US president says Netanyahu has to be ‘more responsible’, as Hezbollah says deal hinges on Israel withdrawing
You can follow all the latest developments from the G7 summit in our Europe live blog:
We will be including any Iran-related news from the summit in our Middle East crisis live blog.
Continue reading...LONDON and AUSTIN, Texas, June 16, 2026 — ORCA Computing a leading quantum computing company, today announced the successful deployment of its PT Series photonic quantum computer to a major enterprise customer in Japan, supported by strategic partner Toyota Tsusho Corporation.
Deployed in less than one week within a live enterprise environment, the system will advance hybrid quantum–AI applications across advanced science and engineering, logistics, manufacturing, optimization and generative AI workloads in the manufacturing sectors. This marks a major milestone in the ORCA and Toyota Tsusho partnership and the first installation and operation of an ORCA photonic quantum system within a private-sector enterprise.
The quantum computing capabilities of the ORCA PT-2 system will be integrated into the cloud services which support global operations. By integrating directly into its production infrastructure, the enterprise customer is bringing photonic quantum computing into the enterprise IT stack, enabling hybrid quantum–AI workflows alongside existing high-performance computing (HPC) applications. Later this year, the system will be upgraded to ORCA’s next-generation PT-3 platform, delivering increased processing capability and deeper integration with classical compute environments.
“Toyota Tsusho is proud to support the introduction of this quantum computing capability into the Japanese enterprise market,” said Mr. Norihito Ohigashi, the manager of Digital Infrastructure Department at Toyota Tsusho. “This collaboration reflects our commitment to enabling advanced technologies that will help shape the future of manufacturing, and intelligent infrastructure.”
“This endeavor demonstrates how quickly quantum computing can move from concept to real-world operation,” said Richard Murray, PhD, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of ORCA Computing. “Installing ORCA’s PT-2 quantum system within an enterprise environment in under one week highlights the maturity of ORCA’s photonic quantum technology. Together with Toyota Tsusho, we are laying the foundation for commercial quantum advantage in industrial AI applications.”
This announcement builds on ORCA Computing’s progress in delivering data-center-ready quantum systems and advancing hybrid quantum–classical integration across generative AI and enterprise environments.
More from HPCwire: IQM Quantum Computers Delivers 20-Qubit System to TOYO in 1st Enterprise Deployment in Japan
About ORCA Computing
ORCA Computing, headquartered in London, UK, with offices in the United States, is a leading developer and provider of full-stack photonic quantum computing systems. The company delivers an innovative approach to quantum computing, providing robust, high-performance, and data center-standard systems for machine learning, generative AI and optimization workloads. ORCA Computing has successfully delivered eleven on-premises quantum computers to leading global customers, including the UK National Quantum Computing Centre, Montana State University, and the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center.
Source: ORCA Computing
The post ORCA Computing and Toyota Tsusho Deploy Quantum System to Enterprise Customer in Japan appeared first on HPCwire.
Expands Hybrid Multi-cloud HPC Access to Thousands of Defense Users
CHICAGO, June 16, 2026 — Parallel Works, a provider of the ACTIVATE control plane for hybrid multi-cloud computing, today announced that the Department of Defense (DOD) High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) has awarded the company a contract to provide DoD scientists, engineers, and acquisition engineering professionals with a single, unified interface for accessing on-premises and cloud computational resources to address complex technical challenges.
The Parallel Works ACTIVATE High Security Platform (HSP) will serve as the control plane for connecting Defense Supercomputing Resource Centers (DSRCs) with a secure commercial cloud infrastructure, enabling defense researchers and engineers to deploy mission-critical workloads across environments through a single interface. Users will be able to test and deploy workloads on next-generation cloud infrastructure before those capabilities are integrated into the DSRC.
“AI-driven warfare and the ramp to digital modernization are demanding far more model-sharing options than legacy infrastructure can provide,” said Keith Obenschain, Chief Technology Officer at HPCMP. “There is an urgent need for controlled unclassified information (CUI) and ITAR-capable cloud workflows. ACTIVATE HSP provides users with flexible access to powerful computing resources, while meeting the security requirements for sensitive defense workloads. These capabilities are critical for accelerating mission outcomes with the speed, scale and complexity of today’s operational challenges.”
Thousands of users across the Department of Defense and research institutions will have immediate access to DSRCs through Parallel Works’ HSP. The unified, hybrid multi-cloud offering has been approved for the highest non-classified DOD security level, Impact Level 5 (IL5). It is one of only three SaaS / PaaS software programs approved to handle export-controlled workload environments, including International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI).
By connecting secure cloud infrastructure, the platform creates a computing fabric capable of running large, distributed workloads across on-premises systems and multiple cloud providers through:
As the first major implementation under the HPCMP contract, the Naval Research Laboratory implemented Parallel Works HSP to advance the speed and reliability of its forecasting model workloads. By automating complex weather prediction workflows and securely orchestrating hybrid defense computing environments, the solution enables faster, more strategic decision-making in the mission-critical DoD operation. The improvements go beyond efficiency and ensure operational continuity and the proactive redistribution of workloads.
“The HPCMP contract allows our platform to support a broad range of mission-critical HPC and AI workloads across the DOD teams,” said Matthew Shaxted, CEO of Parallel Works. “It gives teams a secure sandbox to test, deploy AI and code-assist tools for model development, and run workloads on next-generation cloud architectures before DSRC integration, all connected across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, including AWS, Azure, Google and Oracle.”
About Parallel Works
Parallel Works ACTIVATE is a leading hybrid multi-cloud computing control plane, empowering teams with seamless provisioning, management and sharing of compute resources at scale across on-premises and cloud environments with advanced cost control and budgeting features. ACTIVATE facilitates collaborative research and enhances productivity through intuitive interfaces and API-driven processes, enabling the operating system for complex enterprise computing environments. For more information, visit Parallel Works at parallelworks.com.
Source: Parallel Works
The post Parallel Works to Provide Unified HPC and Cloud Control Plane for Defense Researchers appeared first on HPCwire.
Voters are casting their ballots in four states and the District of Columbia on Tuesday, including the runoff race in Georgia to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.
Ex-defence secretary John Healey and ex-defence minister Al Carns have given resignation statements to MPs
Speaking to reporters at the G7, Keir Starmer also defended the defence investment plan (DIP) draft that led to John Healey’s resignation as defence secretary last week. Starmer confirmed that Dan Jarvis, the new defence secretary, is getting some input before the publication of the DIP in its final version.
Starmer said:
The position on investment in defence is firstly that we increased last year defence spending from 2.3% to 2.6%, that’s the biggest increase since the 1980s, and that means £270bn will be spent this parliament on defence.
On top of that [the] defence investment plan which obviously gives us capability for the future. We will put even more money in relation to that. I’ve been really clear that’s required difficult decisions, I have taken the decision to reallocate money from other departments.
Continue reading...Iran's foreign minister says Israeli troops can't remain in Lebanon under the pending deal with the U.S.
Oklahoma primary set to test Donald Trump’s iron grip on the Republican party, while closely watched runoff underway in Georgia
Speaking to NBC News earlier, JD Vance claimed that nuclear inspectors will “absolutely” be allowed back into Iran as part of the deal with the US.
“Yes, absolutely,” Vance said. “In fact, one of the core parts of the agreement is that the [International Atomic Energy Agency] and the United States are going to help Iran destroy the highly enriched stockpile, and that’s something that’s spelled out very clearly” in the memorandum of understanding, he added.
Continue reading...Interest earnings on a CD account of this size will be substantial. Here's what savers can expect to earn right now.
Ministry of Defence investigates after shots apparently fired within 500 metres of vessel near Isle of Wight
The Ministry of Defence is investigating reports that a Russian frigate, the Admiral Grigorovich, fired warning shots within 500 metres of a British yacht sailing a little over 20 miles south of the Isle of Wight.
No injuries or damage have been reported by the yacht, which is continuing its journey. A boat from HMS Tyne has visited the yacht to gather details and check the crew are safe.
Continue reading...This week's Fed meeting could have major implications for credit card borrowers. Here's what to know beforehand.
The FBI said it disrupted an attempt to attack Sunday's UFC America 250 event at the White House, with court records detailing an alleged plot to use small drones carrying explosives.
General secretary of TUC calls Reform proposal ‘a smokescreen for slashing women’s rights’
A law proposed by Nigel Farage to “strengthen women’s rights” could cost female workers money by removing equal pay for work of equal value, unions have said.
A proposal, made by Reform UK days before the Makerfield byelection, to introduce a Women and Motherhood Protection Act that it says will restore equality before the law has been described as “shameless and deceptive”.
Continue reading...Hundreds of anti-regime protesters gathered outside the Los Angeles Stadium before Iran's match against New Zealand. The team's participation in the World Cup has been politically divisive, but alongside the large number of demonstrators, many fans expressed their support for Iranian players. Donald Trump said this week that a peace deal between Washington and Tehran was 'all signed' and that the strait of Hormuz would be 'completely open' from Friday
Continue reading...Elon Musk firm adds startup behind Cursor app to its portfolio with xAI and reaches $2.8tn market capitalisation
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is buying the startup behind the AI-powered coding app Cursor for $60bn (£44bn) and has moved ahead of Amazon in valuation days after its stock market debut.
The company has agreed to buy Anysphere, which has capitalised on AI’s success as a coding technology.
Continue reading...The sale will split ownership of the pizza chain between a U.S.-based private equity firm and a Chinese restaurant company.
Ukrainian president praises successful talks after Trump’s comments that ‘Russia should make a deal’ after G7 meeting
… and given the delay this morning, the meeting may or may not have happened already – guess we will find out at some point during the day.
in Évian-les-Bains
Continue reading...Ahead of ‘same job, same pay’ hearings, former call centre worker Nathan Brunne says pay gap is structural and widens at senior levels
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Workers at the Australian Taxation Office’s outsource call centres are paid up to 40% less than their public service counterparts on the same phone lines, according to submissions lodged ahead of landmark “same job, same pay” hearings.
The pay gap, detailed by Nathan Brunne, a former worker on the ATO phone lines employed by the private equity-backed Probe Operations, widens at more senior call centre roles, with team leaders at outsource operators paid about $31 an hour compared with more than $52 at the tax office.
