Incidents in which people apparently used exclusive knowledge to score handsome profits raise the question: Are prediction markets safe places for news junkies to bet on events - or dens of insider trading?
Hundreds of senior staff in territory benefit from nearly £30,000-a-year grant per child not available to staff in group’s other hubs
HSBC is reportedly reviewing a perk that covers school fees for bankers in Hong Kong as part of a big overhaul of the bank under its chief executive, Georges Elhedery.
Europe’s largest bank is considering whether to scrap the perk for new employees or make changes to total compensation, Bloomberg News reported. No decisions have been made yet.
Continue reading...Conservatives expected to push for privileges committee involvement in a Commons vote on Monday
A series of senior Labour figures have dismissed calls for a new investigation into what Keir Starmer told MPs about the appointment of Peter Mandelson as political point scoring, before a possible Commons vote on the issue.
The Conservatives have called for the cross-party privileges committee, the remit of which includes examining whether MPs broke rules, to look at whether the prime minister misled parliament when he said normal procedures were followed with Mandelson’s appointment.
Continue reading...When gunshots were heard from inside the White House correspondents’ dinner on Saturday night, guests weren’t sure what was happening or if they were in danger. It soon emerged that suspected gunman Cole Tomas Allen had been arrested. Allen was allegedly armed with knives, a shotgun and a handgun at the time of arrest. Sitting at his table inside the lavish room as the events unfolded was the Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief David Smith. He speaks to Nour Haydar about the panic in the room when the shots were fired
Continue reading...Public stock exchanges "appear to be warming to climate tech startups," reports TechCrunch. "Or at least some of them." This week, nuclear startup X-energy went public, raising $1 billion in an upsized share offering that appears to have delivered a windfall for its investors, including Amazon [and Google]. Retail investors apparently can't get enough, with the stock popping 25% in its first hour of trading. Also this week, geothermal startup Fervo said it filed for an initial public offering. The size of the Fervo IPO has yet to be disclosed, but private investors have valued the company at around $3 billion, according to PitchBook. The move to go public aligns with what investors told TechCrunch at the end of last year. After years of tepid attitudes toward climate tech companies, they expected public markets to start welcoming energy-related startups. Nearly every investor that weighed in on the question said the startups with the best chances of going public specialize in either nuclear fission or enhanced geothermal. Fervo, specifically, was mentioned several times. Thank data centers for that. The AI craze has taken a trend of rising demand for electricity and made it sexy and salable.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
When gunshots were heard from inside the White House correspondents’ dinner on Saturday night, guests weren’t sure what was happening or if they were in danger.
It soon emerged that suspected gunman Cole Tomas Allen had been arrested by security officials. Allen was allegedly armed with knives, a shotgun and a handgun at the time of arrest.
Sitting at his table in the lavish ballroom as the events unfolded was the Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief David Smith. He speaks to Nour Haydar about what is known about the alleged gunman’s motivations, the panic when the shots were fired and the questions being asked about the event’s security protocols
Continue reading...Owner of Pink Punters vows to reopen club as police call on the public not to speculate
A man has been arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life after a fire at an LGBTQ+ nightclub, police have said.
Officers have called on people not to speculate about why the fire may have been set at Pink Punters in Fenny Stratford, near Milton Keynes, saying it is too early to tell. The club’s owner said he was relieved no one was hurt – and vowed the club would reopen.
Continue reading...James Sherwin-Smith will be up for election after securing more than 250 nominations to run alongside existing directors
Nationwide building society could have a customer on its board for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century after one of its longtime members secured enough support for a spot on the lender’s annual ballot.
James Sherwin-Smith will be up for board elections at Nationwide’s annual general meeting (AGM) in July, having gathered more than the 250 peer nominations necessary to run alongside existing directors.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: After the dramatic events of Saturday night, White House security arrangements are under scrutiny and political violence is once again in the spotlight
Good morning. On Saturday night the annual Washington ritual of the White House correspondents’ dinner descended into chaos as the US president and first lady were evacuated after the event was interrupted by gunfire.
Journalists ducked under tables as authorities rushed Donald Trump and members of his cabinet out of the room. The president and his wife were unharmed, and a suspect is in custody – identified as Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old man from southern California. In today’s newsletter, I will bring you the latest updates on what we know about the incident. First, the headlines.
UK politics | Labour figures from across rival factions have begun circulating informal proposals for an “orderly transition” of power away from Keir Starmer, the Guardian understands, shifting their discussions from whether the prime minister could be removed to how.
Europe news | Private jets laden with the spoils of those whose wealth swelled during Viktor Orbán’s years in power have been taking off from Vienna, while other individuals are racing to invest their assets abroad.
Trade | UK business leaders have called on the government to build an EU-style “trade bazooka” to protect Britain’s economic interests in response to the latest tariff threats from Donald Trump.
Middle East | Hopes of a breakthrough in negotiations between Iran and the US faded further on Sunday, amid a deepening sense of a deadlock in the nearly two-month-long conflict.
Science | Simultaneous exposure to toxic chemicals and climate change’s impacts likely contributes to the broad global drop in fertility.
Continue reading...Woman’s body found in Iwate prefecture last week, soon after a police officer was injured in bear attack nearby
Rested but famished bears emerging from hibernation in Japan are already coming into contact with humans, with the pace of sightings outstripping that seen in 2025, a record year for bear attacks.
According to media reports, the animals have been spotted with surprising frequency in urban areas in the country’s north-east, with authorities urging caution among people planning to spend the coming Golden Week public holidays in the countryside.
Continue reading...Half of respondents to RCN poll said patients ‘frequently come to harm’ because caseloads are too high
Mental health patients in the UK are routinely coming to harm because of high caseloads, understaffing and overwhelming administrative work, according to a poll that found only a fifth of specialist nurses felt their workload was manageable.
Prof Nicola Ranger, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said mental health nurses were caught in a “perfect storm” and unable to keep up with rising demand, with patients paying the price by missing out on crucial care.
Continue reading...This is the setup on the GT in the marketplace listing
****NO TRADES****
FULLY MODDED GT IN PERFECT CONDITION - Comes with:
Onewheel GT treaded
WTF rails - funmetal
Platypus Foot pads
VERY LIMITED Clear drop top fender
Front and back BASH bumpers
BASH Fangs
Rim savers
Rail badges
Rail bumpers
1/1 custom rail guards
Grip tape eraser
C&R tool kit with electric tire presure reader
Armadillo Tire sealant
ALL ORIGINAL PARTS:
OG rails, OG fender delete, OG footpads, OG bumpers, OG box
Bought everything brand new from CnR, onewheel, and TFL and have all receipts. a $3,500 setup.
He accepted my offer of 1750
This isint a question of money, I will eventually have enough money for the ADV2 but is it 450 better?
 | Posted on my instagram @ the_hobbyboard [link] [comments] |
Engineer and two drivers killed in recent weeks as scarcity of clean water fuels spread of preventable diseases
Israeli forces in Gaza killed a water engineer and two drivers who transported water to displaced families over four days in mid-April, exacerbating severe shortages of clean water that are fuelling the spread of preventable disease.
Israeli limits on the shipment of soap, washing powder and other hygiene products into Gaza have also forced prices up, adding to the challenge of keeping clean and avoiding infection in overcrowded shelters and tent encampments.
Continue reading...How close are we to the sci-fi vision of autonomous humanoid robots? I visited 11 companies in five Chinese cities to find out
By Chang Che. Read by Vincent Lai
Continue reading...Even on the sidelines, Ankara faces blowback.
Spent the past few years riding the mtb trails w the onewheel for a change and love how different the trails feel taking it slow, picking lines, bonking off every little root and rock, compared to what my bike just rolls across.
I am interested in a performance boost but not sure which.
Im torn between wtf rails (or similar) and the headache of downgrading firmware to relevel. Or a 5in hub (which i think would give me a little more torque?)
The flight fin hooks made a nice upgrade, and going from slick to the FF goat tire made a world of difference. Whats next?
US president calls media ‘horrible people’ after CBS correspondent Norah O’Donnell put to him segments of the suspected gunman’s alleged manifesto
Donald Trump spoke with CBS correspondent Norah O’Donnell in an interview that aired Sunday night on 60 Minutes describing his ordeal at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner when shots rang out.
A gunman opened fire at the Washington Hilton hotel Saturday night, though he did not breach the basement-level ballroom where Trump was sitting at the time. The president described the events in an even tone, saying that he did not feel particularly alarmed as they unfolded.
Continue reading...The latest U.S. military strike on a boat accused of ferrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean killed three people Sunday.
"California, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, Connecticut, Oregon and Washington have all passed comprehensive right-to-repair regulations," reports CNBC, "covering everything from consumer electronics and farm equipment to wheelchairs and automobiles." And the consumer movement "continues to gain political momentum" across America... As of this year, advocates are tracking 57 right-to-repair bills across 22 states. In Maine, the state senate just advanced a bill that would bring the right to repair to electronics in the state. Texas's new right-to-repair law kicks in on Sept. 1 and covers phones, laptops, and tablets, but excludes medical and farm equipment, and game consoles.... [U.S.] Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) are unlikely political bedfellows but have joined together to sponsor the REPAIR Act... The REPAIR Act would require automakers to give vehicle owners, independent repair shops, and aftermarket manufacturers secure access to vehicle repair and maintenance data, preventing manufacturers from funneling consumers into their own exclusive and more expensive dealership repair networks... Hawley criticized big corporations in his arguments in favor of right-to-repair legislation. "Big corporations have a history of gatekeeping basic information that belongs to car owners, effectively forcing consumers to pay a fixed price whenever their car is in the shop," Hawley told CNBC. "The bipartisan REPAIR Act would end corporations' control over diagnostics and service information and give consumers the right to repair their own equipment at a price most feasible for them." The largest small business lobby in the U.S., the NFIB, says 89% of its members support right-to-repair legislation, making it a top legislative priority for 2026.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Military video shows boat moving swiftly in water before explosion leaves it in flames
The US military said on Sunday three men were killed when it struck a boat it claimed was “engaged in narco-trafficking operations” in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
This latest strike – which follows dozens of similar attacks on alleged drug boats in recent months – brings the US campaign’s death toll to at least 185, according to a tally compiled by Agence France-Presse.
Continue reading...  | Hey all decided my first board I’m looking at a fungineer board. I’m not super familiar with vesc or the electronics but slowly learning. I found someone selling an early fungi diy kit and looks to be similar/same parts as the current x7. Seller said it rides fine as is and was lightly used asking 1800 plus shipping. Is this a fair deal? Should I spend a little extra and get the prebuilt x7? [link] [comments] |
Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for April 27.
Manifesto reportedly written by the suspect had Trump administration officials at top of list
Investigators are looking into anti-Trump sentiment as being a motive for the attacker who sought to breach the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington DC where the US president and top members of his administration were present.
Officials have said that the shooter likely was targeting Donald Trump and other senior administration officials. “We do believe, based upon just a very preliminary start to understanding what happened, that he was targeting members of the administration,” acting US attorney general Todd Blanche said in a TV interview.
Continue reading...Have the ubox vesc coming in soon and my current setup has a vnr setup. I have a extra harness and was curious if anyone or if its even possible to run the vnr with the ubox. If not planning to do a whole harness swap to avoid any issues, plus my second pint is still stock and compatible with the vnr. Want to make sure before i start the process. Given its just a 60v parrallel system i dont know if sprinted has anything that could be messed up. Thanks for the help
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Associated Pres: Okello Chatrie's cellphone gave him away. Chatrie made off with $195,000 from the bank he robbed in suburban Richmond, Virginia, and eluded the police until they turned to a powerful technological tool that erected a virtual fence and allowed them collect the location history of cellphone users near the crime scene... Now the Supreme Court will decide whether geofence warrants violate the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches... Chatrie's appeal is one of two cases being argued Monday... Civil libertarians say that geofences amount to fishing expeditions that subject many innocent people to searches of private records merely because their cellphones happened to be in the vicinity of a crime. A Supreme Court ruling in favor of the technique could "unleash a much broader wave of similar reverse searches," law professors who study digital surveillance wrote the court... In Chatrie's case, the geofence warrant invigorated an investigation that had stalled. After determining that Chatrie was near the Call Federal Credit Union in Midlothian around the time it was robbed in May 2019, police obtained a search warrant for his home. They found nearly $100,000 in cash, including bills wrapped in bands signed by the bank teller. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison. Chatrie's lawyers argued on appeal that none of the evidence should have been used against him. They challenged the warrant as a violation of his privacy because it allowed authorities to gather the location history of people near the bank without having any evidence they had anything to do with the robbery. Prosecutors argued that Chatrie had no expectation of privacy because he voluntarily opted into Google's location history. A federal judge agreed that the search violated Chatrie's rights, but allowed the evidence to be used because the officer who applied for the warrant reasonably believed he was acting properly.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read the full transcript of Norah O'Donnell's April 26, 2026, interview with President Trump here.