Continue reading...Governor Michele Bullock delivers a strong message after the Reserve Bank holds the cash rate at 4.35%, ending a run of three rises
RBA interest rates: Reserve Bank holds official cash rate at 4.35%
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It will take more than a ceasefire in the Middle East to prevent the Reserve Bank from hiking interest rates again.
That was the strong message from the RBA governor, Michele Bullock, after the central bank held its cash rate at 4.35%, putting an end to a run of three increases.
Continue reading...An anonymous reader quotes a report from Linuxiac: Mozilla has released Firefox 152, the latest update to its popular open-source web browser, with updated settings, improved media controls, experimental JPEG XL support, and various platform-specific fixes for desktop and Android. A key update is the redesigned Firefox Settings page, which now features clearer groupings, improved navigation, and a more streamlined structure for easier customization. The release also expands built-in spellchecker support, adding dictionaries for Croatian, English (UK), Georgian, Persian, Slovenian, Tajik, Tamil, Tibetan, Turkish, Welsh, and Xhosa. [...] Importantly, Firefox now offers experimental support for JPEG XL, an image format with improved compression over WebP, JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Users can enable JPEG XL in the Firefox Labs panel within Settings.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Child was fatally shot and his mother’s friend is wounded after Senatobia police responded to shoplifting call
A one-year-old boy is dead and another person wounded after a northern Mississippi police officer shot at a vehicle while responding to a shoplifting call, according to authorities and the child’s grandfather.
Kohen Wiley, the slain child, was in the car at the center of the shooting on Sunday alongside his mother and her friend, said Marquell Bridges, a local community advocate who is helping the family find legal representation.
Continue reading...The deal comes just days after SpaceX went public in the largest IPO in history, raising $75 billion to help fund its expansion.
A Consumer Reports study published Tuesday claimed that Uber and Lyft sell nearly identical rides for a wide range of rates.
Activists say blanket ban could prevent teenagers from finding peers and role models with similar conditions
Disability activists have said banning under-16s from social media risks cutting off a “lifeline for friendship” for disabled children and could push them into social isolation by preventing them from making connections online.
Charities and high-profile figures in disability advocacy said they were concerned that a blanket ban on social media would disproportionately affect teenagers who may not be able to meet people easily in real life or find peers with similar conditions.
Continue reading...Lisa Murkowski, a Republican senator, joins Democrats in bid to stop dismantling of Ocean Observatories Initiative
A group of Democratic senators and one Republican, as well as two Democratic House committees, sent letters on Monday to the National Science Foundation asking it to reverse course on its plan to dismantle a sprawling ocean monitoring network, with House lawmakers going further and accusing the agency of acting illegally.
The Ocean Observatories Initiative is a network of more than 900 ocean sensors built at a cost of $386m. Over the last decade it has tracked ocean circulation, marine ecosystems, climate change and extreme weather, producing data freely available to the public and informing more than 500 scientific publications. The project was slated to run another 15 to 20 years.
Continue reading...Litter-picking creatures emerge from underground for global franchise targeting nostalgic adults and gen Alpha
Move over Paddington Bear. After almost 30 years off screen, the Wombles – the furry, litter-picking creatures who live beneath Wimbledon Common – are set for a comeback.
The characters, whose motto is “Make Good Use of Bad Rubbish”, are being revived after the consolidation of the brand’s intellectual property rights under The Blair Partnership, which will oversee its global development.
Continue reading...Sunday's plane crash ripped a hole in the close-knit community of skydivers in the Midwest: adventure seekers who bonded over the adrenaline they get with every jump.
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
Over at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, European allies don’t appear to share Donald Trump’s optimism that the strait of Hormuz will reopen by Friday.
One G7 official has told Bloomberg there are serious difficulties in finding a common position among the group about how to deal with the situation in Iran.
One senior US official said traffic in the waterway would ramp up over time, and it could take as many as two weeks for shipping to significantly increase — and even longer for it to return to the levels seen before the US and Israel attacked Iran in February.
There are mines in the strait that still need to be cleared and shippers have different risk tolerances about navigating Hormuz, the official said.
Bosses of the world’s biggest shipping companies want to see more than just an agreement in place, mines need to be swept, and all hostilities must end, before tankers with hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of cargo will be able to traverse the Strait without fear of a flare up in tensions that could close the Strait mid-voyage.
Thus, even if a deal is signed to end the US/Iran war, the situation is not without its challenges. Brent crude remains above $80 per barrel, and it is unlikely to fall below this level until we start to see cargo ships successfully get through the Strait.
Continue reading...WAYNE, Pa., June 16, 2026 — Cornelis, a provider of high-performance networking solutions, today announced the successful deployment of the “Lynx” supercomputing cluster at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).
The 952-node Lynx cluster, featuring Dell PowerEdge servers, Intel Xeon processors, and the Cornelis CN5000 Omni-Path fabric, is part of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Commodity Technology Systems (CTS-2) program. It will provide additional production capability for NNSA’s Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program and NNSA’s broader national security missions.
“We are excited to see the Cornelis CN5000 400G network come to life at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,” said Matt Leininger, Senior Principal HPC Strategist at LLNL. “The collaboration between NNSA’s ASC program and Cornelis has been rooted in a shared commitment to advancing high-performance computing. Lynx reflects the results of that public-private R&D investment and will support the modeling, simulation and analysis capabilities that underpin the modern NNSA complex.”
Lynx is a key computing infrastructure investment for NNSA and is being integrated into LLNL’s high-performance computing environment, where it will support production modeling, simulation, and analysis for national security.
“Lynx represents an important milestone in NNSA’s work to evaluate and deploy next-generation high-performance computing technologies for mission use,” said Stephen Rinehart, Assistant Deputy Administrator for the NNSA’s Office of Advanced Simulation and Computing. “The system builds on NNSA’s Next-Generation High Performance Computing Network effort and strengthens the computing ecosystem supporting future ASC workloads.”
The Cornelis CN5000 fabric at the heart of Lynx utilizes the Omni-Path architecture, providing low-latency, lossless and congestion-free communication to maximize compute performance and efficiency for today’s HPC and AI workloads.
“The successful deployment of Lynx at LLNL marks an important milestone for CN5000 as a production-ready network for the most demanding and mission-critical computing environments,” said Brad Haczynski, Chief Commercial Officer of Cornelis. “With Lynx now in production in one of the world’s most advanced computing facilities, we have demonstrated that our CN5000 400Gbps solution is ready for broad commercial, academic, and government adoption. We look forward to CN5000 delivering the performance and price-performance organizations need to accelerate their HPC and AI initiatives.”
About Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Founded in 1952, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory provides solutions to our nation’s most important national security challenges through innovative science, engineering and technology. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is managed by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration.
About the National Nuclear Security Administration
Established by Congress in 2000, NNSA is a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy that protects our nation by designing and delivering a safe, secure, reliable, and effective U.S. nuclear stockpile; forging solutions that enable global security and stability through nonproliferation, counterproliferation, and emergency response; providing nuclear propulsion to power a global U.S. Navy; and leveraging transformative technologies to address emerging challenges.
About Cornelis
Cornelis delivers high-performance, scale-out and scale-up networking solutions that accelerate AI and HPC workloads. Cornelis technology enables lossless, congestion-free networking that reduces training time, improves inference, and maximizes compute utilization. From foundation model training to complex climate modeling and real-time analytics, Cornelis solutions power the most demanding workloads across commercial, academic, government, and cloud environments. With a focus on performance, scalability, and efficiency, Cornelis helps organizations achieve faster insights and greater return on infrastructure investments. Visit us at International Supercomputing (ISC’26) Booth E02 in Hamburg, Germany June 22-26, or learn more at www.cornelis.com.
Source: Cornelis
The post Cornelis CN5000 Network Powers New Lynx Supercomputer at LLNL appeared first on HPCwire.
Oprah Winfrey chose "Little Wonder" by Sophie Chen Keller as her latest book club pick. Read a free excerpt here.
Samsung lets you be the "guy in the chair" with an interactive fan site tied to the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day flick.
Any sense of relief is offset by doubts over durability of agreement and feelings of betrayal by Trump administration
In the rural town of Sirik, in southern Iran, temperatures over the past week have climbed to 45C (113F), and residents were still queueing to fill buckets of water days after US strikes reportedly damaged two drinking water facilities serving nearby villages.
Amid the water shortages and the looming fear of war came news of a possible deal between Washington and Tehran. But for those struggling to pick up the pieces in the aftermath, the announcement brought little relief.
Continue reading...Another story from the good old days from Raymond Chen.
During an exchange of war stories, a colleague of mine told one from back in the days when Windows included a processor emulator for x86-32 on systems that natively ran some other processor. (This has happened many times. And no, I don’t know which processor this particular story applied to.)
↫ Raymond Chen at The Old New Thing
So the core of the story comes down to this:
All in all, it took this program 256 kilobytes of code to initialize 64 kilobytes of data.
↫ Raymond Chen at The Old New Thing
The people working on Windows were so offended by this, they added code to the processor emulator just to fix this program.
Speaking of FreeBSD, the project released version 15.1 of their operating system today. As it’s a point release, it’s not full of massive changes, but it still brings the LinuxKPI-based wireless drivers up to Linux 7.0, support for the C23 version of the C has progressed considerably, Unicode has bene updated to version 17.0.0 and CLDR 48, and more.
Oscar-winning actor to write and direct fact-based movie that will follow a police officer mixed up in 2021 Capitol riot
Sean Penn will direct a new film about the January 6 riot set to star Bradley Cooper.
According to Deadline, the star, who recently won his third Oscar, will bring what’s been described as a “passion project” to the screen and act as both writer and director.
This article was amended on 16 June 2026. An earlier version stated that Sean Penn had won two Oscars, not three.
Continue reading...BOULDER, Colo., June 16, 2026 — Atom Computing today announced it has raised a total funding of more than $300 million to accelerate the development and deployment of commercial-scale fault-tolerant quantum computers. The total includes a $100 million Series C investment round and a signed Letter of Intent with the U.S. Department of Commerce for $100 million. The Series C round was led by Third Point Ventures, with participation from DCVC, Cisco Investments, and others.