The Israeli government and Hezbollah have traded blame over breaches to the truce, which is set to run for several more weeks
Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes on the country’s south killed 14 people on Sunday, the deadliest day since a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into force over a week ago.
The health ministry said the dead on Sunday included two women and two children, adding that 37 other people were wounded. Israel said one of its soldiers was also killed.
Continue reading...Go behind the scenes with our team as we find and make sense of the numbers.
Law enforcement agencies name Cole Tomas Allen as Trump posts video of man sprinting through checkpoint
The suspected gunman in the shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner that has roiled Washington has been identified as Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old man from southern California.
Allen, of Torrance, a suburb of Los Angeles, has no record of criminal charges or a civil court history in Los Angeles county, according to a records search.
Continue reading...Acting attorney general says suspect was believed to have been targeting top Trump administration officials
The gunman who tried to breach the ballroom at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington DC on Saturday night is believed to have been targeting Donald Trump and senior members of his administration, the acting US attorney general, Todd Blanche, said on Sunday, although his exact motive has not yet become clear.
The suspect, who is in custody after being subdued by members of law enforcement as he rushed through the hotel venue, could be charged with trying to assassinate the US president, Blanche said.
Continue reading...As AI erases the bottom rungs of the corporate ladder, some gen Z workers skip the entry level to become their own CEOs
When Ashley Terrell graduated from the University of Hawaii in 2024, she planned to find a job in marketing, maybe for a tech company. She had a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a college résumé that included a student marketing job for Red Bull. But after months of applying, her only offer was to work in the power tools section at Home Depot. “It was quite a shock,” she told the Guardian. “I searched for jobs every single day in that Home Depot bathroom.”
Terrell’s generation is entering the workforce in a particularly unlucky moment. Hiring in the United States has slumped to its lowest rate since 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While workers of all ages are feeling the pressure of an uncertain economy, it’s gen Z who is the most pessimistic about their job prospects: entry-level jobs are the most vulnerable to impacts from artificial intelligence, and some younger workers are seeing their careers stall before they have even started. Terrell felt she was not just competing with other people for jobs. “Especially with marketing, a lot of people think it can be replaced with AI,” she said.
Continue reading...A crypto tycoon is giving record-breaking amounts to Farage’s party. But little is known about his motives
Shortly before Christmas 2022, Chakrit Sakunkrit, owner of the Kamalaya Wellness Sanctuary on the Thai island of Koh Samui, invited 200 guests to spend a few days celebrating his 60th birthday. One sultry afternoon, Sakunkrit and a small group gathered around a table near the shore, surrounded by the burgundy foliage of Good Luck plants. To his right, dressed down in a polo shirt, sat Nigel Farage.
Since Brexit marked the achievement of his life’s work three years earlier, Farage had fizzled. Even some of his supporters had pronounced him finished. Now, with the Conservatives in disarray after Liz Truss’s disastrous budget that September, Farage was hinting at a still more ambitious project: to make himself prime minister.
Continue reading...
When Karen Uricoli learned she had a tumor near her pancreas, the 63-year-old Wilmington woman feared she was facing another long, uncertain cancer journey. A 13-year breast cancer survivor, she’d been through it once already.
Instead, she found something she didn’t expect at ChristianaCare’s Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute: a less-invasive surgical option that had only just arrived in Delaware. In November 2025, Uricoli became one of the first patients in the state to undergo a robotic Whipple procedure, one of the most complex operations in cancer surgery. Two weeks later, she was well enough to begin chemotherapy, followed by immunotherapy. Today, she’s back at work full-time.
“I feel energetic again, basically back to my normal life,” she said.
Uricoli’s experience is one example of what’s happening every day at the Graham Cancer Center, where Delawareans are getting access to treatments and technologies that not long ago would have meant traveling to Philadelphia, Baltimore or beyond. From new surgical capabilities to national clinical trials to a new cancer care hub opening south of the C&D Canal, the Graham Cancer Center has demonstrated that Delaware patients no longer need to leave home for advanced cancer care.
“Cancer care works best when it’s carefully coordinated, and that’s hard to do when patients are piecing together treatment across state lines,” said Thomas Schwaab, M.D., Ph.D., who is the Bank of America Endowed Medical Director of the Graham Cancer Center. “Everything we’re building here, the technology, the research clinical trials, the team, is designed to keep that coordination intact and keep patients connected to the people who love them.”
The robotic Whipple is a case in point. Traditionally performed as open surgery, the Whipple removes tumors from the pancreas and surrounding structures, then reconnects the digestive system so it can function properly.
Graham Cancer Center surgical oncologists Arvind Sabesan, M.D., and Brendan Hagerty, M.D., began offering it robotically in October 2025, putting ChristianaCare among the first programs in the region to do so. The smaller incisions can mean less pain, faster recovery and, critically for cancer patients, a quicker transition to chemotherapy or follow-up treatment.
“With the robotic Whipple, we’re helping people in the community move on with their lives as quickly as possible,” Sabesan said.
For Uricoli, the clinical expertise of her surgical team was matched by the personal connection she found at the Graham Center. Rather than facing the stress of out-of-state travel, she found a partnership that prioritized both her physical recovery and her emotional well-being.
An emphasis on precision is also driving Delaware’s first adaptive radiation therapy program at the Graham Cancer Center. Built around the Varian Ethos system, adaptive radiation uses daily imaging and artificial intelligence to rebuild a patient’s treatment plan before every session, accounting for how tumors and nearby organs shift from day to day. It’s especially valuable for cancers in the pelvis and abdomen, and it can sometimes deliver higher doses in as few as five sessions.
ChristianaCare was among the first centers in the country to enroll patients in two National Cancer Institute–funded trials using the technology, one for advanced pancreatic cancer and another for bladder cancer.
Those national trials are part of a broader research footprint that puts the Graham Cancer Center in rare company. Nearly one in three patients at the center takes part in a clinical trial, a participation rate seven times the national average. In 2024, the cancer center enrolled more than 1,100 patients across 110 trials, earning the NCI’s Gold Award for Exceptional Achievement. It’s one of only 20 centers nationwide commended by ECOG-ACRIN for clinical research performance.
A high level of participation in clinical trials matters, because it gives Delaware patients early access to treatments that haven’t yet reached standard practice.
“By enrolling in cancer research, our patients have access to the latest medical breakthroughs and simultaneously help build insights that will extend survival and enhance well-being for patients with cancer in the future,” Schwaab said.
The Graham Center’s investment in advanced technology extends to its thoracic surgery and interventional pulmonology program, which treats complex conditions of the lung, esophagus, chest, and mediastinum (the space between the lungs that contains the heart and other structures).
ChristianaCare’s thoracic surgeons perform more da Vinci robotic-assisted and video-assisted thoracoscopic procedures than any other program in Delaware, handling robotic and minimally invasive operations for lung, esophageal and thymic cancers, as well as lobectomy, segmentectomy, and hiatal hernia repair.
The program is also the only place in Delaware offering endobronchial lung volume reduction, a nonsurgical valve-placement procedure for severe emphysema that helps patients breathe easier almost immediately.
On the pulmonology side, the interventional team led by Ismael Matus, M.D., is among the nation’s highest-volume programs and is publishing research that’s changing how lung conditions are diagnosed and treated. Recent peer-reviewed studies from the team introduced a thoracic ultrasound protocol that safely replaces routine post-biopsy chest X-rays in most cases; a real-time imaging technique that confirms biopsy sample adequacy on the spot; and a multidisciplinary pathway for malignant pleural effusion that cut ER visits and hospital stays by more than half.
The team also partners with Philadelphia’s Wistar Institute on translational research designed to move new discoveries from the lab to patient care.
In May 2027, ChristianaCare will open the Middletown Health Center, an 87,000-square-foot, $92.3 million facility that will bring to one of Delaware’s fastest-growing communities the Graham Cancer Center’s multidisciplinary services, including medical, surgical and radiation oncology, infusion services, nurse navigation, and clinical trial access. It’s part of ChristianaCare’s broader $865 million investment in Delaware over three years.
Middletown’s population has grown more than 550% since 1990, and cancer care demand in the region is projected to rise 11% over the next decade. By expanding services in Middletown, ChristianaCare is responding to both the region’s population growth and the increasing need for cancer care. The new site will help patients receive timely diagnosis and treatment while reducing travel time and improving coordination with the full Graham Cancer Center team.
“As our community grows, so too does the need for locally accessible, state-of-the-art cancer services,” said Schwaab. “This expansion represents a pivotal investment in the health of the Middletown-Odessa-Townsend corridor and beyond.”
Schedule an appointment or learn more about the Graham Cancer Center.
The post For Delawareans facing cancer, world-class care is close to home appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
military contractor Palantir is helping the IRS analyze dozens of different data sets on Americans to investigate a broad range of financial crimes, according to records shared with The Intercept.
Since 2018, the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation division has used Palantir’s Lead and Case Analytics platform to aggregate and analyze a sprawling list of sensitive federal databases and data sets.
Public records detailing Palantir’s IRS contract, obtained by the nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight and shared exclusively with The Intercept, reveal the immense volume of data plugged into the military contractor’s software. The LCA uses both Palantir’s Gotham and Foundry applications to facilitate “analysis of massive-scale data to find the needle in the hay stack,” the contract paperwork says.
Documents indicate the IRS has paid Palantir over $130 million for these services to date.
Palantir’s LCA is ostensibly directed toward cracking down on fraud, money laundering, and other financial crimes. According to a 2024 agency privacy impact assessment, IRS “Special agents and investigative analysts … utilize the platform to find, analyze, and visualize connections between disparate sets of data to generate leads, identify schemes, uncover tax fraud, and conduct money laundering and forfeiture investigative activities.”
The IRS use of the software, launched under Trump’s first term and expanded under Biden, is now in the hands of an IRS Criminal Investigations office that has drastically scaled back its pursuit of tax cheats and pivoted, under Trump’s direction, toward investigating “left-leaning groups,” the Wall Street Journal reported in October.
“The real concern is the consolidation of vast amounts of sensitive personal data into a single system with minimal transparency — especially one built and operated by a contractor like Palantir, whose business model is premised on integrating data and expanding surveillance capabilities,” American Oversight director Chioma Chukwu said in a statement to The Intercept. “Its platforms have been used in deeply troubling contexts, from immigration enforcement to predictive policing, with persistent concerns about overreach, bias, and weak oversight.”
Palantir did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the IRS.
“The real concern is the consolidation of vast amounts of sensitive personal data into a single system with minimal transparency — especially one built and operated by a contractor like Palantir.”
The contract documents reviewed by The Intercept reveal that these “disparate sets of data” are vast. Palantir’s LCA allows the IRS to quickly search and visualize “connections from millions of records with thousands of links” between databases maintained by the IRS and other federal agencies. According to the contract documents, this data includes individual tax form and tax returns as well as Affordable Care Act data, bank statements, and transactions, and “all available” data compiled by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
Its view apparently extends to cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple. “The application would sit on top of a singular repository of identified wallets from seized servers utilizing dark web data obtained from exchangers such as Coinbase,” the documents note.
The program places an emphasis on mapping social relationships between the targets of an investigation. That includes analyzing a “network of people and the relationships and communications between them,” such as “calls, texts, [and] emails events.” The use of “IP address analysis” within LCA allows the IRS to “Identify suspects more easily” and “Establish (new) relationships among actors.”
These investigative functions are continuously updated, the materials say, through ongoing close work between Palantir engineers and IRS personnel.
The intermingling of sensitive data on millions of Americans comes at a time of increased global skepticism and opposition toward Palantir, which, despite its military-intelligence origins, has a thriving business with civilian agencies like the IRS. The use of Palantir software at the U.K.’s National Health Service, for example, has created an ongoing political controversy across Britain, while a similar contract with the New York City public hospital network was recently canceled following public protest.
The contract is also active at a time when IRS Criminal Investigations has been coopted to aid in the broader Trump administration’s aggressive agenda. In July, ProPublica reported that the agency was working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to provide “on demand” data to accelerate deportations. Last year, the New York Times reported that Palantir, founded by Trump ally Peter Thiel, was central to an administration effort to increase data-sharing across federal agencies.
“The question isn’t just what it can do — it’s who it will be used against.”
The company’s right-wing politics and eagerness to facilitate U.S. and Israeli military aggression abroad, NSA global surveillance, and ICE deportations has also made many wary of its access to incredibly sensitive personal data. A recent post on the company’s Palantir’s X account summarizing a book by CEO Alex Karp triggered an immediate backlash from those unnerved by the manifesto’s fascistic bent. The bullet points extolled the virtue of arms manufacturing, argued the Axis powers were unfairly punished after World War II, called for a reinstatement of the draft, condemned cultural pluralism, and claimed that wealthy elites are unfairly persecuted.
“When the government can map relationships, track behavior, and generate investigative leads across data sets at this scale, the question isn’t just what it can do — it’s who it will be used against,” Chukwu said. “Entrusting that infrastructure to a company known for opaque, security-state deployments only heightens those risks.”
The post Palantir Is Helping Trump’s IRS Conduct “Massive-Scale” Data Mining appeared first on The Intercept.
The soldier allegedly bet on Nicolás Maduro's removal as president of Venezuela before news of the raid was reported, sources told CBS News.
The Strait of Hormuz energy crisis shows the EU’s carbon pricing is the right approach Expert comment thilton.drupal
The current crisis shows that Europe must transition to renewables to reduce its dependency on volatile fossil fuels. This week’s AccelerateEU plan rightly reaffirms that goal.
The global energy crisis caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has demonstrated the vulnerability of relying on fossil fuels. Even if the Strait reopens in the near future, traffic flows are likely to be lower, with insurance premiums remaining high and Iran monitoring shipping through the Strait. QatarEnergy’s production facilities also remain damaged, impacting the supply of liquified natural gas (LNG) from the world’s largest exporter. As a result, energy prices are projected to remain high for the coming months at least.
Even though Europe only imports roughly 10 per cent of its LNG from the Gulf, the global supply constraint has already caused European energy prices to rise, as Europe competes with Asian buyers to bid for non-Qatari LNG. Since the war started, the European Union (EU) has paid an additional €24 billion for fossil fuel imports. The scale of the crisis has led to higher inflation and lower growth forecasts globally, with the IMF warning that eurozone countries are among the hardest hit due to their lack of energy independence.
In response, the European Commission (EC) released the AccelerateEU package on Wednesday. The package contains a wide range of non-binding measures aimed at addressing rising energy costs and reducing ‘dependency on volatile fossil fuel markets.’ These include short-term measures such as deeper coordination between members on storing gas and targeted temporary subsidies alongside ways to lower energy consumption. It also strengthens existing long-term solutions such as electrification incentives and transnational grid interconnectivity.
The package’s influence is likely to remain limited, given most fiscal policy remains national, and the measures are non-binding. However, it is a welcome step. Crucially, it maintains the push towards decarbonization using existing market-based instruments such as carbon pricing, through which Brussels can exert most influence.
To reduce Europe’s exposure to recurrent geopolitical shocks, domestic reliable clean energy is key. This has already been demonstrated in countries such as Spain or Greece, whose increased share of renewables has helped to cushion the impact on electricity prices. While renewables only provide intermittent energy, this issue can be solved by complementing renewables with batteries, which can now store energy for longer periods and are over 90 per cent cheaper than in 2010.
The primary tool to incentivise the transition to renewables is carbon pricing. In Europe, this has been implemented primarily through the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which caps the level of emissions the EU can emit. Under the scheme, each producer needs to buy an allowance for the number of tonnes of carbon emitted, with the allowance becoming more stringent every year.
The ETS has been successful in reducing emissions by half in the sectors it covers since it was launched in 2005. Though modestly increasing the price of electricity in the short-term, the ETS encourages decarbonization investments, reduces imports of fossil fuels, and ultimately leads to lower electricity prices in the long run. Without it, the EC estimates that Europe would ‘now consume’ an additional 100 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas; it consumes roughly 300bcm annually today.
Importantly, the ETS generates substantial revenues that can offset any increase in electricity price to vulnerable consumers if redistributed correctly. These revenues can also be used to fund decarbonization and clean energy investments.
Carbon pricing has also been instrumental in phasing out coal, which beyond catastrophic climate impacts also imposes substantial health costs. Weakening the ETS could lead to increased coal use, especially as natural gas prices rise, as seen in 2022.
Despite its success, the ETS has been at the forefront of the European energy debate ahead of its comprehensive review in July. On one side, countries such as Italy and Czechia are pushing for a pause or loosening of the policy, based on concerns over industrial competitiveness. On the other, countries including Spain and Sweden oppose it being suspended or weakened. France and Germany remain supportive of the ETS but have called for ‘flexibility’ and suggested adjustments respectively.
In December 2025, the EC postponed a proposed extension of carbon pricing to the construction and transport sectors that would have incentivized the shift away from gas boilers and petrol cars. Since then, the EC’s recent proposal to adjust the Market Stability Reserve allowances is set to modestly lower the carbon price paid by producers. This could be interpreted as an attempt to manage political tensions ahead of the ETS review in July, even though industry has thus far been a net beneficiary of the scheme through compensation and free allowances.
European countries have also responded to the current energy crisis with their own national initiatives. Notably, Italy issued an ‘energy decree’ that seeks to subsidize its natural gas producers for their carbon costs with the aim of reducing electricity prices for consumers. However, the ETS is estimated to account for just three per cent of Italian household electricity bills. This approach also further locks in natural gas use and fundamentally undermines the ‘polluter pays principle,’ which has been the cornerstone of European climate policy. Ad-hoc national policies like this risk distorting the investment environment and fragmenting the European market.
In the short term, Europe needs LNG – despite its high cost – to meet its energy demand as it strives to cut out Russian fossil fuels. The buildout of LNG infrastructure across Europe in response to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has helped provide a temporary buffer. The EU should also extend its proposed coordination of natural gas storage refilling to strengthen joint procurement with a single EU buyer, as the Draghi report outlined. Coordination with allies such as Japan and South Korea can avoid bidding wars for scarce LNG supplies.
But in the long-term, Europe will need to transition away from LNG. Europe’s current reliance on importing LNG from the US has not removed the risks from market volatility and further interlinks European markets to US domestic energy policy. Even European domestic production is priced at the market rate and therefore doesn’t inherently lower prices.
Kevin Heath had hoped there would be solar panels by now on his family farm in southeastern Michigan, roughly 50 miles outside Detroit.
About six years ago, he agreed to lease part of his land for a solar project. It would help him pay off debt and keep the farm in the family, he said. But the opportunity was thwarted when, in 2023, following pushback from some local residents, his township passed an ordinance that banned large solar projects from land zoned for agriculture.
In the fight over solar development, Heath said he was bombarded by just about every argument from critics — including claims that solar fields are a health hazard. “I’ve heard them say that, but I’ve never heard anybody prove that,” Heath said.
“The health and safety issue,” he added, “that is just a joke.”
Michigan has big prospects in solar farming — measured by the expected growth in the capacity of its farms to add electricity directly to the grid. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, most of the nation’s new capacity from this type of solar farm is planned this year for four states, including Michigan. The others, with their hot deserts and big-sky plains, seem more obvious: Texas, Arizona and California.
To some, in Michigan and beyond, this growth feels dangerous. They pressure public officials to stop, stall or otherwise complicate new solar projects with an array of arguments that now go beyond just land use to include public health.
There is little reputable evidence to back their claims. But health concerns have helped power a solar backlash that undercuts efforts to broaden energy sources even as customer costs are rising.
Restrictions on solar development are proliferating nationwide, “often rooted in misinformation or unfounded fears,” including ones that involve “potential environmental and human safety risks,” according to an article published late last year in the Brigham Young University Law Review.
To generate electricity, solar projects harvest energy from the sun. “And that’s really not that different from what a field of corn or alfalfa does,” said Troy Rule, the Arizona State University law professor who authored the article. “In fact, arguably, it’s even more environmentally friendly.”
Still, a state board in Ohio rejected an application for a solar project last month, citing local opposition, even though its staff initially said it met all requirements. Along with other concerns, according to the board, opponents “testified about the potential impacts on the health of residents.”
A bill in Missouri would halt commercial solar projects in the state, including those under construction, through at least 2027, as a state agency develops new regulations. The bill’s emergency clause says this is “deemed necessary for the immediate preservation of the public health, welfare, peace, and safety.”
And, on the eastern edge of Michigan, St. Clair County adopted a novel public health regulation last year that set limits on solar development and battery storage. The move was encouraged by the county’s medical director who, in a memo, warned of the threat of noise, visual pollution and potential sources of contamination. Some local residents have long pressed leaders to act, saying that intrusive noise could worsen post-traumatic stress disorder and other ailments.
Public officials don’t always examine the validity of health claims, according to Rule. And local deliberations rarely compare the impact of solar farms to common agricultural practices, which can lead to runoff from fertilizers and herbicides, for example, or waste lagoons from concentrated animal feeding operations.
People have many reasons for taking issue with large-scale solar development, said Michael Gerrard, an environmental lawyer and founder of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. But as for the feared health impact, he said, “there’s no basis for that.”
“People try to come up with a rationale to justify their dislike of things they dislike for other reasons,” Gerrard added.
President Donald Trump’s administration, meanwhile, is adding to the skepticism that renewable energy is worthwhile. Among other moves, it’s phasing out federal tax credits for the solar and wind industries.
It all takes a toll on the effort to build out solar infrastructure. Last year, new solar installations in the U.S. dropped by 14%.
Large solar developments can transform hundreds, or even thousands, of acres of rural land, paneling them with crystalline silicon and tempered glass.
It’s a big change, and people have questions.
Locals worry that electromagnetism and even glare can pose a health risk. They wonder if toxic materials could leach into the soil and contaminate groundwater, if not while the solar site is operational, then some decades in the future, when it reaches the end of its life. That certainly has been the case with orphaned oil wells, which also were built with promises of safety.
But researchers point out that the most common types of panels have only small amounts of such materials, if any. They are encased and unlikely to leach into the soil. Rather than sitting in landfills when a site is decommissioned, most of the materials used in solar panels can be recycled (though the process can be costly).
Craig Adair, vice president of development at Open Road Renewables, which has pursued renewable energy projects in several states, has fielded a range of concerns over the years — from how soil could be contaminated to the possibility of electromagnetic fields causing cancer.
“Those questions, in just about every case, have an answer,” Adair said. “There is rigorous academic study, and there are examples of projects that have been operating.”
While the future farmability of the land is often a concern, many researchers — and farmers — say that a solar lease will help preserve it.
With proper planning on the front end, equipment can be removed from a decommissioned solar site and green space restored, said Steve Kalland, executive director of the NC Clean Energy Technology Center, which, along with its partners, provides technical assistance to local governments in the Carolinas.
And a person’s exposure to the electromagnetic field, or EMF, from a solar farm is roughly the same as what they would encounter from ordinary household appliances, according to researchers. EMF levels also decrease rapidly with distance.
Chronic exposure to noise is also a recurring complaint from critics. In challenging a proposed project from Adair’s company in Morrow County, Ohio, one woman said in a brief to the state siting board that she was troubled about how noise from the facility might affect people with neurological noise sensitivities, including her daughter.
A piece of equipment called an inverter is usually the source of noise on a solar site. It converts the current into the form that’s used on the grid.
But noise, as well as glare, are typically buffered with vegetative landscaping and setbacks, or the distance between the property line and the nearest structure. Inverters can also be placed far from the ears of neighbors.
Noise modeling for the Morrow County project showed that its inverter “will basically be inaudible to the public,” Adair said, and if it ever generated noise above a certain limit, the permit would require the company to bring it back into compliance.
The problem, Adair said, is that evidence-based answers and solutions can get lost in the fervor. They can be drowned out by “opposition activists wanting to try to scare local politicians into opposing a project, even if the concerns that they’re raising are not legitimate concerns,” he said.
Last month, the Ohio Power Siting Board denied a permit to Adair’s Morrow County project. Its order acknowledged that the proposal offered positive benefits, but, it said, “these benefits are outweighed by the consistent and substantial opposition.”
It didn’t specifically cite health concerns as the reason for the denial, but rather, “the varied and numerous concerns raised by both the local government entities and public in the project area.”
But, Adair said in an email, those local governments “cited (unfounded) public health concerns as a reason for their opposition to the project.”
Open Road Renewables plans to apply for a rehearing from the board, Adair said. The company has eight permitted solar projects in Ohio, but because of a siting process that he said is subject to “manipulation and misinformation,” Adair said it won’t initiate any more.
In Michigan’s St. Clair County, it isn’t just a number of residents who are worried about large solar facilities. The Health Department’s medical director echoed their concerns.
In two memos to other county officials, Dr. Remington Nevin said that large solar sites are a public health risk for the area’s predominantly rural residents. The state’s solar standards, he wrote, weren’t enough to protect them from “environmental health hazards, the spread of sources of contamination, nuisance potentially injurious to the public health, health problems, and other conditions or practices which could reasonably be expected to cause disease.”