Atom Computing has emerged as a leader in the race to build practical quantum computers using neutral atoms. The company recently announced a full demonstration of quantum error correction on its quantum computers, making it only one of two companies in the quantum industry to have done so, and the first company to do this demonstration using neutral-atom technology.
The company continues to build momentum using its neutral-atom technology. In 2023, Atom became the first quantum company to surpass the 1,000-qubit threshold for a universal gate-based system. The company is currently performing in Stage B of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI) to explore paths to utility-scale quantum systems while also installing the world’s first commercial quantum computer with logical qubits in partnership with Microsoft. Atom Computing, named to Fast Company’s list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies, is also engaged in strategic collaborations with Cisco and NVIDIA.
“Quantum computing is entering a new phase where technical breakthroughs are translating into real-world systems and global adoption, fueled by our neutral-atom technology,” said Dr. Ben Bloom, CEO and Founder of Atom Computing. “We have strong momentum, and we are accelerating the development of utility-scale quantum computers and expanding access to our technology for customers solving some of the world’s most complex computational challenges.”
“Third Point Ventures has backed Atom Computing since their Series B, and leading this Series C reflects our deepening conviction in both the team and the technology,” said Curtis McKee, Partner at Third Point Ventures. “Neutral-atom quantum computing is one of the most credible paths to fault-tolerant systems at scale, and we believe commercial breakthroughs — in cybersecurity, defense, drug discovery, and financial modeling — are closer than the market appreciates. Atom Computing will be at the center of that moment.”
Atom Computing is using its recent funding for:
“Atom Computing’s roadmap and execution towards a neutral atom fault tolerant quantum computing is truly impressive. DCVC has been with the Atom team from the start, and we are delighted to double down!” said Dr. Prineha Narang, a DCVC Operating Partner.
“Quantum computing is rapidly evolving from a research pursuit into a technology platform with real-world enterprise implications. As it matures, the industry will require scalable infrastructure, secure networking, and strong ecosystem collaboration to support real-world deployment,” added Aleem Rizvon, Vice President, Cisco Investment. “We are excited to invest in Atom Computing as it establishes itself as a leader in neutral-atom quantum computing.”
As industries increasingly explore quantum computing for applications in materials science, pharmaceuticals, energy, and logistics, demand is growing for systems capable of unlocking commercially relevant quantum applications. Atom Computing’s unique approach to quantum computing, utilizing arrays of optically-trapped neutral atoms, is widely recognized as one of the most viable paths to reaching commercial utility and positions the company to play a leading role in enabling practical quantum applications in the years ahead.
More from HPCwire
About Atom Computing
Atom Computing is developing large-scale quantum computers to enable companies and researchers to achieve unprecedented computational breakthroughs. Utilizing highly scalable arrays of optically trapped neutral atoms, the company has developed systems with over 1,200 qubits, featuring advanced capabilities towards fault-tolerant quantum computing. Atom Computing’s on-premises systems provide customers with new computational tools and logical qubit capabilities to address increasingly complex applications and to grow their quantum ecosystem. In 2025 Atom Computing sold its first commercial on-premises quantum computer to QuNorth, a Nordic quantum initiative funded by EIFO and Novo Nordisk Foundation. Learn more at atom-computing.com.
Source: Atom Computing
The post Atom Computing Raises $100M Series C to Accelerate Deployment of Fault-Tolerant, Neutral-Atom Quantum Computers appeared first on HPCwire.
Expect to see more and more articles like this one, as more and more people discover that FreeBSD’s desktop/laptop support keeps improving rapidly.
FreeBSD 15 really feels like a breakthrough release.
It’s always been my favorite operating system for servers, but with the arrival of pkgbase, massive improvements to the LinuxKPI drivers, and the launch of the Laptop Support and Usability Project, it’s become my primary desktop, too.
↫ Cullum Smith
Since Smith tried FreeBSD 14.0, there’s now KDE Plasma 6.x, you can leave legacy X11 behind and use Wayland on FreeBSD now, and support for Intel Wi-Fi chips has greatly expanded. Apparently, battery life has improved as well, which is one of the hardest problems to solve for an operating system, especially with the wide variety of hardware combinations in the x86 world.
The rest of Smith’s article is a guide to setting up FreeBSD 15 with KDE and Wayland. It’s quite detailed with a ton of low-level tuning and fiddling, accompanied by clear and concise explanation of what the changes do, which I really like. Definitely a bookmark for anyone who wants to try out FreeBSD with KDE.
Luke Skywalker's light saber from the "Star Wars" sequel "The Empire Strikes Back" is expected to sell for at least $1 million at an upcoming auction.
Japanese technology company at centre of Post Office IT scandal is negotiating settlement with UK government over faulty software
The chair of Fujitsu, the Japanese technology firm at the centre of the Post Office IT scandal, has resigned after its board became aware of his “woman-related inappropriate conduct”.
The company said on Tuesday that Hidenori Furuta had stepped down after two years in the role.
Continue reading...A WHO official tells CBS News Ebola is still spreading in Congo after a month, as experts race to contain the outbreak in Central Africa.
Andy Lewis, also known for slacklining and tricklining, and Danny Joe Kregle of Arizona were killed in accident in Utah canyon
A weekend Base jumping accident in a Utah canyon killed two people, one of them a daredevil athlete best known for performing on stage with Madonna at the 2012 Super Bowl, authorities said.
The sheriff’s office in Grand county, Utah, confirmed one of the dead was Andy Lewis, an extreme athlete known for feats in Base jumping, a dangerous sport that involves parachuting to the ground after jumping from a tall fixed object such as a building, a bridge or a desert cliff overlooking a deep canyon.
Continue reading...At least eight states have banned the plant-derived product as more people use it and some claim it’s addictive
In 2024, Maizie Hepner, 24, started visiting a bar in Dubuque, Iowa that did not serve alcohol and instead offered beverages containing kava and kratom, psychoactive substances derived from plants.
The drinks were marketed as “herbal tea mocktails”. Hepner, who works as a server and bartender, said. “I asked the guy who owns” Kava Kava “if it was addictive, and he said, ‘Absolutely not’”.
Continue reading...Rejected citing ‘conflict of interest’, the ad took aim at Trump allies David Ellison, Paramount Skydance chief, and his billionaire father, Larry Ellison
Paramount Skydance refused to air an ad submitted by a press freedom group that heavily criticized the network’s leadership and merger with Warner Bros Discovery, with an advertising associate deeming it a “conflict of interest”.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation had hoped to air the 30-second ad during Sunday’s Ultimate Fighting Championship broadcast at the White House, which aired on the streaming service Paramount+ – though a client partner for Paramount told the organization’s ad-buyer that such placement was not guaranteed.
Continue reading...Players deny their decision comes from place of hate
MLB says writing on caps is a violation of league rules
Major League Baseball has issued a statement critical of players who wrote Bible verses on their Pride Night hats after an incident at a San Francisco Giants game last week.
MLB celebrates Pride month during June and most teams choose a home game to acknowledge the LGBTQ community and its baseball fans. The Giants, who are based in a city with a large LGBTQ population, often make an extra effort.
Continue reading...Details of potential threat were not immediately disclosed, after event was held on Donald Trump’s 80th birthday
Law enforcement officials disrupted “planned attacks” meant to target the UFC cage fighting show staged at the White House this past weekend, and multiple people were in custody, said Kash Patel, the FBI director.
The nature of the potential threat was not immediately disclosed, with additional details expected to be released once charges are unsealed later Tuesday.
Continue reading...Administration had claimed algae at Lincoln Memorial pool would be cleared after the renovation, but it has proliferated amid warm weather
Donald Trump’s $14.2m bid to turn the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool from what the US president described as a “filthy” and “dirty” site into a “beautiful” monument has encountered a hitch.
The water is green again.
Continue reading...Judge decides Timothy Hudson should face trial as an adult, though he will be held in an approved juvenile facility
A teenager charged with sexually assaulting and killing his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship turned himself over to the custody of federal authorities on Monday after a judge reversed his decision on pre-trial release now that the teen is charged as an adult.
The US attorney’s office in Miami confirmed that Timothy Hudson was in custody. US magistrate Judge Edwin Torres filed the order to revoke Timothy’s pre-trial release last Wednesday, but the order was sealed until Monday afternoon. The order stated that Hudson should surrender to US marshals at the federal courthouse in Tampa on Monday morning.
Continue reading...The iconic phone grip has been redesigned and goes on sale today at Apple Stores.
We have opened the AI Pandora’s box. Now we have to make the best of it
On 9 June, Anthropic released its Fable generative AI model. Three days later, the US government classified it as a dangerous munition, and used its export-control authority to prohibit any foreign nationals from accessing it. Unable to differentiate between Americans and foreigners, the company shut off access for everyone.
The government’s actions won’t help. The problem isn’t any one particular model; it’s the general trend of increasing AI capabilities. And any real solution requires the sort of collective action that just isn’t possible right now.
Bruce Schneier is a security technologist who teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University
Continue reading...Kimba is an AI-powered sleep technology system that releases personalized scents to help you sleep better. Here’s how it works.
President Trump, who is in France for the G7 summit, said he didn't like that Israel attacked Lebanon two hours before the U.S. signed an agreement with Iran.
A wildfire burning through Riverside county, east of Los Angeles, has grown to about 3 sq miles (8 sq km), Californian authorities report.
Evacuation orders were issued in parts of the county and shelters have been set up for displaced residents. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said more than 250 personnel and more than 40 fire engines had been deployed to tackle the blaze
Continue reading...Two Belarusians detained over attack on Robert Kuzovkov, who is also known as Semyon Skrepetsky
A Russian artist critical of Vladimir Putin and the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has been shot and killed in the eastern Polish town of Biała Podlaska, a prosecutor has said.
Five shots were fired at the victim, including one to the head, in the attack on Monday, said Marcin Kozak, a spokesperson for the district prosecutor in Lublin. Two Belarusians have been detained but not charged in connection with the case, he added.
Continue reading...Serena and Venus Williams are getting back together as a doubles team, at Wimbledon. The last time the sisters were a doubles duo was at the 2022 U.S. Open, where they lost their opening match.
Verizon's plans offer the highest data speeds and options to upgrade phones every year.