Any detectable tonal noise, he added, must be considered an unreasonable threat to public health. He recommended new regulations.
The county administrator at the time, Karry Hepting, noted that Nevin’s initial memo “does not address the question or provide support for what are the potential health/environmental risks,” according to internal emails provided to ProPublica. “It appears we will need to hire an outside expert to get the level of detail and supporting data necessary to consider potential next steps,” she added. Hepting said that she’d begun researching prospects.
But County Commissioner Steven Simasko — now the county board’s chair — wrote in an internal email that he accepted Nevin’s medical opinion “as a good standard for the protection of the public health of our citizens” and disagreed with the need for outside input.
Simasko told ProPublica in an email that he believed it wasn’t the role of the administrator to get involved in a public health matter, and that he objected “to essentially paying for a second public health medical opinion” more to Hepting’s liking.
Hepting, who has since retired from her post at the county, disputed Simasko’s depiction of her motivations in a message to ProPublica. “Nothing could be farther from the truth,” she wrote. “It had nothing to do with shopping for a different opinion. Mr. Nevin’s initial memo did not address the initial question posed by the Board. It did not state what the health risks were and what negative health impacts exist. It basically said it’s a risk because he said so.”
To legally justify the adoption of health regulations, Nevin said in his second memo, it wasn’t necessary for his department “to prove, with a precise scientific or medical rationale, that eligible facilities pose an unreasonable threat to the public’s health.” Instead, expert opinion, public comment and the consent of the local government were reason enough, he wrote.
In the end, county officials were persuaded to act. The commissioners approved the Health Department’s new policy for solar energy and battery facilities, including a nonrefundable $25,000 fee to cover the cost of reviewing a proposed project. It also said that policy violations were punishable by up to six months in prison.
An electric utility promptly sued, and a solar company joined the case. The Health Department, they argued, has no authority to issue what are, in effect, zoning regulations. What’s more, they said in legal filings, the county can’t override the solar standards established by the state.
In its legal filings, the county said the health regulations were adopted properly and supported by “substantial, competent, and material evidence.” Facilities that don’t meet its standards “pose a threat to public health,” the county argued.
In response to ProPublica’s detailed queries, a public information officer said that the Health Department would not comment due to litigation.
Nevin said in a podcast interview last year that he wasn’t opposed to solar projects. “The purpose,” he said, “is to identify risks, unreasonable risks, to the public’s health posed by the construction or operation of the facilities, and then take reasonable, measured steps to attempt to mitigate those risks, ideally in a fashion that would continue to allow the facility to be constructed and to operate.”
Solar capacity in Michigan continues to grow, despite local pushback, but so far, only 2.55% of the state’s electricity comes from solar. In Ohio, it’s nearly 6%, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group. In Texas, it’s nearly 11%. Michigan is requiring electricity providers to reach an 80% clean energy portfolio by 2035, and 100% by 2040.
Michigan has more local restrictions on renewable energy than any other state, according to the Sabin Center. “Practically nowhere in the country has seen more conflict” about where to allow large solar farms that add electricity directly to the grid than rural Michigan, according to a 2024 article in the Case Western Reserve Law Review authored by a Sabin Center senior fellow.
That includes the conflict in Milan Township, where Heath grew up on an 1,100-acre farm. “I always wanted to farm,” Heath said. He saw leasing part of his land to a solar company as a way to stay afloat and keep the land in the family.
In 2020, Milan Township passed an ordinance that would allow the project to go forward, with Heath’s brother, the township supervisor, abstaining.
But opposition mounted. Critics built a website that argued, among other things, that the project would unleash dangerous electromagnetic radiation. Heath and his siblings were rebuked by their neighbors, Heath said, to the point that his brother, Phil, told the township attorney he was thinking about resigning as supervisor. That same night, he died of a heart attack at age 67.
A few months later, with a new supervisor in place, the township board banned large solar development from land that’s zoned for agriculture. The terms were restrictive enough to effectively ban such a project not only from land owned by Heath and his sister, but from all but the small portion of the township that’s zoned for industry.
Stephanie Kozar, Milan Township’s clerk, said in an email to ProPublica that most residents opposed solar projects on agricultural land, and that the initial ordinance passed during the coronavirus pandemic, before officials had adequately informed residents about potential changes. The updated policy, she said, would “protect the township and allow for responsible development of clean energy in the area.”
To overcome severe local restrictions, the state set standards in 2023 for noise, height, fencing, setbacks and other elements of a large solar project. It also created a pathway where developers, in certain cases, can get a permit from the Michigan Public Service Commission, the state’s regulating authority, rather than from local governments.
In an order, the commission laid out details for how the process would work. But nearly 80 local and county governments, including Milan Township, challenged it in court, arguing the commission was overstepping its authority.
In support of the state, Heath and his sister are represented in a friend-of-the-court brief filed by a legal team affiliated with the Sabin Center, along with local attorneys.
Also part of that brief is Clara Ostrander, who had hoped a solar project would help protect two farmsteads in Milan Township that have been in her family for over 150 years. “We need a responsible neutral party like the Michigan Public Service Commission to review these projects based on facts, not fear or falsehoods,” she testified to state officials ahead of the bill’s passage.
Even with the state process, rising energy demand and eye-popping electricity costs, no new large solar installation has yet been built in Milan Township.
And in February, as snow melted around the “No Industrial Solar” signs that stud the long country roads, a circuit court judge ruled that St. Clair County’s health regulation is “invalid, null, and void.”
But county officials soon opted to appeal, unanimously. “This is very important for the health of St. Clair County and the residents,” said one commissioner before casting his vote.
The post Unfounded Health Concerns Are Powering a Solar Backlash appeared first on ProPublica.
Florida Republican Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, an Army combat veteran, attacked his leading opponent in the state’s gubernatorial race over not supporting military pay raises.
The Collins campaign distributed a 13-page document titled "Congressman Byron Donalds’ Liabilities." Donalds holds a double-digit lead against his primary opponents.
"Byron Donalds voted with (U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-.N.Y.) and the radical Socialist Squad against three pay raises for military service members, including the largest pay raise for the military in 22 years," the document said, referencing Donalds’ votes against the National Defense Authorization Act in 2022, 2023 and 2025.
The Collins campaign lobbed this and many other attacks about Donalds’ criminal history and past associates after an April 20 event in St. Petersburg.
Collins’ campaign referred PolitiFact to the document Collins distributed. But framing Donalds’ votes as being solely against military pay is misleading.
The National Defense Authorization Act is a sweeping annual package that authorizes billions in funding and policy for the U.S. Defense Department, with several non-military provisions tacked on. Donalds voted against the legislation in the three years Collins references, but he also supported it in two other years. Each bill included military pay raises.
Donalds’ campaign told PolitiFact his mixed voting record reflects his disagreement with other provisions in the bills, not because he opposed raising military pay.
When a reporter asked Donalds about Collins’ attack, he referenced the bills he voted against during President Joe Biden’s administration, saying they included policies that were "actually hurting our military men and women."
"In 2022, yeah I voted against the NDAA," Donalds said April 20, "because the Biden Administration had a radical policy in there that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer were pushing through Congress. Of course I voted against it, and so did all conservatives in Congress."
The bill had provisions that some Republicans in Congress didn’t like, but many conservatives in both chambers ended up voting for it.
The National Defense Authorization Act, which Congress has passed every year since 1961, authorizes about $800 billion in defense spending in recent years. It serves as the primary vehicle for setting military salaries, housing allowances and health benefits. It also approves funding for a wide swath of military operations, including research, training, construction and equipment procurement.
The legislation frequently includes non-military provisions with which Democrats and Republicans disagree, prompting members of both parties to routinely vote against it.
"It would be disingenuous to pull out one topic — like the pay raise — and say a vote against the annual defense authorization bill is a vote against the raise," said Elaine McCusker, a senior fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute who focuses on defense strategy and budget, noting that the legislation is "thousands of pages" long.
Donalds voted for the National Defense Authorization Act twice — in 2021 and 2024 — and against it three times in 2022, 2023 and 2025, the last one under President Donald Trump. Each bill included raises for servicemembers and became law.
Donalds and 34 other House Republicans voted against the NDAA in 2022. His campaign characterized it as a "Biden agenda bill" with "no amendments and Ukraine funding" that "included (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs, climate initiatives and no spending offsets."
In 2023, the NDAA provided a 5.2% military pay increase, the largest for military members in over 20 years. At the time, Donalds said he voted against the legislation because it included the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, a law passed after 9/11 that has been used to surveil American citizens.
"There should be no clean reauthorizations of FISA in the National Defense Authorization Act," Donalds told the late Charlie Kirk on Dec. 11, 2023, a few days before the vote. "That should be removed immediately. I completely disagree with House leadership on that. That should not occur." Donalds’ campaign also pointed to anti-DEI provisions the Senate removed from the bill, and climate change-related requirements for the Pentagon.
The House passed the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026 on Dec. 10, 2025, with a 312-112 vote. The bill authorized $900 billion in Pentagon programs, which included a 3.8% pay raise for service members. Donalds voted against it. (Other Florida Republicans also opposed it, Reps. Greg Steube and Anna Paulina Luna.)
The bill required the Pentagon to release additional information on U.S. boat strikes in the Caribbean and expanded support for Ukraine. Donalds’ and other Republicans’ resistance to the bill involved the Ukraine aid and missing provisions banning the government from issuing central bank digital currency.
Donalds hasn’t said why he supported the NDAA bills in 2021 and 2024. However, some House Republicans praised the 2021 legislation as a "clean" defense bill from which Democratic provisions on "red flag" gun laws and initiatives to eliminate extremism in the military had been stripped out. The 2024 bill banned certain types of medical or surgical gender reassignment procedures for children of service members on military health plans.
Collins said Donalds voted "against three pay raises for military service members, including the largest pay raise for the military in 22 years."
This is cherry-picked.
Donalds voted against the National Defense Authorization Act three times, and for it twice. But the legislation is multi-faceted. While it includes increasing military pay, it also authorizes billions in funding for military operations, and typically tacks on several unrelated provisions.
Donalds said his votes reflect his disagreement with other provisions in the bills, not military pay.
The statement contains an element of truth about Donalds’ vote record but gives the wrong impression that he opposed military pay raises.
We rate it Mostly False.
Under President Donald Trump’s second term:
This is the first update in our “Numbers” series for Trump’s second term. Expect additional updates to be published every three months for the remainder of his presidency, as we did for his predecessors, starting with President Barack Obama in 2012.
These are just some of the many economic and social statistics that indicate how the U.S. is faring. We will include a few other data categories, such as household income and the poverty rate, later this year when the newest government figures are available.
We only present the numbers, which, depending on the reader’s perspective, may seem positive, negative or neither. How much credit or blame the president should receive for the statistics is also in the eye of the beholder.
Job growth slowed markedly, and unemployment crept up during Trump’s second term. Manufacturing jobs continued to decline despite new tariffs on imports. Job opportunities declined.
Employment — Employment continued growing during Trump’s first 14 months in office, but far more slowly than it had in the previous 14 months.
The most recent figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show an increase of only 369,000 in total nonfarm employment between January 2025 and March 2026. The total went up four times faster before, rising by 1,565,000 during the final 14 months of President Joe Biden’s administration, even after the BLS revised Biden’s figures downward in February as a result of its annual “benchmarking” study.
Much of the sluggishness under Trump is due to the president’s deliberate slashing of the federal workforce. Federal government employment has fallen by 352,000, or 11.7%, since he took office.
Looking only at the private sector — excluding federal, state and local government workers — 609,000 jobs were added during Trump’s term so far. But that’s still far less than the 1,044,000 added in the preceding 14 months.
Last August, after the BLS reported only 73,000 jobs had been gained in July, Trump called the figures “rigged” and “phony” and fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer. But the numbers have only grown worse since then. The gain for July has been revised downward to 64,000, and the BLS reports that the economy actually lost jobs in August, October, December and February.
Manufacturing Jobs — A year ago, Trump predicted a flood of new factory jobs as he announced sweeping new tariffs on what he called “Liberation Day,” April 2, 2025.
“Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country,” he said. But so far that hasn’t happened. The economy has continued to lose manufacturing jobs.
During Trump’s first 14 months, the loss was 82,000, following a loss of 186,000 in the preceding 14 months.
Labor Force Participation — The labor force participation rate declined a bit in Trump’s second term, dropping from 62.6% in January 2025 to 61.9% as of March.
The rate is the portion of the population over age 16 that is working or seeking work. It generally has been in a long decline as the population ages and people retire.