Borrowers face stricter payment timelines after Biden-era Save repayment plan was ended by Donald Trump
The American student loan repayment system is set to undergo a significant overhaul next month, changing the way millions of borrowers pay off their debt.
The series of changes, which take effect 1 July, are a result of the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act that was signed last summer and a recent court ruling that ordered the end of the Biden-era Save repayment plan. Borrowers will be facing stricter payment timelines and less forgiveness, what will be the latest in a series of massive changes to the student loan system in just a few years.
Continue reading...With election denialists installed in key positions, officials using series of measures to change voting rules
The Trump administration is waging war on voting rights using justice department lawsuits, FBI investigations, and an executive order to limit voting by mail, moves mirroring the US president’s false claims he lost the 2020 election due to voting fraud, say election experts and ex-officials.
Since Donald Trump began his second term, numerous 2020 election denialists have been installed in key agencies such as the DoJ, the FBI and elsewhere to pursue widely discredited claims of fraud, which can intimidate election workers and voters in swing states that Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
Continue reading...Verizon is working to keep customers with weekly perks and some big giveaways.
New simulations suggest Venus' extremely slow backward rotation may have been triggered by a high-angle collision with a fast-moving object roughly one-tenth its mass. The impact could have dramatically altered Venus' spin and melted nearly its entire mantle. Universe Today reports: Venus' bizarre and extraordinarily slow retrograde rotation on its axis has long puzzled planetary scientists. But in a new paper presented at the recent European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, the authors argue that their models indicate that a high angle moon-sized, high-velocity impactor likely triggered Venus's strange 248-day rotation. And it probably happened within the first 50 million years of Venus' formation. [...] The team found that an impactor that is about a tenth of Venus' mass hitting the planet at a high angle could drastically show the early young planet's rotation. Depending on the actual impact parameters, we can slow down a rapidly rotating early Venus to rotation rates that are that are compatible with long-term evolution towards a slow rotating planet, says [Cedric Gillmann, the paper's lead author and a planetary scientist at ETH Zurich]. Or even in some cases with large energetic impact that happen with a tangential impact that would even put planets early on in already a retrograde but faster rotation, he says. In the simulations, giant impacts expectedly produce surface magma oceans, the paper's authors note. Their relative depths vary depending on impact properties: from a shallow melt layer in the order of 100km thick to a fully molten mantle, they note. If the surface can radiate heat to space efficiently, the magma ocean cools down quickly, they write. If Gillmann and colleagues are correct, Venus' likely impactor also melted some 99 percent of Venus' mantle. That is, the interior structure that extends between its core and crust. You will get rid of that impact heat pretty efficiently, and after a few hundred million years, you end up seeing an evolution that is very difficult to distinguish from a case where you don't have an impact, says Gillmann. What role the impact may have played in Venus' lack of plate tectonics, however, remains open for debate. But it's known that Venus' lack of a large-scale carbon recycling mechanism likely led to its current runaway greenhouse.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Iran's World Cup team coach says it was ordered to leave the U.S. and return to its training base in Mexico only a few hours after opening its politically charged tournament with a draw.
Country acts amid Iran war inflation pressures, but US Fed and Bank of England expected to hold rates
The Bank of Japan (BoJ) has raised interest rates to a 31-year high as it tries to dampen inflationary pressures created by the Iran war.
Policymakers in Tokyo raised the BoJ’s short-term policy rate by a quarter of one percentage point, to 1% from 0.75%, and warned that companies were passing on rising oil costs to each other at a “relatively fast pace”.
Continue reading...Hania Ahmed, 9, was killed in a police shooting in Pakistan after robbers confronted her family as they visited a relative’s home
Williams sisters have won six doubles titles at SW19
French Open finalist Chwalinksa awarded wildcard
Serena and Venus Williams will rekindle their doubles partnership at Wimbledon this month after receiving a wildcard into the women’s doubles draw. The All England Club announced the recipients on Tuesday morning in one of the most highly anticipated wildcard announcements in recent memory considering Serena’s return this month after four years of retirement.
Serena, a seven-times singles champion, did not request a singles wildcard and the 44-year-old has remained coy about whether she plans to return for singles. Venus, a five-time singles champion, has also not received a singles wildcard. Venus has competed on the tour since her debut in 1994, only stopping due to health-related issues. She turns 46 on Wednesday.
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What I’m Discussing Today:
The Beautiful Game, the Knicks’ Glory, and Human Cockfighting on the White House Lawn: From Team USA to the Knicks to Trump’s UFC lawn party, last weekend showed us the best and worst of the wide world of sports.
Kareem’s Daily Quote: How should we calculate the value of the human soul?
SpaceX makes Elon Musk the first trillionaire: A trillion dollars makes for a flashy headline, but is it something worth celebrating?
Inside the White House Freakout Over the Epstein Files: What happens when you’re more interested in protecting the boss’s image than pursuing justice for Jeffrey Epstein’s victims.
What I’m Watching: The richest man in the world builds a fantastic flying machine…and it’s not Elon Musk.
Jukebox Playlist: Jon Batiste’s “Big Money” asks the right questions for this moment.
Last weekend was a helluva weekend to be a sports fan. It started with Team USA’s inspiring 4-1 victory over Paraguay at Friday night’s World Cup match in front of 70,000-plus cheering fans (including yours truly) at L.A.’s Sofi Stadium. As someone old enough to remember when soccer was an afterthought in the United States, it was truly impressive to see so many people turn out to watch what has long been known, in the rest of the world, as “the beautiful game.” In the U.S., it still has some growing to do: the average player’s salary in Major League Soccer is about $632,000, compared to $5.34 million in Major League Baseball and around $11 million in the NBA. Until soccer can match America’s major sports in salary, it won’t be able to compete with European programs in player development because the best athletes, given the chance to earn 10-20 times as much money playing baseball or basketball, will always gravitate towards the more lucrative sports. But soccer has come a long way since Pelé brought the sport’s unique excitement to America just over 50 years ago.
Still, if you ask me what’s the most beautiful game, I’m going to say basketball ten times out of ten. And it doesn’t get any more beautiful than last week’s NBA finals series between the Knicks and the Spurs, which culminated Saturday night in San Antonio with the Knicks’ first NBA Championship since 1973. That’s not a season I like to think about too much: my Milwaukee Bucks lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Golden State Warriors and their defensive center Nate “The Great” Thurmond, who held me to 22.8 points per game after I’d averaged more than 30 in the regular season. But enough about me and ’73. This year’s Knicks squad were 2-1 underdogs against the Spurs and their exciting young center Victor Wembanyama, and even though I grew up in Harlem I found myself rooting for Wemby, who reminds me a little of myself at that age.
Then again, maybe I’ve held a bit of a grudge against the Knicks ever since my rookie year, when they eliminated my Bucks in the Eastern Conference finals. Whatever, I’m over it now, after their breathtaking post-season run, led by the undersized but enormous-hearted point guard Jalen Brunson, who scored a team playoff record 45 points in the deciding game, sinking distant threes and amazing high arcs over the longest arms in the league. It came as a surprise to exactly no one when he was named finals MVP. I was also greatly impressed by OG Anunoby, who averaged 21 points per game in the finals, and saved game four at the Garden with his already legendary tip in. And I have to give a shout-out to center Karl-Anthony Towns, who won the league’s Social Justice Champion Award named in my honor in 2024 for his work expanding voter rights in Minnesota, where he was playing for the Timberwolves. I don’t have the time or space to talk about every player on the team, but they all shared in the glory Saturday night, and special praise has to go out to coach Mike Brown, who helped the underdogs overachieve when it mattered most.
From San Antonio, we go to that hockey Mecca Las Vegas, where the Golden Knights lost the Stanley Cup finals to the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday, failing to recapture the NHL title they won in 2023. But the most talked about sporting event Sunday night was the UFC card held on the White House lawn, allegedly to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary, but conveniently taking place on President Trump’s 80th birthday. I don’t have a lot to say about that, except that it seemed entirely appropriate to celebrate Trump’s birthday with a sport that a much better man, the late Senator John McCain, famously dubbed “human cockfighting.” That this event was taking place in the backyard of what has long been known as the People’s House—while being shown on pay TV that fewer than 20 percent of the American people subscribe to—is entirely on-brand. So is the fact that Trump invested in the UFC just before announcing the event, once again exploiting the office of the presidency for personal profit. On a weekend in which the best aspects of sports competition were just about everywhere you looked, the repulsive view of a Death Star-style Octagon at our nation’s capital is the one we may be doomed to remember the longest.
“For what doth it profit a man, to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” Mark 8:36
In the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln praised the Union soldiers who had given their lives so that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” That egalitarian ideal has always been something of a myth, never more so than today, when our government looks a whole lot like one “of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the billionaires.” Or should I say trillionaires?
Which brings me back to those words above, spoken by the leading character of what Donald Trump claims is his favorite book (just ahead of The Art of the Deal). The word “profit” implies both a ledger and a contract, stapled together with 2000 years of moral authority. I think that framing is entirely intentional. We run our lives like balance sheets: what we’re worth, what we’ve been paid, what the whole project cost us. Fine, Jesus says: Let’s run the numbers. What have you actually gained, and what did the purchase cost?
The math is ugly.
The soul, in daily practical terms rather than theological ones, is the operating system underneath our individual actions. It’s the constellation of values and commitments that makes a person recognizable as a human being rather than a computer or a robot. Each time we compromise our ideals, we make a small withdrawal from our account, and by the time our accounts are empty, we’ve forgotten what our ideals were to begin with.
We have built a culture that celebrates the world-gainers with very little curiosity about what they traded to get there. Net worth has become our proxy for wisdom, which is how we end up inviting the wealthiest person in the room to lecture us on education, public health, and democratic values—subjects where accumulated fortune confers exactly zero wisdom or expertise. How did we arrive at a place where the size of a man’s balance sheet determines how seriously we take his opinions about the rest of our lives? Jay Gould, the Gilded Age railroad magnate, built his empire through documented fraud and market manipulation, and he died widely described as the most hated man in America. Check his ledger and he had gained the whole world; but the ledger couldn’t capture the loss of reputation and esteem.
I find Orson Welles’ treatment of this transaction in Citizen Kane as profound as anything written on the subject in the last century. The movie ends with a deathbed revelation: a man who gained everything the world could offer dies speaking a word that means nothing to anyone who knows him: “Rosebud.” If you haven’t seen it, stop here and go watch it—not only is it one of the best movies ever made, it’s also one of the most enjoyable.
Alright, if you’re still with me, you know that Rosebud was the name of Charles Foster Kane’s childhood sled, which symbolizes everything he gave up in exchange for all that money and power he acquired. The transaction never announced itself. Kane didn’t know, in any given moment, how much of his soul he was trading to get what he thought he wanted. But none of those things were what he wanted as he breathed his final breath.
I wonder what Donald Trump’s or Elon Musk’s “Rosebud” will be. A giant octagon on the White House lawn or a trillion dollars they wouldn’t be able to spend in a thousand lifetimes? I doubt it, but I don’t know anything about their inner lives. I’m not sure they do, either.
A Liverpool fan and an influencer explain what it’s like to be hired for a Truman Show-style experiment
When Kevin Kotoko heard that he had been selected as one of Fox’s chief World Cup watchers he had no hesitation in accepting. What self-respecting football fan could turn down the opportunity to be paid $50,000 (£37,000) to take in all 104 games at this World Cup, after all?
The only issues were that he would have to watch every match in a custom-built viewing cube in the heart of Times Square and let his employers know that he wouldn’t be coming in for work the next day. “I quit my job,” admits Kotoko, a Liverpool fan who is from Florida and was working as a waiter in a restaurant. “I found out on Thursday that I had won the competition and so I told them on Friday that would be my last day!”
Continue reading...There is a fundamental tension between extreme wealth and the very possibility of democracy. That’s because extreme wealth is always an extreme power
The stock market listing of SpaceX has led to an outpouring of celebration, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. Yet those who rejoice in Elon Musk’s fortune surpassing the $1tn mark need to be reminded of a simple and vital truth: the mere existence of trillionaires is a major political and economic problem, probably the defining issue of our time.
Simply put, there is a fundamental tension between extreme wealth and the very possibility of democracy. Extreme wealth is always an extreme power. It’s the power to stifle competition, the power to shape public discourse, the power to influence policymaking, the power to buy elections, the power to stall social progress.
Gabriel Zucman is a professor of economics at the Paris School of Economics, a summer research professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and founding director of the International Tax Observatory. He is the author of We Need to Tax Billionaires.
Continue reading...Janeese Lewis George’s ‘people-first platform’ appears to have given her an edge as how the next mayor will handle Trump is key question on residents’ minds
There’s a transplant from Mar-a-Lago at the center of DC’s mayoral primary race on Tuesday, but his name is nowhere on the ballot.
For the first time in more than a decade, Washington DC will have a new mayor this year as the city faces concerns about how to address public safety, housing affordability, and increased federal immigration enforcement in the district. How the next mayor handles Donald Trump is also key question on residents’ minds, with many closely watching to see if any of the president’s supporters are pouring money into the race, as well as the primaries for the city’s congressional delegate.
Continue reading...Josh Hokit’s comment, made after the match at the White House, was condemned widely, but not by the president
Donald Trump is facing growing pressure to condemn an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) competitor who used a White House appearance to push a sexist, racist and transphobic conspiracy theory about former first lady Michelle Obama.
At a UFC event on the south lawn on Sunday, the US president’s 80th birthday, Josh Hokit, a fighter, shouted into the microphone in front of Trump: “Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?”
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Why Should Delaware Care?
In Delaware, county governments are the source of development decisions, paramedic services and sewer system management, among other functions. The Kent and Sussex county budgets for the 2027 fiscal year have entered the final stages with balanced expenses and revenues, unlike the major deficit faced by New Castle County. Still, leaders in both counties say keeping up with balanced county finances as demand for services increases could become a challenge in future years.
With the start of the 2027 fiscal year rapidly approaching on July 1, Delaware’s central and southern counties are slated to pass annual budgets without property tax rate increases or departmental cuts.
This stands in stark contrast to New Castle County, which approved a 17% property tax hike last month to close a $42 million budget deficit.
Kent and Sussex county officials said they have been able to work through this budget season without any major hiccups – unlike other jurisdictions in the state – thanks to a longstanding culture of lean spending combined with a growing tax base from residents moving to the area.
“It’s definitely tough to keep up with your revenues when inflation just continues to increase, but we’re very conservative,” Sussex County Finance Director Gina Jennings told Spotlight Delaware. “We always look at ways to cut.”
Kent and Sussex counties also do not have a county-run police department, which is a major expense for their northernmost counterpart. Spending on public safety, though, such as the counties’ emergency medical services and new ambulances, was still one of their largest expenses, respectively.
Sussex County also does not have a Parks & Recreation department – a service that cost Kent County $5.2 million last year.
The Kent County Levy Court passed its $46 million operating budget on June 9. The budget for Delaware’s smallest county by population includes a property tax rate of 5.72 cents per $100 of assessed value, which is consistent with the previous two years.
But the Levy Court also approved a 11% sewer user rate increase, which will raise residents’ sewer bills by about $50 per year, County Finance Director Susan Durham said.
The Sussex County Council will soon vote on its $107 million operating budget, which includes a property tax rate of 2.14 cents per $100 of assessed value – unchanged in more than three decades. The county’s proposed budget also includes a sewer usage rate increase of $36 per household and a $90 water service charge increase.
The Sussex County Council will hold a public hearing and final vote on its proposed FY 2027 budget beginning at 10:15 a.m. Tuesday, June 16. The meeting will take place inside Sussex County Council Chambers, located at 2 The Circle Georgetown.
Despite the relatively smoother budget processes compared to New Castle County this fiscal year, Kent and Sussex leaders said they are concerned about long-term financial sustainability. As expenses and residents’ expectations of what services a county government should provide both rise, population growth – and therefore tax base – has the potential to plateau.
Durham, the Kent County finance director, said she anticipates more difficult choices between continuing to increase funding for public safety and moving ahead with capital projects – like road improvements – in future years.
Kent County’s $46 million operating budget, which grew by 6% from the past fiscal year, includes relatively standard increases to both revenue generated by taxes and departmental budgets.
County officials seemed to be in agreement about the county’s budget, except for the question of the sewer usage rate increase, which became a point of contention during the final budget discussions.
The Kent County Levy Court ultimately passed its budget unanimously.
The county will spend $19 million, or 41% of its total general fund expenditures, on public safety. That figure is up $2 million from last year, County Administrator Kevin Sipple said. The county is also allocating $1.5 million to its volunteer fire companies.
Because the county does not have its own police force, its public safety dollars are directed to a combination of the county Emergency Medical Services (EMS), 911 communications and the emergency management department, which deals with disasters. The county is also funding the renovation of an EMS station, Sipple said.
Kent County’s general fund revenues, which match projected expenditures at $46 million, will primarily come from a combination of county property taxes; its realty transfer tax – which is imposed at the same rate on property purchases across the three counties; and grants from the federal and state governments.
The property tax rate will remain stagnant this fiscal year, but Durham said property tax revenue is projected to increase from $14.6 million to $15 million because of new home construction. She described the county as having been in “a period of growth for over three years,” but not one that they can count on to help balance the budget in future years.
Kent County completed its property tax reassessment in 2023, a year before New Castle and Sussex, so re-assessed home values did not factor into the increased tax revenue this year.
Kent County also has library tax districts, which are generally consistent with school district boundaries within the county, to fund its five public libraries. Those tax rates all remained the same in this year’s budget.
While Levy Court Commissioners unanimously approved the FY27 budget, tensions arose over the county’s sewer usage rate. Some commissioners said the rate already has seen a number of large increases in recent years.
County staff recommended a 3% to 6% user rate increase this year, but elected officials pushed instead for an 11% increase – or $50 per year more on most residents’ bills.
They described the jump as an effort to get ahead of the curve on debt service payments and funding future sewer improvement projects.
The 11% increase ultimately was included in the approved budget, but Levy Court commissioners Terry Pepper and Jody Sweeney disputed the rate hike, saying it was an unnecessary burden on residents in already tight economic times.
Sweeney said he took issue with the argument made by another Levy Court commissioner that the higher sewer rate would only amount to one fast food dinner for a family.
“This is what politicians say to justify increases, but to the family of four working 2-3 jobs to make ends meet, that McDonald’s meal may have been all they had,” Sweeney said at the June 9 meeting,
The 11% user rate increase will generate about $460,000 more in revenue for the county’s sewer fund this year, Durham said.
The Sussex County budget includes new initiatives this year, such as a building permit surcharge to help fund public schools and additional programs directed toward public safety. Still, county officials said the government’s longtime ethos of low taxes and limited government largely remains intact.
The county’s $107 million general fund budget increased by 3.6% this year, which Jennings, the county finance director, attributed to standard inflation increases.
Despite Sussex County’s position among some of the fastest growing in the country, the revenue generated by property taxes is only projected to increase by $130,000 from last year to about $17.9 million.
This, Jennings told Spotlight Delaware, is because last June’s property tax reassessment substantially shifted the value away from growing parts of the county – like the Millsboro area – toward eastern beach communities, where less development is taking place.
In previous years, population growth had created around a $600,000 increase in property tax revenue annually.
As a result of reassessment, the county will need to rely on other funding sources, like the realty transfer tax – which provides money to both the county and the state when someone purchases a property – and other building permit fees to balance the budget and retain the county’s tradition of keeping property taxes “so low,” she said.
A major new revenue source this year is a proposed building permit fee for schools, which will charge a fee of $5 per $1,000 of construction value for a building permit for all new residential and commercial development.
The fee is projected to generate between $5 million and $7 million in revenue per year, to be given to public schools in the county for capital improvement projects like expanding classroom capacity, Jennings said. As the county’s population has expanded in recent years, a number of schools have struggled with overcrowding and a lack of funding for building expansion projects.
Get Involved
The Sussex County Council will hold a public hearing and final vote on its proposed FY27 budget beginning at 10:15 a.m. on Tuesday, June 16. The meeting will take place inside Sussex County Council Chambers, located at 2 The Circle Georgetown.
On the spending side, the county plans to direct $48.3 million, or 45% of its operating budget, to public safety.
County Council members and Jennings both described public safety, and in particular EMS services, as a focus of the FY27 budget.