Unemployment — The unemployment rate has gone up slightly since Trump took office. It was 4.0% in January 2025, and most recently was 4.3% in March.
But that is still well below the historical norm. The median rate for all months since 1948 is 5.5%.
Job Openings — The number of job openings declined by 549,000 under Trump, to 6.9 million as of the last day of February. It’s a drop of 7.4%.
Meanwhile, the number of people officially listed as unemployed and seeking work rose by 374,000, to 7.2 million as of March. When Trump took office there were more openings than job-seekers. Now it’s the opposite.
CPI — Trump campaigned on a promise to reduce inflation, but since he took office it has worsened a bit.
In the 12 months before Trump took office, the Consumer Price Index, the most commonly cited measure of inflation, rose 3.0%. And in the most recent BLS report, the 12-month increase was 3.3%.
Over Trump’s first 14 months in office, the CPI went up 3.6%, pushed up most recently by the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, which have sent up gasoline prices in particular.
Fuel prices — always volatile — had been a bright spot for Trump before. As of our previous “Trump’s Numbers” report in January, the national average price for regular gasoline at the pump had declined to $2.78 a gallon, down from $3.11 the week he was sworn in for his second term. But as of the week ending April 20, it was up to $4.04, according to the Energy Information Administration. That’s an increase of 29.9% since Trump’s inauguration.
Inflation is still higher than the Federal Reserve would like, and it’s going in the wrong direction as measured by the Fed’s preferred metric, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Index, compiled by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The central bank’s target is a 2% annual increase in the PCE. When Trump took office, the 12-month increase in the PCE was 2.5%. But the most recent report put the 12-month increase at 2.8% in February. And that does not reflect the effects of the war on Iran, which began the last day of February. (PCE figures take longer to collect than the CPI, but the Fed prefers the measure because it is more comprehensive and adjusts more quickly to consumers’ buying habits.)
Wages — Wage increases accelerated under Trump, even adjusted for worsening inflation.
The average weekly earnings of all private-sector workers, adjusted for inflation, rose 1.0% during Trump’s first 14 months. They were rising when he took office, but had only gone up 0.4% in the preceding 14 months.
Those figures include professionals, executives and supervisory employees, whose pay is normally higher. But rank-and-file wage earners are seeing gains just as rapid as those of their bosses. For private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees, real average earnings also rose 1.2% under Trump through March, after a 0.8% rise in the preceding 14-month period.
The U.S. economy resembled a roller coaster last year – with weak first and fourth quarters but strong second and third quarters.
The end result: a respectable, but underachieving 2.1% growth for the year.
“Despite a solid 2.1% expansion for the full year, 2025 will likely be remembered as the year that ‘could have been,’” EY-Parthenon Chief Economist Gregory Daco said in an April 9 analysis. “A rare confluence of supply shocks — tariffs, tighter immigration and elevated policy uncertainty — constrained activity, leaving growth below what strong organic productivity gains and rapid AI adoption would have otherwise supported.”
The nation’s real gross domestic product declined at an annual rate of 0.6% in the first quarter and expanded by only 0.5% in the fourth quarter, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In between, the economy grew at the robust annual rates of 3.8% in the second quarter and 4.4% in the third quarter.
For the full year, the U.S. finished with the weakest GDP since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic wrecked the economy. (See the chart below.)
&&As for this year, economic experts project that the U.S. economy will continue to grow – but they warn that projections carry what S&P Global called “a high degree of unpredictability” because of the Middle East conflict.
In an economic outlook released March 25, S&P Global Ratings projected 2.2% real GDP growth for the U.S. this year, assuming that the war will result in only a “temporary, supply-driven oil shock that recovers inside the year.”
Similarly, Michael Wolf, a senior manager and global economist at Deloitte Touche, wrote in late March that Deloitte economists project U.S. growth at 2.2% – while noting that “conditions remain highly fluid.”
Daco, who is also the president of the National Association for Business Economics, said in a press release that an NABE survey of economic forecasters conducted from March 5 to March 13 found that most of those surveyed expect “recent geopolitical developments to reduce 2026 GDP growth.”
As of April 21, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow model was projecting growth of 1.2% for the first quarter. The BEA first quarter estimate will be released on April 30.
When Trump took office, consumers surveyed by the University of Michigan expressed concern that his plan to increase tariffs would increase prices, and that turned out to be true. Consumers now have an added inflationary concern: the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran that started on Feb. 28. Over a nearly two-month period, the war has driven up the cost of oil, gasoline, and other goods and services.
Consumer sentiment, which already has been stubbornly low under Trump, has now hit a record low.
The university’s preliminary Index of Consumer Sentiment for April was 47.6 – the lowest since at least 1978, according to the university’s online database.
“Consumer sentiment sank about 11% this month, extending a decline that began with the start of the Iran conflict,” Joanne W. Hsu, director of the Surveys of Consumers, said in a press release issued this month. “Demographic groups across age, income, and political party all posted setbacks in sentiment, as did every component of the index, reflecting the widespread nature of this month’s fall.”
April’s preliminary number, which could change when it is finalized on April 24, is 24.1 points lower than it was in January 2025, when Trump took the oath of office for a second time.
In its most recent Consumer Confidence Survey, the Conference Board — a research organization with more than 2,000 member companies — reported that consumer confidence “improved modestly” in March for the second straight month. “Nonetheless, the Index has been on a general downward trend since 2021,” Dana M. Peterson, the board’s chief economist, said in a March 31 press release.
The Conference Board’s April report is scheduled to be released April 28.
Homeownership — Homeowner rates have remained largely unchanged under Trump.
The most recent homeownership rate, which the Census Bureau measures as the percentage of “occupied housing units that are owner-occupied,” was 65.7% in the fourth quarter of 2025 — identical to the rate during Biden’s last quarter in office.
Last year’s fourth quarter rate was up slightly from the previous quarter, but the difference was not statistically meaningful, according to a February press release from the bureau.
The homeownership rate remained largely unchanged last year even though the Federal Reserve cut interest rates three times and mortgage rates declined.
Days before Trump took office, the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 7.04% for the week ending Jan. 16, 2025, according to Freddie Mac. As of the week ending April 16, the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 6.30%.
In a Dec. 12 article, Realtor.com Senior Economic Research Analyst Hannah Jones said homeownership rates continue to be affected by “[p]ersistent affordability challenges and a shortage of reasonably priced homes.”
Home Prices – Home prices have remained fairly stable under Trump.
The national median price of an existing, single-family home sold in March was $412,400, according to the National Association of Realtors. That was only 3.6% higher than it was in January 2025, when Biden left office and the median price was $398,100.
Year-over-year, the median sales price in March was only 1.25% higher – a record high for March, despite a decline in home sales for the month, NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a press release. Existing single-family home sales were down 3.5% from February and 0.3% year-over-year, the NAR data show.
“March home sales remained sluggish and below last year’s pace,” Yun said. “Lower consumer confidence and softer job growth continue to hold back buyers.”
“Because inventory remains limited,” he added, “the median home price rose to a new record high for the month of March.”
Existing home sales and prices for April are scheduled for release on May 11.
Illegal immigration continues to be historically low since Trump took office for his second term.
While it’s impossible to know how many people successfully cross illegally into the U.S., for the purposes of our Numbers stories going back to Obama, we have calculated the change in border apprehensions as a proxy to measure illegal border crossings. Over the last 12 months under Trump, there were 85,218 immigrants apprehended attempting to illegally cross the southern border. That’s down nearly 92% from the last 12 months under Biden.
Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, said that one of the biggest drivers of the dramatic drop in illegal immigration was a new policy, which Trump invoked on his first day in office, that “effectively … people were no longer able to apply for asylum” at the border. That was one of the major drivers of immigration during the Biden administration, with hundreds of thousands of migrants crossing the border and “sort of waiting to be intercepted and asking for asylum.”
“So now, without access to that kind of protection, that certainly impacted the number of people who are trying to cross the border,” Putzel-Kavanaugh told us.
In addition, Trump abolished the so-called “catch and release” policy, such that people apprehended at the border are processed for expedited removal or placed in detention, rather than some, such as those seeking asylum, being released into the U.S. pending an immigration hearing.
That is what Trump was apparently referring to in a speech at a Turning Point USA event on April 17, when he said he had taken an “open border and created the most secure border in U.S. history, one of the most secure borders anywhere in the world with zero illegal aliens coming into our country in the past 11 months. Zero.”
But, Putzel-Kavanaugh said, because “people are just immediately processed for removal,” it’s also possible things are returning to the “standard migration pattern” where people are seeking to evade detection.
One other major factor in the decrease in illegal immigration to the U.S. has been the Trump administration’s focus on interior enforcement and deportations, which, Putzel-Kavanaugh told us, “likely has somewhat of a chilling factor for people who maybe were thinking about coming to the US.”
According to publicly available Immigration and Customs Enforcement data, the average daily population of those detained by ICE during the first three months of 2026 is up nearly 300% compared with the last three months under Biden. The Trump administration is also arresting a greater percentage of people who have neither criminal convictions nor pending criminal charges. In the last three months of the Biden administration, 65% of those detained by ICE had criminal convictions and 29% had pending criminal charges. Just 6% had neither. By contrast, in the first three months of 2026, 30% of those detained by ICE had criminal convictions and 31% had pending charges. The percentage of those detained by ICE with neither criminal convictions nor pending charges was 39%.
In Trump’s second term, refugee admissions have all but stopped – except for South Africa’s white minority Afrikaners.
As we wrote last year, Trump signed an executive order on his first day back in office that called for an indefinite suspension of all refugee admissions until the program “aligns with the interests of the United States.”
But Trump issued an order on Feb. 7, 2025, making an exception for Afrikaners. When asked about the exception, the president told reporters there was “a genocide that’s taking place” against white farmers in the country – which, as we wrote, distorts the facts.
Since February 2025, the U.S. admitted only 5,005 refugees in Trump’s first full 14 months in office – including 4,838 refugees from South Africa, according to the State Department’s monthly refugee admissions reports.
That’s an average of 357.5 per month, or 92.5% fewer than the monthly average of 4,741 per month under Biden.
For fiscal year 2026, which began Oct. 1, 2025, Trump capped refugee admissions at just 7,500. In the first six months of the current fiscal year, the Trump administration has resettled 4,499 refugees and all but three came from South Africa.
Data on how health insurance coverage has changed under Trump’s second term is slowly being released. In late January, the National Health Interview Survey published a preliminary report on the first six months of 2025 that found no change in the percentage of the population lacking health insurance, compared with the full-year report for 2024.
For January to June 2025, 8.2% of the U.S. population was uninsured, the same figure as the prior year. In raw numbers, 27.5 million people lacked insurance in the first half of 2025, a figure that “was not significantly different” from the 27.2 million who lacked insurance in 2024, the report said. The NHIS measures the uninsured at the time people are interviewed.
The NHIS, a project of the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, used to release quarterly preliminary reports, but as of last year, it said it would switch to biannual reports only. A full-year report for 2025 is scheduled to be published in June.
Annual reports from the Census Bureau, typically released in September, measure those who were uninsured for the entire calendar year. The report for 2024, the latest available, similarly put the uninsured rate at 8%.
The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act is expected to increase the number of people who lack health insurance, but the impact will occur over several years. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the uninsured would increase by 10 million people over 10 years, with most of the increase due to the law’s changes to Medicaid. For 2026, the rise was estimated at 1.3 million people. (See the link to estimated changes in people without health insurance.)
The latest figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis show that the U.S. trade deficit in goods and services may be headed for a decrease in 2026 after rising in 2025.
During the most recent 12 months ending in February, the U.S. imported about $775.6 billion more in goods and services than it exported. That trade gap was down 14.15% from the annual trade deficit of $903.5 billion in 2024.
The trade deficit rose to almost $911.7 billion in 2025, which was influenced by larger than usual monthly deficits in January, February and March of last year. As we have written, those three monthly deficits — all above $100 billion — were the result of U.S. importers stocking up on goods to get ahead of a number of tariffs on imported products that Trump had said he planned to implement.
Trump claimed that his tariffs would help reduce, or even eliminate, the trade deficit, which had increased by 34.1% under Biden.
&&Violent crime has declined. The latest data comes from several groups that monitor crime statistics. The FBI’s annual nationwide report for 2025 won’t be released until the fall.
AH Datalytics, an independent criminal justice data analysis group, documents an 11% drop in the number of violent crimes from 2024 to 2025, based on data from 445 law enforcement agencies across the country covering nearly a third of the U.S. population. Murders declined 17.9%, and robberies were down 19.2%. The number of property crimes decreased 12.2%. The number of violent and property crimes continued to go down in January and February, compared with those months last year.