“We are really ramping it up this year,” Jennings said.
This push includes purchasing a new ambulance for each of the county’s 21 EMS companies over the next seven years and a new billing service for all the companies. Together, these initiatives will cost the county about $2 million per year, Jennings said.
In recent years, independent libraries in Sussex County have struggled for funding while increasing the services they provide to meet community needs. This spring, the libraries undertook a campaign lobbying the county council to increase its library tax rate, which is their largest funding source.
The county’s FY27 budget does not include an increase in the library tax rate. However, Jennings said the shifting in property values from reassessment amounted to a 10% increase in county funding for libraries, compared to the typical 3% to 4% increase to match inflation.
The county is also directing $2.4 million from its operating budget to open space and farmland preservation programs.
It remains to be seen whether the county council will pass the budget in its current form, or make changes to county staff’s proposed budget.
However, elected officials and county staff alike said more people moving to Sussex County has brought a greater demand for services and expectation of their government, which will soon have to be reconciled with the county’s historical commitment to lean government spending.
“We have typically been a county of low taxes, low services,” County Councilman Steve McCarron told Spotlight Delaware. “Every ask comes with a price tag.”
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 Kent, Sussex budgets include no tax increase, public safety focus appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
Why Should Delaware Care?
Speed cameras have been proliferating in Delaware after the state legislature passed a bill allowing for their introduction statewide in 2023. Speed cameras recently installed in New Castle County have caught thousands of drivers.
During a two-month period this spring, traffic cameras deployed on two roads near Marshallton recorded more than 20,000 speeding cars.
New Castle County Police Sgt. Gregg Bruno reported the data during a meeting of the County Council last week. He said the county had mailed more than 14,000 written warnings to drivers during a grace period from April 15 to May 16 — the first month the cameras were deployed.
Since then, county officials have sent out more than 3,000 citations, and are processing another 3,515, Bruno said. Fines for the tickets start at $20, he said.
The new data appears to support past complaints from Marshallton residents who have said their roads had been besieged by speeders. But left unclear is whether the larger community would push back against the increasing existence of government-deployed cameras in public places.
Asked if the county might expand its speed camera program to new locations, New Castle County spokeswoman Natalie Criscenzo said officials are “focused on the existing locations and continuing to evaluate program performance and safety impacts before considering any potential expansion.”
The county’s current two speed cameras are located near Marshallton, along Milltown Road and along McKennans Church Road. They automatically issue citations or warnings to the owners of cars traveling 6 mph or more above the speed limit.
Last year, the New Castle County Council passed an ordinance approving the installation of ticket-issuing cameras on county roads. Weeks later, Delaware lawmakers gave their authorization for the cameras when passing the state’s capital budget. They also allocated $60,000 to the county for the Milltown Road project.
At the time, the state also authorized a speed camera program for Newark’s busy Main Street.
Unlike speed cameras in construction zones, these cameras are permanently fixed, making their impact long-lasting.
The approvals followed outcry from Marshallton residents. After a County Council meeting last year, resident Jill Orensky recounted to Spotlight Delaware how in early 2024 she watched a Subaru veer off of Milltown Road and crash into her home, destroying its gas meter.
“We need streets for people instead of roads for commuters,” Orensky said then.
During the county grace period this spring, the speed camera on 30-mph McKennans Church Road recorded a driver going 57 mph, Bruno said.
For Milltown Road, which has a speed limit of 35 mph, the highest speed was 66 mph.
“The average (speed) really has consistently stayed within 10 mph over the posted limit,” Bruno said in his testimony to the County Council.
A total of 345 drivers had received repeat citations, “which is a lot,” Bruno said.
Asked about county revenues from the citations, Bruno said he did not yet know the exact amount of money generated.
“We are not making millions of dollars,” he said.
The Delaware legislature first passed a bill to allow for speed cameras across the state in 2023.
A speed camera installed along Route 1 near Lewes this November issued nearly 25,000 tickets within a month, according to a report from the Cape Gazette.
The post New traffic cameras in New Castle County capture thousands of speeders appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
Why Should Delaware Care?
In recent years, the homeless community in Wilmington has grown in size. How to best serve that population while trying to connect them to services to improve their situations has proved to be a contentious debate in the city. A plan to sanction an encampment to coalesce the population was abandoned in just a few weeks.
As the sun set Monday, a tent encampment in Christina Park sat mostly empty, marking the end of a controversial chapter in Wilmington’s response to homelessness.
Government-issued tents lay collapsed on the ground, while a handful of private tents remained standing. Newly installed fencing circled the encampment, and a gaggle of police stood just inside its gates.
Throughout the day, the officers had allowed people who had called the park home for the past several months to leave the enclosure while carting away their meager possessions. For some it was another moment of turbulence in their difficult lives.
For Ron “Philly” Simmons, a park resident who had acted as a de-facto leader of the encampment, the city “should’ve left us alone.”
Most had another place to sleep that night after city officials and nonprofits had lined up immediate housing. But the question on the minds of many was what would happen after their housing benefits expired in the coming weeks or months. Wilmington officials had repeatedly emphasized that tent camping in public spaces in the city is illegal.
Mayor John Carney said last week that the city’s experiment in sanctioning the encampment had accomplished its goals of directing unhoused people to a designated area where various organizations could provide coordinated services.
But several homeless advocates have argued the closure shouldn’t have happened — or should have been delayed until permanent housing options became clearer.
Earlier this month, the Wilmington City Council even passed a resolution urging Carney to “immediately halt any forced removal plans at Christina Park.”
Still others expressed heartache with how the city ultimately carried out the evictions of the park’s residents.
While standing inside the park enclosure on Monday, City Council President Ernest “Trippi” Congo acknowledged that the optics of chain link fencing and police surrounding the encampment “doesn’t look good at all.”
Early Monday morning, work crews installed the fencing around the perimeter of the encampment.
Afterward, only city officials and certain service providers were allowed to enter and assist park residents moving out of their tents. Congo said he believed the Carney administration installed the fences to prevent demonstrators from physically blocking the closure of the encampment.
“At several [past] council meetings, there were a lot of advocates who came and said directly to the administration, you will not force anyone to move,” he said.
Throughout the day, city and state officials floated in and out of the park, including Daniel Walker, Carney’s deputy chief of staff, who had become the mayor’s chief spokesperson on the issue in recent weeks.
Also visiting the park were several politicians. In addition to Congo, there were city council members Coby Owens and Michelle Harlee, former-City Councilman Kevin Kelley, State Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton (D-Bear), and Curtis Linton, a union leader who is running a campaign for the New Castle County Council.
Officials from the Delaware Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health were also present.
Outside the gates of the enclosure, advocates from organizations that had opposed the closure gathered with food and snacks for residents.
In an interview with Spotlight Delaware, housing advocate Jacqueline Bryk said she and others were concerned that some residents could ultimately end up back on the streets — or even in jail — after their temporary housing terms ended. She then turned her concern to a critique of the Carney administration.
“At this point, I think the mayor is so convinced that there is a small group of people against him, and not that these citizens of Wilmington don’t want this,” she said.
Rachel Stucker, executive director of the Housing Alliance of Delaware, asserted that city officials, when running the encampment, had not done enough to plan for where residents would go once the encampment closed.
“I think there wasn’t enough of the ‘where are people going?’ How are we getting them there?’” she said.
During a press conference last week, Carney acknowledged a concern that some people may move to sleep in other public places in the city after Christina Park is closed. He noted then that the city may need assistance from state prosecutors.
“We do need support from the (Delaware) Attorney General in terms of if there’s a need for a prosecution. I don’t intend or want to have to prosecute folks for this, but if they’re violating the law, if they’re camping in a park after dark,” Carney said.
In an apparent response Monday, Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings said in a press release that her office would not assist the city in prosecuting people for simply sleeping in Christina Park. Instead, her team would only prosecute acts of violence, and trespassing or destruction of private property, she said.
“The City did not consult us in advance. After we learned about the evictions, we were clear with the Mayor’s office that, while our Community Engagement team would be available to assist with service referrals, we would not prosecute people for their nonviolent presence in a park,” the letter stated, saying such prosecutions would be a “moral failure.”
In an interview, Mat Marshall, spokesman for the Attorney General’s office, said prosecutions related to sleeping in other parks would be handled on a “case-by-case basis.”
While many present at the park’s closure on Monday were critical of Carney, a handful from outside his administration offered varying levels of support.
Kelley said the challenges of homelessness should be addressed by state officials, because “they’re the ones who have the resources.”
One Eastside neighbor who visited Christina Park Monday said he was happy about the closure. The resident, Edward Williams, called the encampment an “eyesore,” even while stating that it isn’t right for people to have to live outside in a park.
In contrast, Wilson-Anton, the Bear lawmaker, called Carney’s decision to close the encampment callous, saying she saw no reason for the city to evict people from Christina park.
“I’m just appalled,” she said.
For the park residents who were moving out of their tents, some noted they had been offered stays up to six months at the New Castle County Hope Center. Others, like Simmons, said they were only given two-week hotel stays.
Daniel Walker, Carney’s spokesman, said encampment residents had been offered an application to secure 90-day stays in temporary housing at locations, such as the YMCA and Sojourners’ Place.
Some refused initially, but as the encampment’s closure date approached, some began to reconsider, he said.
Walker said the city most recently offered two-week hotel stays as a temporary step before transitioning people into 90-day housing placements.
Still, two park residents told Spotlight Delaware on Monday evening that the city had not provided them with temporary housing following their departure from the park.
One was John “Jay” Simmons, a Wilmington resident, who said he had been staying at the encampment for two months. Simmons said he returned to the encampment on Monday afternoon after looking for work that day. He then asked city officials about being placed into a hotel.
Officials told him they would check whether his name was on a list, he said. But they left the park before giving him an answer, he said.
By Monday evening, as the city’s sanctioned encampment entered its final hours, Simmons said he still did not know where he would sleep that night.
“I don’t know,” Simmons said. “I’ll probably set up my tent somewhere else.”
The post Wilmington closes Christina Park homeless camp as questions linger about future appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
Running next generation AI workloads requires robust infrastructure capabilities. Organizations need extreme compute performance and flexibility to accommodate trillion-parameter AI models. These capabilities delivered in an open-standards architecture can boost cost-efficiency, enable seamless IT integration, and support vendor flexibility.
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AI rack-scale systems from HPE are optimized for large AI environments, AI factories, and converged HPC/AI workloads. HPE’s purpose-built portfolio of rack-scale solutions offers integrated hardware, software, and support services that are designed to streamline deployment and help users realize more value quickly. HPE offers a winning formula to help organizations succeed:
HPE is one of the first companies to offer a single turnkey rack capable of large-scale AI. The AMD Helios AI Rack design is a turnkey, open-standards platform for next-level training and inference performance. Featuring 72 AMD Instinct
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[i] MI350-047B: Based on engineering projections by AMD Performance Labs in September 2025, to estimate the peak theoretical precision performance of seventy-two (72) AMD InstinctMI455X GPUs “Helios” AI Rack using MXFP4 dense Matrix datatype vs. an 8xGPU AMD Instinct MI355X platform using the MXFP4 dense Matrix datatype. Results subject to change when products are released in market.
The post Unleash Rack-Scale Performance for Large-Scale AI appeared first on HPCwire.
Down from $149 to $73, this is the kind of deal your ears will appreciate.
An outspoken progressive running for Congress in the Tennessee district at the center of Republicans’ efforts to sabotage voting rights and maintain control of the House earned the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday.
Tennessee state Rep. Justin J. Pearson found himself the unexpected front-runner in the Democratic primary when two-decade incumbent Rep. Steve Cohen dropped out last month, after new gerrymandered maps throttled his chances of winning reelection. The redrawn 9th Congressional District and sudden shakeup mean that rather than running against the last Democrat representing Tennessee in the House, Pearson is facing a Republican machine bent on delivering an all-GOP delegation for President Donald Trump.
The new map hurts the chances for Pearson — or any Democrat — to win in November, but the candidate said he’s running on a platform focused on wealth, income inequality, and corporate overreach that aims to appeal across party lines. “You’ve got a number of disaffected Republican voters, you’ve got a number of distraught MAGA voters, and you’ve got fired-up Democrats, which is a perfect recipe for success for us,” Pearson told The Intercept. “Because our tent is big enough for everybody who is feeling that this status quo was rigged and broken against working-class folk, and want to see a future that is more just.”
It’s a message similar to the one that buoyed Sanders’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.
“As billionaires and Big Tech take more and more control over our lives and our government, we need leaders like Justin J. Pearson who have the experience and track record of standing up to the rich and power-hungry elites,” Sanders said in a statement.
Tennessee is one of several Republican-led states where officials rushed to protect Trump and the GOP’s chances of keeping power in what is expected to be a particularly difficult midterm cycle for Republicans mired in an unpopular war on Iran and an ever-increasing cost of living. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in April to gut a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, Trump said he spoke with Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who called the next day for a special session to redraw the maps.
Using a practice known as “cracking,” the new map breaks the majority-Black district concentrated in and around Memphis across three red districts, diluting the power of Black voters in the area. Pearson said he believed the antidemocratic move, while detrimental to his chances, was unpopular with voters.
“A lot of people were really upset about the gerrymandered maps,” Pearson said. “I had about half a dozen Republicans who said they’re going to be voting in our campaign and I’d be the first Democrat they’d be voting for in their lifetimes.”
Pearson, who launched his campaign against Cohen in October with the backing of the progressive outfit Justice Democrats, received Sanders’s endorsement the day after getting one from the Working Families Party, and four days after he returned from a listening tour in rural and Republican counties in the newly drawn district. His campaign said more than 750 people attended the gatherings.
Attendees expressed frustration with being unable to afford housing, healthcare, and the things they need to live their daily lives, Pearson said. He said voters couldn’t afford “more of the same” when running against Cohen, and has now directed that message at his likely Republican opponent, state Sen. Brent Taylor.
“Both of them were millionaires, both of them benefited from a status quo that’s broken,” Pearson told The Intercept. “Both of them don’t like me.”
Also running in the August 6 Democratic primary are state Sen. London Lamar, who launched her campaign with Cohen’s endorsement after he dropped out, and Jim Torino, a former executive at a healthcare company focusing on people with disabilities and founder of a social welfare nonprofit. Perennial candidate M. LaTroy Alexandria-Williams filed to run but has not filed any reports with the Federal Election Commission.
Pearson is the top fundraiser in the Democratic primary race so far, with just under $2 million, according to the campaign. Most of that has come from contributions under $200, according to the FEC data; the campaign said its average donation is $31. Torino has raised $117,000, and Lamar has not yet had to file any reports with the FEC.
In addition to Sanders, Justice Democrats, and the Working Families Party, Pearson has backing from groups including MoveOn; Sunrise Movement; Indivisible; IMEU Policy Project and its Peace, Accountability, and Leadership PAC; as well as Reps. Summer Lee, D-Pa.; Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.; Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; Delia Ramirez, D-Ill.; and Ro Khanna, D-Calif.
Pearson said he believes federal legislation is needed to force states to support working people and improve public safety.
“We need to put this ban on AI data centers, we need to increase the minimum wage nationally, because the states won’t do it,” Pearson said. “I’m in a state House, they refuse to do it. We need to have national gun safety laws passed, because states refuse to do it.”
In May, Pearson drew the ire of his Republican colleagues when he marched with protesters before the special session to redraw the state’s maps. Three years earlier, Republicans voted to expel him and another Black Democratic lawmaker after they and one other Democratic colleague led a protest against the legislature’s inaction on gun control after a deadly elementary school shooting in Nashville. Local officials reappointed Pearson and his colleague, state Rep. Justin Johnson, to the state House shortly after the vote.
Pearson, Cohen, two other Democratic congressional candidates, four registered voters, and the Tennessee Democratic Party filed a federal lawsuit challenging Tennessee’s maps last month, but they dropped it last week, citing a political environment hostile to their cause. Pearson said other cases before the federal courts had “a higher probability of success,” pointing to voting rights suits from the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Still, he expressed hope for his long-shot campaign in Tennessee. He pointed to a stop on his listening tour in the city where the Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1865, and where Pearson, who is Black, welcomed 150 people at a rally — his largest crowd throughout the tour.
There is a “renewed vigor and enthusiasm because of what the Republicans have done — to show up in spite of them, in spite of what they’ve tried to do,” Pearson said. “I think that’s not something they probably calculated for when they did this racist redistricting.”
The post Bernie Sanders Backs Justin J. Pearson, House Candidate at the Heart of Tennessee Voting Rights Fight appeared first on The Intercept.
The first big Prime Day deal is live a week early, unlocking early savings on the Ring Battery Doorbell before the rush starts.
Making the case for COP in a fractured geopolitical environment 22 June 2026 — 17:00 TO 18:00 BST Anonymous (not verified) Chatham House and Online
Leaders of the world’s foremost climate conference - COP - set out how environmental diplomacy can still deliver.
Leaders of the world’s foremost climate conference - COP - set out how environmental diplomacy can still deliver.The COP global climate talks have anchored international action for three decades, but geopolitical tensions are testing their effectiveness. These pressures raise questions about what COP can still deliver. This event looks at climate leadership, and the role of diplomacy in sustaining progress.
Key questions:
A BASE jumping accident in a Utah canyon killed two people including a daredevil athlete best known for performing onstage with Madonna at the 2012 Super Bowl, authorities said.
Across the US, thousands of people are injecting themselves with unregulated peptides in pursuit of weight loss, muscle growth and younger-looking skin. Despite being labelled 'not for human consumption', the substances are readily available online and have surged in popularity among people disillusioned by traditional healthcare. To find out why so many Americans are willing to risk unknown side-effects for the promise of a quick fix, Adam Gabbatt meets the users and influencers driving the peptide boom, and investigates what's really inside some of these so-called 'miracle' drugs
Continue reading...The NBA postseason remains a psychodrama of moments, memes and memories unlike anything in sport. We look back at the biggest takeaways
Sometimes it’s just your year. When infectiously optimistic young mayor Zohran Mamdani was elected this past fall, there was a palpable vibe shift in the city. That’s not to say that there’s a direct correlation between the New York Knicks being NBA champions and the era of buoyant positivity permeating the city, but it’s also not to say there’s not one. Other American cities will, inevitably, have their moment in the sun again soon. But 2026 is the year of New York (someone get that memo to the Mets).
Continue reading...The much-hyped deal, which is set to be formally signed on Friday in Geneva, doesn’t end the war. It’s essentially a 60-day extension of a ceasefire
When Donald Trump launched his war against Iran in late February, he had ambitious goals: to topple Iran’s theocratic regime, destroy its military capabilities and nuclear program, and instigate a popular uprising by Iranians. A week into the war, Trump said he would only accept Iran’s “unconditional surrender”. On Sunday, Trump settled for a deal that reopens the strait of Hormuz.
The US president celebrated having solved a problem he had created: reopening a vital waterway through which more than a fifth of the world’s oil supply passed each day – before Iran effectively closed it at the start of the war, increasing energy prices and disrupting the global economy. “Ships of the World, start your engines,” Trump wrote on social media in announcing the latest deal. “Let the oil flow!”
Mohamad Bazzi is a Guardian US columnist. He is also director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor, at New York University
Continue reading...The desecration of a ruler’s symbols is among the oldest forms of political revolt
There’s a reason the first two of the Ten Commandments prohibit worshiping false gods and making false idols. And a reason iconoclasm – the desecration of the monuments of a hated ruler or regime – is one of the oldest and most powerful symbolic forms of political revolt.
The revolutionary power of iconoclasm is also why Donald Trump – who understands the manipulation of imagery as well as anyone on earth – has had a huge blue and white tarp draped across the facade of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts while the letters of his name are pried off under court order.
Judith Levine is a Brooklyn-based journalist and frequent contributor to the Guardian. Her Substack is Today in Fascism
Continue reading...
It was before dawn on a Friday in January when a Gulfstream G600 with the burnt-orange Texas Longhorns logo on its tail landed at Dulles airport outside Washington, D.C. Its owner, a little-known oil billionaire named Jeffery Hildebrand, had been summoned to the White House.
By mid-afternoon he was in the East Room, just three seats from President Donald Trump, who had recently ordered the military raid that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. Now Trump wanted Hildebrand and two dozen other energy executives to commit to investing $100 billion in Venezuela’s decrepit oil industry.