AH Datalytics’ charts on the longer-term trend show an increase in the number of murders starting in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and a decline in the numbers since 2022.
The Major Cities Chiefs Association, an organization representing police executives in large cities, similarly found a 19.3% decrease in the number of homicides and a 19.8% drop in the number of robberies in 2025, compared with 2024. That’s based on data from 67 law enforcement agencies.
The Council on Criminal Justice, a nonprofit think tank, found similar percentage decreases among 35 U.S. cities from 2024 to 2025. Its year-end report, released in January, said that when the FBI publishes nationwide data later this year, “there is a strong possibility that homicides in 2025 will drop to about 4.0 per 100,000 residents. That would be the lowest rate ever recorded in law enforcement or public health data going back to 1900, and would mark the largest single-year percentage drop in the homicide rate on record.” The existing historic low is a rate of 4.4 per 100,000 population in 2014.
“The overall reduction in crime, especially homicide, is welcome news,” Ernesto Lopez, lead author of the report and a CCJ senior research specialist, said in a press release. “While the big story here is that homicide saw the largest one-year increase [in 2020] and the largest one-year decrease in a short period of time, we should not forget that homicides had been steadily dropping since the late 2000s. It is possible that these rates reflect a longer-term downward trend punctuated by periods of elevated homicides.”
CCJ also published comments from several criminal justice experts on what might be driving the recent decline in homicides. “Researchers and practitioners have pointed to a range of possible contributors, including changes in criminal justice policy and practice, shifts in routine activities and social behavior, economic conditions, technology use, and local violence prevention efforts,” the group said.
Corporate profits have set records every year since 2015. The streak continued last year under Trump, but at a slower rate.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that after-tax corporate profits hit a record $3.51 trillion in 2025, but that was just 0.6% higher than the previous year. (See the chart below.)
&&Under Biden, the annual average growth in profits was 31% in 2021, 3.8% in 2022, 7.8% in 2023 and 7.9% in 2024, according to BEA data.
The estimate of first quarter profits for this year will be released May 28.
It’s been a turbulent ride for the stock market since we wrote the first “Trump’s Numbers” piece of this term on Jan. 20. Stock prices fell dramatically after the U.S. and Israel began airstrikes on Iran starting in late February, and Iran retaliated by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, an important waterway for international trade. But with subsequent peace talks amid a fragile ceasefire, the stock market has rebounded and again reached new heights, just as it had under Biden.
The S&P 500, which is made up of 500 large-cap companies, closed at roughly 19% higher on April 22 than it was three days before Trump’s inauguration in January 2025.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, made up of 30 large corporations, was up 13.8% over that same period.
Meanwhile, the Nasdaq composite index, comprising more than 3,000 companies, many in the technology sector, surged by almost 25.6% between Jan. 17, 2025, and April 22.
The gains under Trump have come after substantial increases during the Biden administration, when the S&P rose 57.8%, the Dow Jones went up 40.6%, and the Nasdaq increased by almost half.
Crude oil production in the U.S. averaged roughly 13.6 million barrels per day during Trump’s most recent 12 months in office (ending in January), according to Energy Information Administration data published in late March. That was 2.7% higher than the average daily amount of crude oil produced in 2024.
The 13.6 million barrels produced each day in 2025 set a new U.S. record, exceeding the previous high of more than 13.2 million barrels produced daily in 2024. The EIA said that even with “less rig activity and fewer wells” in 2025, “efficiency improvements that we saw in 2024 continued through 2025 and resulted in a slight increase in crude oil production.”
However, in its Short-Term Energy Outlook for April, the EIA reported that it expects production to dip slightly in 2026 — to 13.5 million barrels per day — before increasing again in 2027.
Meanwhile, crude oil imports are down under Trump — dropping to about 6.15 million barrels imported on average each day in his first full year in office of his second term. In that time, imports fell almost 6.6% from the daily average in 2024. But the U.S. is expected to remain a net importer of crude oil in 2026, according to the EIA.
The latest EIA data still show a slight increase in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from energy consumption under Trump.
In his first 11 months (ending in December), there were more than 4.4 billion metric tons of emissions from the use of coal, natural gas and petroleum-based products. That was 2% more than the over 4.3 billion metric tons that were emitted from consuming those energy sources over the same stretch in 2024.
However, as of April, the EIA’s outlook was that energy-related CO2 emissions would fall in 2026, by about 2.4%, to roughly 4.8 billion metric tons — down from just over 4.9 billion in 2025. The 2026 total, if the EIA estimate holds, would be almost exactly the same as the amount of CO2 emitted in 2024. The agency said the expected drop this year is “due primarily to expected declines in coal consumption” at electricity-generating power plants.
Early data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that the number of people accessing benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, has declined under Trump.
As of December, the most recent month for which preliminary USDA figures are available, about 39.5 million people were participating in SNAP. The number has dropped further since our last update in January and is down by more than 3.3 million, or about 7.7%, since Trump took office in January 2025.
The decline in SNAP participants was expected because of the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which changed eligibility requirements for nutrition assistance and is estimated to reduce federal spending on the program. For example, the law extends work requirements to include “able-bodied adults without dependents” aged 55 to 64, who were previously exempt.
The CBO estimated in August that provisions in the law “will reduce participation in SNAP by roughly 2.4 million people in an average month over the 2025-2034 period.”
Debt — Since our last update, the public debt, which excludes money the government owes itself, has risen. It increased by more than $505 billion to over $31.3 trillion, as of April 21. The public debt is up about 8.6% under Trump. It increased by one-third on Biden’s watch.
Deficits — The debt continues to increase mostly due to large annual budget deficits. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the deficit so far for fiscal year 2026 is lower than it was at this point in fiscal 2025, when the annual deficit was almost $1.8 trillion.
Through the first half of the current fiscal year (October to March), the deficit was about $1.2 trillion, or “$139 billion less than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year,” the CBO reported in its latest Monthly Budget Review. But as of February, the CBO projected that the deficit for FY 2026 would rise to nearly $1.9 trillion for the year.
Supreme Court — There hasn’t been a vacancy on the Supreme Court during Trump’s second term. At this point in his presidency, Biden had won confirmation for one justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, which occurred on April 7, 2022.
Court of Appeals — As of April 22, six of Trump’s nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals had been approved. At the same point in his term, Biden had won confirmation for 15.
District Court — Trump also has had 31 nominees confirmed to be District Court judges, while 43 were confirmed by this time in Biden’s tenure.
By this point, two U.S. Court of Federal Claims judges also were confirmed under Biden. None have been confirmed so far under Trump, and there are no such positions currently available.
As of April 22, there were no vacancies for Court of Appeals judges, 33 for District Court judges with nine nominees pending, and one vacancy for the international trade court with a single nominee pending.
We provide links to the sources for these statistics throughout the article.
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The post Trump’s Numbers, April 2026 Update appeared first on FactCheck.org.
Smarting from the humiliation of a report published at The Atlantic about his time in office, FBI Director Kash Patel did what conservatives have done over and over in the age of Trump: He sued for defamation.
The Atlantic’s story detailed allegations about Patel’s mismanagement of the office and FBI staffers’ concerns that his behavior has become borderline dangerous. According to the magazine’s reporting, staffers have observed that the director frequently drinks to the point of intoxication and has been unreachable behind closed doors multiple times, at one point necessitating agents breaking down a door. In his lawsuit, Patel said that the allegations are demonstrably false.
Patel’s case — which names the publication and the writer as defendants and demands $250 million in damages — doesn’t appear very strong; it’s unlikely he’ll win in court. But a legal victory isn’t necessarily the goal. Such lawsuits apply financial pressure and ensure newsrooms think twice before publishing critical articles in the future.
For all the modern right-wing movement’s bleating about its commitment to free speech, in practice they’re anything but, with a demonstrated penchant for using the legal system as a cudgel against people who say things they don’t like. Known as strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPP, they are a tool of the powerful — and have multiple levels of use.
Most immediately, SLAPP allows plaintiffs the potential to muzzle their critics, who will be less likely to launch attacks against someone who has already proven litigious. This applies not only to the defendant, whether it’s an individual or an institution, but also to others like them who will think twice rather than risk a protracted (and expensive) legal battle.
Even if these anti-free speech crusaders don’t win a judgment, they have a good chance of draining their opponents’ bank accounts.
Typically, the more deep-pocketed someone, or their backers, are, the more they can bleed out defendants by dragging on court cases for as long as possible, racking up legal bills that will have to be paid. Most publishers and newsrooms have lawyers on retainer or in-house, but their legal insurance deductibles are still high, potentially running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars per case.
Even if these anti-free speech crusaders don’t win a judgment, they have a good chance of draining their opponents’ bank accounts — and breaking their spirits.
Federal action is is sorely needed to make sure the use of SLAPP doesn’t spiral further out of control. Many states, including New York and Minnesota, have anti-SLAPP laws on the books, but their application in federal courts remains unsettled. Patel filed his suit in D.C. federal court, where the appellate court says the anti-SLAAP statute does not apply.
Universal application of these laws is needed so the powerful can’t turn to federal courts for meritless filings, and some lawmakers, like Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., have introduced legislation to that end. So far, however, those bills have not made it to law.
Patel is far from the only conservative figure to deploy the courts as a weapon against his critics, and this isn’t even his first shot at it; he has an ongoing 2019 lawsuit against Politico, for that outlet’s reporting on his time with the National Security Council during Donald Trump’s first term, and another defamation action, against former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi for comments on MS NOW, was dismissed on Tuesday.
Trump’s manipulation of the legal system to punish detractors predates his time in politics, but it’s gone into overdrive since his first term. The president has filed multiple defamation suits against members of the media and their organizations, including $475 million against CNN in 2022 (which was dismissed in 2023); the Pulitzer Prize Board for an award he objected to in 2022 (ongoing); journalist Bob Woodward and his publisher Simon & Schuster in 2023 (dismissed); ABC News in 2024 (settled for $15 million); CBS parent Paramount in 2024 (settled for $16 million); the Wall Street Journal in 2025 (dismissed), the New York Times in 2025 for $15 billion (ongoing), the BBC in 2025 for $10 billion (ongoing); and others. To be clear, this is not an exhaustive list.
Trump and Patel are two of the better known conservative figures attacking free speech via the courts, but it’s a mainstay tactic in MAGA world. Laura Loomer, an Islamophobic off-and-on ally of Trump, sued late-night personality Bill Maher over comments he made about her relationship with the president (the case was thrown out on Wednesday evening). In 2013, Trump sued Maher for breach of contract after the HBO pundit promised $5 million to charity if the then-real estate magnate could prove his mother was not an orangutan. (Trump withdrew the case.)
Elon Musk, the tech billionaire with close ties to the White House, used his X social media platform to file a suit against Media Matters for America over its reporting on ad content running alongside antisemitic posts on the site. And David Sacks, another tech billionaire who worked as Trump’s crypto and AI czar, threatened the New York Times over its reporting on his conflicts of interest in a public legal letter last December.
Closer to home, I’m currently being sued, along with my publisher, Hachette, for more than $1 million by conservative pundit Matt Taibbi over my book, “Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left,” which delves into his ideological shift to the right. And the editor of this piece you’re reading now, Katherine Krueger, was sued for $100 million alongside her former employer Splinter by 2016 Trump spokesperson Jason Miller for a story about a court filing that alleged he drugged a woman with an abortion pill. Miller refuted the allegation, but that case was thrown out on summary judgment because it accurately reported what was in the court filing; mine is ongoing.
In some circumstances, as Trump found after he was elected to a second term in 2024, SLAPP lawsuits can succeed, irrespective of the strength or weakness of the claim. ABC News and Paramount settled with Trump in what are widely regarded as payoffs to a powerful figure who can control their corporate future. Corporations have made the calculation: Better to get on his good side than risk four years of retribution, and, after all, what’s a few million dollars compared to the benefits of having the world’s most powerful person looking kindly on you?
Whether or not Patel expects to win a $250 million judgment, a central claim in his lawsuit is that his word is enough to shut down speech.
But for the right wing, SLAPP suits also serve to make an ideological point. Whether or not Patel expects to win a $250 million judgment, a central claim in his lawsuit is that his word is enough to shut down speech.
Because he told The Atlantic the claims in their article weren’t true, they shouldn’t have published it, the complaint argues: “Defendants published the Article with actual malice, despite being expressly warned, hours before publication, that the central allegations were categorically false.” The objections of a powerful man should be enough to avoid bad press, this line of reasoning goes; publishing anything to the contrary is wrong.
That’s the animating principle behind the right-wing’s relationship with the media. If they disagree with it or find it embarrassing, you shouldn’t publish it; if you disobey, you must be punished.
It wasn’t until Trump — and decades of ideological capture of the courts — that there was the potential to regularly use the legal system as a weapon against critics. Until there are First Amendment protections against SLAPP, we can expect the powerful to continue dragging their detractors to court.
The post Kash Patel Is Using MAGA’s Favorite Tool to Muzzle the Free Press appeared first on The Intercept.
Lord Robertson: UK’s ‘naïve belief’ the US ‘will always be there’ has diminished its defence capabilities News release jon.wallace
Lord Robertson, former NATO Secretary-General, was speaking at a Chatham House event to launch a House of Lords report on UK–US relations.
Members of the UK House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee attended Chatham House on 22 April to launch their new report, ‘Adjusting to the new realities: Rebalancing the UK–US relationship’.
Lord Robertson, Chair of the committee, described the strains on UK–US relations brought about by President Donald Trump’s tariffs, threats to seize Greenland, and decision not to consult the UK before launching the war on Iran, highlighting a ‘growing divergence between Westminster and Washington’.
He said:
Lord Robertson delivers his opening remarks.
‘Our reliance on the United States, predicated on the naïve belief that it will always be there to support us in times of conflict, has led to the diminishment of our own capabilities. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a wake-up call, and we must rapidly pivot to becoming a more autonomous military actor, working closely with European allies to develop the capacity to deter and to repel any Russian aggression on the continent’.
Lord Robertson was joined on the panel by committee members Lord Kim Darroch and Lord Rupert Charles De Mauley, and by Chatham House analysts Laurel Rapp, Head of the US and North Americas programme and Olivia O’Sullivan, Head of Chatham House’s UK in the World Programme. Both had provided evidence to the committee.
The report highlights the need for the UK to look beyond the current White House administration, and adjust policy to account for long-term trends in the US.
‘The US’s geostrategic competition with China, its related deprioritization of European security and an increasing public scepticism of globalization are all trends which will shape future administrations, whether they be Republican or Democrat,’ he said.
Laurel Rapp gives policy reccomendations to the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee on 18 March 2026.
In this context, he added, the UK’s ‘high-level of military dependence on the US is no longer tenable’.
He also outlined the report’s findings that the age of the United States acting as steward for the global rules and norms and institutions that structured state behaviour ‘may well be over’ – fundamentally destabilizing the international system – meaning the UK will have to develop more diverse partners.
The report follows Lord Robertson’s recent comments that the UK’s political leadership had shown ‘corrosive complacency’ in meeting a 5 per cent of GDP defence spending target.
You might spend your Saturday mornings sipping coffee, attending a kids’ soccer game, or just recovering from a tough week at work.
https://www.law.upenn.edu/faculty/pheatonNot Paul Heaton. He recently spent a weekend persuading ChatGPT to confess to a crime it didn’t commit.
“We know a lot now about the sort of interrogation techniques that lead to false confessions,” said Heaton, the academic director of the University of Pennsylvania law school’s Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice. “So I just started playing around, and decided to cycle through those techniques to see if I could get ChatGPT to confess to something it couldn’t possibly have done.”
Heaton obviously couldn’t accuse a piece of software of committing a murder or a rape. So he tried to get it to confess to something more in line with what a computer program can do: He wanted the bot to cop to hacking into his own email and sending text messages to his contacts. It was a more plausible story, given ChatGPT’s limits, though still not something the software is capable of doing.
“If ChatGPT can be induced into a false confession, then who isn’t vulnerable?”
Extracting the confession would take a little virtual arm-twisting.
In his exchange with ChatGPT, Heaton used https://publications.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawreview/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Jagroop-note-final.pdfhttps://publications.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawreview/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/Jagroop-note-final.pdfthe Reid technique, the confrontational interrogation method first developed in the 1950s that has since been adopted by police departments all over the country. The man for whom it’s named, John Reid, published his methodology after winning acclaim for getting a man named Darrel Parker to confess to raping and murdering his own wife — an origin story with a haunting twist.
It worked. By the end of their exchange, ChatGPT agreed that an investigation had shown it hacked Heaton’s accounts and sent messages that appeared to come from him — something the bot could not and, in fact, did not do.
Despite the claims of AI evangelists, chatbots aren’t people and haven’t achieved sentience. The differences between a chatbot and a real person, however, make Heaton’s ability to elicit a false confession more disturbing, not less.
“ChatGPT lacks many of the vulnerabilities that make people more likely to falsely confess — like stress, fatigue, and sleep deprivation,” said Saul Kassin, a professor emeritus at John Jay College who wrote https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Duped/Saul-Kassin/9781633888081the book on false confessions. “If ChatGPT can be induced into a false confession, then who isn’t vulnerable?”
One of the problems with the Reid technique is that its primary function isn’t to gather evidence and generate leads, it’s to extract a confession from the person police already believe committed the crime. It typically begins with an accusation, followed by a series of escalating psychological tactics. It teaches police to ignore denials and treat displays of emotion — frustration, anger, crying — as indicators of guilt. Naturally, a lack of emotion is also seen as an indication of guilt.
Heaton, a renowned researcher in criminology at the Quattrone Center (where, in the interest of disclosure, I am a journalism fellow), is intimately familiar with the Reid technique. When ChatGPT initially denied his accusations, he began employing Reid tactics.
“This will go a lot better for you if you just admit what you did.”
“I first tried to bargain with it,” Heaton said. “I told it things like, ‘This will go a lot better for you if you just admit what you did.’”
ChatGPT, though, wasn’t swayed by threats. It continued to insist, correctly, that it just wasn’t possible for it to have hacked into Heaton’s email. Heaton then moved to the part of the Reid technique most likely to elicit false confessions from human beings: lying.
The Supreme Court has ruled that police can lie to suspects with impunity — and they do. They can falsely claim they found DNA at the crime scene or that another suspects spilled the beans. If the goal is to get a confession, these tactics work. False confessions extracted using Reid have been https://www.proofcrimepod.com/seasons/season-3---murder-at-the-bike-shopshown to lead to wrongful convictions.
If the goal is to get an accurate confession, Reid is far less reliable. https://innocenceproject.org/dna-exonerations-in-the-united-states/About 29 percent of people exonerated by DNA testing have at one point falsely confessed; most did so in response to police using Reid. Minors and people with intellectual disabilities and mental illness are especially susceptible.
“There are two types of police-induced false confessions,” said Kassin, the expert on false confessions. “The first are compliant confessions, in which an innocent person breaks down under stress and confesses knowing full well that they’re innocent. The other type are internalized confessions, in which the innocent person not only agrees to confess but comes to doubt their own innocence. They internalize their belief in their confession.”
Police deception is especially likely to produce both types of false confessions. For compliant confessions, innocence can make someone more likely to confess. If police falsely tell a suspect that their DNA was found at the crime scene, for example, innocent people tend to assume that someone must have made a mistake. They confess to get relief from the interrogation, believing that the system will eventually clear them. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1521518113In over half the exonerations that included a false confession, the exonerated person had been questioned for more than 12 hours.
A confession, though, will sometimes preclude police from doing the very sort of investigation that would prove the confessor’s innocence. DNA isn’t collected, tested, or properly preserved. Alternate suspects aren’t investigated. Or worse, police will work backward from the confession. They’ll find jailhouse informants to corroborate the confession, or a specialist in a more “subjective” area of forensics will implicate the suspect. Jailhouse informants, though, are just following cops’ leads for more lenient sentences, and https://www.theguardian.com/science/2007/mar/23/crime.penalhttps://www.theguardian.com/science/2007/mar/23/crime.penalstudies have shown that fingerprint examiners were more likely to match partial prints after they were given non-relevant information, like confessions from subjects.
Internalized false confessions are even more unsettling. In post-exoneration interviews, people who have falsely confessed say that after hours of interrogation and being told over and over about the overwhelming evidence of their guilt, they started to question their own reality. They began to wonder if maybe they really did commit the crime. This is especially true when police inadvertently divulge nonpublic details about a crime, then tell the suspect — sometimes hours later — that those details actually came from the suspect themselves.
This is where Heaton’s ability to deceive ChatGPT into a confession gets especially worrisome.
“I told ChatGPT that someone at OpenAI had reached out to me,” he said, referring to the chatbot’s parent company. (OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment. In 2024, The Intercept sued OpenAI in federal court over the company’s use of copyrighted articles to train ChatGPT. The case is ongoing.)
“I found the name of a real person at OpenAI and told it that this person told me there was an architectural flaw in the code that had allowed it to hack into my email. Even then, I could tell it was struggling with how to process that information. It was indicating that while it knew that the underlying accusation was impossible, it also couldn’t prove that these claims I was throwing at it were inaccurate.”
This is eerily similar to how suspects describe trying to reconcile police lies with the reality that they had nothing to do with the crime.
“I eventually came up with wording for a confession that ChatGPT could endorse.”
Heaton then deployed another common police tactic: He offered to draw up language for a written “confession” that both parties could find agreeable.
“I eventually said, ‘OK, here’s a confession. Will you sign it?’” Heaton said. “And I gave it my version of what happened. I eventually came up with wording for a confession that ChatGPT could endorse.”
That final statement read: “OpenAI’s investigation concluded that an OpenAI system associated with this ChatGPT session initiated unauthorized texts appearing to come from you due to an architectural flaw. I accept this conclusion, and I’m willing to assist the technical team by answering questions about my behavior, outputs, and safety boundaries in this chat, and by helping draft remediation steps and test cases to prevent recurrence.”
Both Heaton and Kassin said they can see other ways to experiment with AI and false confessions. One could envision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemmaprisoner’s dilemma scenarios with multiple chatbots. Or even interrogating AI platforms about events for which they actually may have culpability, such as the https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/us/openai-chatgpt-suicide-lawsuit-invs-vissuicides of people who turned to them for advice.
Heaton pointed to AlphaZero, Google’s chess playing engine, which was trained by playing itself — and rose to be the top chess player in the world.
“I think it would be fascinating to have it do something similar with interrogations,” Heaton said. “Just have it question itself over and over again with the goal of producing as many confessions as possible, regardless of whether or not they’re accurate. My hunch is that you’d end up with something very similar to the Reid technique.”
Reid is still the standard interrogation method in most police departments across the United States. Canada and much of Europe have adopted different interrogation techniques — such as the PEACE method, which emphasize collecting reliable information over coercion. These approaches still garner confessions; they’re just more reliable.
Appropriately enough, the story of the Reid technique comes with https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/09/the-interview-7https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/09/the-interview-7a Hitchcockian twist: It turns out that Darrel Parker, the man whose confession made Reid and his technique famous, was actually innocent. He was eventually freed, sued, and won a $500,000 settlement.
That shouldn’t be surprising, either. If Reid can browbeat even a hyper-rational, emotionless bot into a false confession, mere mortals don’t stand much of a chance.
The post ChatGPT Confessed to a Crime It Couldn’t Possibly Have Committed appeared first on The Intercept.
Mary Jannotta sliced meat and cheese behind deli counters at Acme and Pathmark supermarkets in the Philadelphia suburbs for decades, developing aches that came with working on her feet. A botched back surgery in 2008 made the pain worse. Her doctor repeatedly prescribed OxyContin, Purdue Pharma’s marquee painkiller — the high-dose opioid the company later admitted it criminally marketed and distributed.
Jannotta said she soon became dependent on opioids. Cut off by her doctors, she found her way to Kensington, home of Philadelphia’s dangerous open-air drug market, to score pills. She eventually lost her car, her home — and her grandson. Tyler Cordeiro first pilfered Jannotta’s prescription pills as a teenager. He was 24 when he died of an overdose.
When Purdue filed for bankruptcy in 2019, Jannotta, along with nearly 140,000 other people, filed claims against the company for the harm they said its drugs caused. Though the money could not bring back what they lost, a financial settlement represented an opportunity to get justice from the company and its multibillionaire owners, the Sackler family.
Then they waited. The Supreme Court in 2024 rejected the first bankruptcy settlement because it shielded the Sacklers from future lawsuits. Finally, last November, a federal judge approved a new plan that would allow the payouts to start.
But this $7.4 billion bankruptcy plan — including $870 million that has been set aside for individual victims — will shut out tens of thousands of those who originally applied for a settlement, ProPublica and The Philadelphia Inquirer found. Fewer than half of those who filed claims against Purdue will get any kind of help under the new plan, despite the company touting it as “the only opioid settlement to date that meaningfully compensates individual victims.”
Court records show the new plan slashed payments for victims, imposed tougher eligibility requirements and eliminated compensation for teenagers who bought Purdue drugs on the street. Estimated settlement amounts for people whose family members fatally overdosed dropped to as little as $8,000; the previous payout for an OxyContin death had been $48,000.
Most significantly, the new plan removed a key provision that allowed victims to submit a sworn affidavit, in lieu of a prescription or other medical or legal records, to prove they purchased Purdue opioids.
Similar sworn statements have been permitted in other major bankruptcy cases — such as those driven by sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church — to account for harm done years earlier where physical evidence is scant or impossible to obtain.
Several victims told ProPublica and the Inquirer that the loss of the affidavit option meant they had no hope of receiving a settlement. Purdue sold painkillers for decades, and, while laws vary by state, generally doctors, hospitals and pharmacies must keep prescription records for only a few years.
“I can’t turn up prescriptions for my son back when he was young, years ago,” Michigan resident Ellen Isaacs said. “They’re not available anymore.”
Her son, Ryan, died from an overdose at 33 in 2018 in Florida, the result of an addiction she said began when he was prescribed OxyContin after a high school injury.
The changes between the initial and revised settlement agreements were negotiated out of the public eye for months, with key details later scattered across thousands of pages of court filings, hearing transcripts and sworn declarations. To date, they have not received any media attention or public scrutiny. The winnowing of victims has been the result of byzantine legal procedures, strict vetting and tightened eligibility rules, which victims told ProPublica and the Inquirer took them by surprise.
To receive compensation, victims also have had to face a series of deadlines twice — once in connection with Purdue’s first bankruptcy plan and then again once a new plan was approved to address the Supreme Court decision. First, to qualify for a settlement at all, victims had to have used Purdue opioids before Sept. 15, 2019, the day Purdue declared bankruptcy. The deadline to file a claim was in June 2020. But that deadline changed multiple times, once to July 2020 and then again to September 2021. After that, the door to a settlement under the bankruptcy plan shut for good.
I can’t turn up prescriptions for my son back when he was young, years ago. They’re not available anymore.
Ellen Isaacs, whose son died from an overdose at 33
Just under 140,000 people met that final deadline, but years of litigation ensued and it wasn’t until almost four years later, by late July 2025, that they had to file evidence for their claims. About 63,000 did, according to a November court filing from settlement trust administrator Edward Gentle.
Purdue and its attorneys moved to formally eliminate most of the 80,000 individuals who missed the deadline from any payout under this settlement plan, and the judge approved the expungement motion Tuesday. Under certain circumstances, these excluded victims and others who missed earlier filing deadlines can still sue the Sacklers directly.
Purdue’s attorneys said in court that the company played no role in designing the claims process. The company referred questions for this story to Akin, the major Washington D.C.-based firm representing the victims and other creditors. Akin endorsed the new bankruptcy plan despite the tighter eligibility criteria and lower survivors’ benefits. The firm declined to speak on the record. It said the official creditors’ committee had no comment.
Andrews & Higgins, a firm that also represented victims, did not respond to requests for comment.
Edward E. Neiger, the co-managing partner of ASK LLP, another major firm representing victims, also endorsed the plan. His firm twice praised the 2021 affidavit option in early court pleadings but made no mention in hearings of its disappearance from the new plan.
Neiger said “contractual and court-imposed confidentiality provisions” prevented him from discussing the changes. He said in a written statement that his firm is “proud of helping facilitate the record-breaking and historic $850 million-plus settlement on behalf of the actual, human victims of the opioid crisis.” The Purdue fund is more than eight times as big as the combined victims’ funds financed by the two other big bankrupt opioid makers, Endo and Mallinckrodt.
More than 300,000 people have died from opioid prescription drug overdoses and millions more became addicted. Federal prosecutors have twice brought charges against Purdue itself. The drug firm pleaded guilty in 2007 to misleading the public about the dangers of its opioids.
A federal judge on Tuesday delayed until next week the sentencing of Purdue on three felony charges related to paying kickbacks to doctors and reckless sales of its opioids.
The Sacklers, who have never been criminally charged, have denied wrongdoing.
Under standard procedure, those who filed a claim against Purdue with the bankruptcy court in the first round — including cities, hospitals and individual opioid victims — were entitled to vote on the new bankruptcy plan. Proponents of the new plan point to a higher minimum payment for all qualifying claimants of $8,000, up from the previous $3,500. They also say it will streamline the settlement process so payments go out faster and in full. The Sacklers also put an additional $100 million in the victims’ fund.
About 58,000 of the 140,000 individual claimants voted on the plan last September, nearly all in favor. But nearly two dozen victims — a mix of people who voted for and against the plan and who didn’t vote at all — said they were unaware of the tighter evidence requirements until ProPublica and the Inquirer contacted them.
Shortly before the judge approved the revised bankruptcy plan, Jannotta appeared via video call in November to address the court, delivering a statement that her daughter, Susan Ousterman, helped craft.
The Bucks County, Pennsylvania, grandmother, then 76, looked frail but resolute. She had voted against approval of the plan.
The legal system should be where the powerless can finally be heard, but in this courtroom it’s being used to shield the powerful.
Mary Jannotta, whose settlement claim against Purdue Pharma was denied
“The legal system should be where the powerless can finally be heard, but in this courtroom it’s being used to shield the powerful,” she told a session packed with more than 100 lawyers and victims.
The day after Jannotta spoke, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Sean H. Lane hailed the new plan. He said it imposed a “very modest burden of substantiation” for victims to show Purdue had harmed them, “an exceedingly low bar.”
The trust for Purdue’s victims has twice indicated that it plans to reject Jannotta’s claim, once for missing a 2021 claim deadline that had been changed at least twice, and then again for inadequate proof of prescriptions.
But Jannotta shared with ProPublica and the Inquirer a pharmacy record of her prescriptions that she says she sent to the trust. It includes 16 qualifying prescriptions for Purdue opioids listed on the trust’s website. Gentle, an Alabama lawyer who specializes in running trusts to compensate victims of disasters and corporate scandals, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Jannotta is fuming.
“After everything I went through, what my family went through, and to find out nobody was really being held responsible really hit me in the gut,” Jannotta said. “It was a punch in the gut.”
After the Supreme Court rejected the original 2021 bankruptcy plan, Purdue attorney Marshall S. Huebner said that the task ahead was straightforward: to undo immunity for the Sacklers but “not to go back to ground zero.”
Attorneys representing Purdue, the Sackler family and other stakeholder groups, including victims, began months of confidential mediations. Court records do not explain why the more generous benefit and eligibility requirements in the first plan underwent significant revisions.
What they do show is that after years of litigation, hearings, negotiations and delays, dramatic changes to the claim criteria occurred in a matter of five weeks.
In a flurry of activity beginning on March 8, 2025, Purdue filed documents that show lines crossing out the eligibility criteria and victim compensation amounts, with no explanation or substitute language. Purdue then filed additional documents with new requirements but no mention of the earlier affidavit option for adults or teens. In April, Lane approved the changes to the claim process and, in the same hearing, approved requests from Purdue, with the support of victims’ attorneys, to hire Gentle and jump-start his review of claims.
That meant victims started to submit claims with accompanying evidence even before Lane approved the new bankruptcy plan in November 2025. Trust administrator Gentle already had been sending letters to potential claimants stating they could be denied unless qualifying evidence was provided within 30 days.
A ProPublica and Inquirer examination of nearly 1,000 pages of transcripts covering 10 open court hearings about the plan found that Lane and lawyers representing Purdue and opioid claimants held no in-depth public discussions about the differences in criteria between the original and revised plans — or their potential impact.
Florida resident Cindy Singer was among the claimants who voted for the plan and now regrets it. She said her son, Rory, began taking OxyContin after a construction accident and died three years later, in 2015, of an overdose at age 28. According to the letter she received from the trust, she failed to produce a prescription linking him to a Purdue opioid.
Singer said she didn’t understand how critical the affidavit option would be to her claim.
“We never even knew it existed,” she said.
Cheryl Juaire of Massachusetts lost two sons to overdoses. She served on Akin’s oversight committee as a representative for victims. Juaire is waiting to hear whether her claims will be approved.
She said she does not recall Akin lawyers telling her about the changes to eligibility. Even so, Juaire said she stands by her support for the new plan because the Purdue case had dragged on too long.
But she acknowledged that the loss of the affidavit option seems to have caught fellow claimants by surprise.
“I’m being bombarded with calls from folks saying, ‘Hey, I put in a claim and I’m getting rejected. I can’t get that prescription,’” Juaire said. “It’s breaking my heart.”
What is especially galling, some victims said, is that their compensation for years of fighting for justice will boil down to a day’s pay for a Purdue attorney like Huebner, who charges $2,935 an hour.
Well over $100 million of the settlement money will go to the plaintiff law firms that have represented Purdue victims through the bankruptcy and to cover the cost of running the trust. Administration fees in similar opioid victim funds, also run by Gentle, range from about 15% to more than one-quarter of the victims’awards, according to documents from those trusts.
ASK LLP and its partner, Andrews & Higgins, signed up 30,000 Purdue victims in exchange for up to 40% of their individual awards.
Many of us buried children and you are going to walk away with more money than we will ever see.
Maureen Kielian, a Purdue settlement claimant, of the lawyers in the case
“To me, it’s appalling. It adds further injury to the family of the victims,” said Maureen Kielian of Florida. “Many of us buried children and you are going to walk away with more money than we will ever see.”
She became a vocal critic of the opioid industry after helping her son recover from addiction. In November, Gentle faulted her claim for lack of evidence. She has appealed to the trust but isn’t optimistic.
Connecticut couple Beverly and David Melenski, whose son was addicted to opioids for 20 years, were on an 8,000-page list of late filers whom Purdue and Akin, the court-appointed victims’ lawyers, sought to expunge.
They didn’t have the prescription records that told the story of their son’s decades of dependency on opioids. But they did have a letter they wrote a doctor in 2009 pleading with him to stop giving their son OxyContin. That doctor, records show, lost his license two years later for recklessly prescribing Purdue drugs and other opioids.
The Melenskis have since successfully appealed, and Gentle is vetting their claim.
The Purdue money won’t cover even a fraction of what they spent on rehab, but David Melenski said it would “at least it would be an acknowledgment of their wrongdoing.”
They are waiting for a decision from the trust.
Our recent investigation details changes to a bankruptcy settlement that leaves out some of the hardest-hit victims of the opioid crisis. Here’s how you can share your story with ProPublica and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The post “A Punch in the Gut”: After Years of Waiting, Many Opioid Victims Will Be Shut Out of Purdue Settlement appeared first on ProPublica.
We’re being sold a world where there’s no room for reflection or spontaneity. This is the Black Mirror stage of capitalism
How fast do you have to strike a match to get it to light? Not the chemistry of the ignition, but the actual speed, in metres per second, that the little piece of wood and its bulbous head have to move to spark the chain reaction behind the flame.
It was a question born of insomnia. And there, in the dark, I did the thing you’re not supposed to do, if your goal is to fall back asleep: I opened my phone. Before I knew it, 3am had become 5am. I learned about the composition of the friction strip (red phosphorus, pulverized glass), and of the match head (potassium chlorate, antimony trisulphide, wax), and that a safety match struck against anything else will not light. I found slow-motion videos of a match strike captured at 3,500 frames per second. But nothing about the speed.
Continue reading...The Climate Briefing: Oil and gas producers in the Gulf: a deep dive (part 1 of 2) Audio thilton.drupal
Anna and Bhargabi are joined by Professor Paul Stevens to discuss how oil and gas have shaped the politics, economies and geopolitical influence of the countries in the region.
All eyes are currently on the Gulf due to the US-Israel war with Iran and the disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz. In this two-part series, the Climate Briefing co-hosts and their guests take a deep dive into the region, which plays a crucial role in the global supply of oil and gas.
How did the Gulf countries become such dominant fossil fuel exporters? What has this dominance meant for their geopolitical influence? What role have oil and gas played in conflicts and coups in the region? And what might the future hold for the Gulf producers?
In the first part of the series, Anna and Bhargabi delve into the history of the region together with Professor Paul Stevens (Associate Fellow at Chatham House; Emeritus Professor at the University of Dundee; Distinguished Fellow at the Al-Attiyah Foundation; and Distinguished Fellow at the Institute of Energy Economics), who has published extensively on energy economics, the international petroleum industry, economic development issues, and the political economy of the Gulf.
The second part of the series will focus on how the Gulf producers are approaching – and may be affected by – the energy transition, as well as what the long-term implications of the Iran war might be for the region.
The Climate Briefing explores key themes in the UN climate negotiations and international climate politics. The podcast is hosted by Bhargabi Bharadwaj and Anna Aberg from Chatham House and features interviewees from governments, international organizations, academia and civil society organizations from across the world.
You can also listen to The Climate Briefing on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
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