Many couched their enthusiasm with caveats. ExxonMobil’s CEO called Venezuela “uninvestable” without changes to its legal system. The head of ConocoPhillips wanted U.S. government financing.
But Hildebrand, a major Trump donor whose wife had been named ambassador to Costa Rica, had already seen how loyalty could be rewarded. Even though he had no notable operations outside the U.S., he hunched toward a microphone and said in a halting voice, “Hilcorp is fully committed and ready to go to rebuilding the infrastructure in Venezuela.”
“That’s good,” Trump said. “You’ll be very happy.”
As the founder and owner of Hilcorp, a privately held company known for buying up old, low-producing “stripper wells,” Hildebrand needs Trump’s favor. Long one of the oil industry’s top polluters, Hilcorp releases unusually large quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas that can trap 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide.
Hildebrand had never been a leading political contributor. But in 2024, the Biden administration issued aggressive restrictions on methane pollution — rules that would impose steep costs on Hilcorp — and the once-obscure tycoon became one of Trump’s biggest oil industry supporters, giving millions to his campaign.
Trump has since named a former Hilcorp lobbyist to a top post at the Environmental Protection Agency, putting him in charge of an effort to unravel the methane rules with help from trade groups backed by Hildebrand, a ProPublica investigation has found. That will bring a sweeping reprieve for the nation’s 700,000 stripper wells, boosting Hildebrand’s profits while saddling society as a whole with the climate fallout.
We’re still reporting. If you know more about the Trump administration’s climate policies, please contact our reporting team.
Alex Cuadros
I welcome tips or documents about Trump administration climate policy or actions by private companies or institutions that may impact the climate.
Stripper wells collectively contribute just 6% of the nation’s oil and natural gas. But in recent studies, scientists have identified them as the source of roughly half the sector’s methane emissions — in part because they tend to be thinly monitored, run-down and thus prone to leaking. As a result, these barely productive wells play an outsize role in climate change, disproportionately amplifying heat waves, droughts and wildfires.
In a world where global warming fixes can seem impossibly daunting, stripper wells are the rare low-hanging fruit, said Andrew Logan of Ceres, a climate advocacy group.
“If you could lose 6% of production and cut emissions in half, who wouldn’t make that trade?” Logan said. “It’s a question of who benefits and who doesn’t, and who has the power.”
Kendra Pinto and Josh Eisenfeld drove a rented Dodge Ram to the site of a Hilcorp well in San Juan County, New Mexico, last August. As infrared camera operators with the nonprofit Earthworks, they were used to roaming through remote areas to investigate leaks at oil and gas wells. But the San Juan is especially lonely terrain, with bumpy dirt roads snaking between scattered scrub and rusting pump jacks, the nodding apparatuses that lift oil and gas from thousands of feet underground.
A sign marked the site as Hilcorp’s Huerfano Unit 119 well, one of the company’s 11,000 in the region. It was little more than a patch of gravel hosting two unmarked storage tanks and what oil workers call a Christmas tree: the cluster of valves that caps the well itself. Drilled in 1969, the well now produces a small but steady trickle of natural gas, enough to generate around $50 of revenue per day.
On paper, it runs remarkably cleanly. According to New Mexico’s oil regulator, Hilcorp has not reported any “venting” — releasing gas — from the well since May 2024. At the site itself, however, a wire fence surrounded some of the equipment, bearing a yellow caution sign that read, “Well vents randomly.”
Methane is invisible to the human eye. But on June 29 last year, a satellite detected a massive methane plume erupting from this very location. According to the nonprofit Carbon Mapper, a NASA partner that one oil executive defined as a “platform to disseminate the sins of our industry,” the methane was being discharged at a rate of 199 kilograms an hour. That’s equivalent to about 12 times the volume of natural gas the well typically produces over that time. The cause was unknown, but according to scientists who have studied the issue, such “super-emitter” events typically stem from some kind of neglect or malfunction — if not from an intentional release. Most last a couple of hours, but some can go on for weeks. Super-emitter plumes have also been identified at other Hilcorp wells.
Pinto and Eisenfeld observed smaller, more persistent leaks as well. When they trained their infrared camera on one of the storage tanks, wispy clouds of pollution could be seen streaming from a pressure-release valve.
“That shouldn’t just be constantly …” Eisenfeld said, trailing off. The finding was far from abnormal, though. Of the eight Hilcorp wells he and Pinto visited that day, seven were seen to be leaking.
In response to a detailed list of questions from ProPublica, Hilcorp spokesperson Nick Piatek said in an email that the Huerfano Unit 119 well “is fully compliant with state and federal regulations” and that the company inspects the site monthly. He also suggested that the company’s approach caused less environmental harm than drilling new wells: “By extending and optimizing the life of existing assets with pre-built infrastructure, our model limits the need for new development elsewhere.” The company is “proud,” he added, of recent efforts to reduce its emissions.
Hilcorp is hardly an outlier in its approach to methane releases. America’s oil and gas system is vast, aging, and in many places largely left to police itself. Of the country’s roughly 1 million active wells, more than two-thirds are stripper wells, each producing the equivalent of up to 15 barrels a day. Many produce less than a single barrel a day. (Newer wells, by contrast, can pump 1,000 a day or more.) Each well site, in turn, is equipped with numerous valves, flanges and other fittings that can leak unless inspected regularly. Some components were explicitly designed to vent small amounts of gas — a legacy of an era when methane’s role in global warming wasn’t widely understood.
Methane, the main component of natural gas, turns into carbon dioxide when burned to heat a home or generate electricity. But when the gas enters the atmosphere directly, it becomes a much more powerful climate pollutant — one that is responsible for one-third of the rise in global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution.
Methane exists underground alongside other fossil fuels and is brought to the surface whether oil or natural gas is being pumped. While it’s a valuable product in itself, capturing it is not always cost-effective. So companies often burn it off, or just vent it, sending it straight into the atmosphere. Apart from the climate impact, this is all sheer waste, as none of the methane’s energy is being harnessed for a human need. Yet with few exceptions, federal rules have allowed these practices at wells drilled before 2012 — which include the overwhelming majority of stripper wells.
Methane leakage is such a routine part of oil and gas production that the EPA often assumes it is happening when asking the industry to calculate its emissions. Even so, those numbers drastically understate the actual emissions observed by plane and satellite. A study led by Evan Sherwin of Stanford, published in the journal Nature in 2024, took close to a million measurements to find that the true figures were, on average, nearly three times higher. Partly that is because companies have never had to report super-emitter events to the EPA. In one region, nearly 10% of all the natural gas produced was being lost to the atmosphere, the study found.
But limiting methane pollution presents a rare opportunity. While carbon dioxide can persist in the atmosphere for centuries, methane breaks down relatively fast, in about a dozen years. Halting these releases, then, would bring a swift payoff.
“Methane is the best lever we have to slow the march of climate change in our lifetime,” said Stanford researcher Rob Jackson. That is especially important, he added, as the planet approaches tipping points — temperature thresholds beyond which forests, coral reefs and ice sheets start to collapse irreversibly.
Unlike with other major methane sources, such as belching cattle or melting permafrost, the technology to curb emissions from oil and gas operations is already viable, and fairly cheap. In the fight against global warming, Jackson said, “It’s the best bang for our buck.”
To build a fortune on the discarded scraps of the oil and gas industry takes a rare instinct for hidden value, an appetite for risk and an obsession with keeping costs down.
Among the nation’s stripper well owners, Hildebrand has done it best, amassing a fortune estimated by Bloomberg at $15 billion. Yet at a time when many billionaires are embracing celebrity, he has maintained an unusually low profile. At 67, he’s almost completely avoided speaking to reporters, and he didn’t respond to multiple interview requests from ProPublica. Even Trump, despite having invited him to the White House, seemed hazy on Hildebrand’s role in the oil industry. “I hear he does a good job,” the president said when reached by ProPublica on his cellphone.
While he avoids the public eye, Hildebrand circulates openly in the overlapping worlds of wealthy businesspeople, private clubs and Republican power brokers. He has been known to hold exclusive parties at his 1,200-acre ranch in Aspen, Colorado — which used to belong, in part, to the musician (and environmentalist) John Denver. He also owns a polo team called Tonkawa, a fixture of the winter season in the sport’s unofficial capital of Wellington, Florida, a short drive from Mar-a-Lago. A video of a 2021 match shows him in a white helmet and forest-green jersey, riding a bay pony as he swings his mallet, trying and failing to keep the ball from the opposing side’s patron, a Russian banker named Andrey Borodin.
There’s a striking tension between Hildebrand’s status as one of the country’s most prolific polluters and his otherwise conventional life as a God-fearing, upstanding Texas businessman. He is less a rogue actor than the product of a deeply American system that rewards production at all costs.
A devout Catholic and philanthropist, he is especially passionate about wildlife conservation, according to Stuart Stedman and Karen Starr Hunke, fellow board members at Texas A&M’s Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute. Yet they and others who know him through the institute said they’d never once heard him mention climate change — an omission that points to a far narrower view of environmental stewardship.
The closest Hildebrand has come to addressing the issue publicly is in a rare speech he gave in 2022, accepting an award as a distinguished alumnus at UT Austin. A husky, square-jawed man, he wore a burnt-orange suit jacket and a burnt-orange tie. He cited an old quote he interpreted as a celebration of the oil industry: “Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth.” Then he quipped that “in this Green New Deal era we live in” — a reference to the Democrats’ climate agenda — such sentiments might no longer be welcome.
Born in 1959 in Houston, America’s energy capital, Hildebrand graduated from high school at a time when oil prices were soaring. Determined to start his own oil business, he studied geology and petroleum engineering at UT Austin, where he was in the Kappa Alpha fraternity. He worked briefly for Exxon and a few other companies, including that of a prominent Houston investor named Jack Trotter, before starting Hilcorp in ’89 with Trotter’s backing.
The oil business is filled with stories of crazy risks, near-bankruptcies and improbable rebounds. Hildebrand likes to recount that he used his wife’s car as collateral for a loan to drill some early wells. In a speech for his induction into the Texas Business Hall of Fame, he said they turned out to be “dry holes” — failures — but the return on Melinda’s investment would prove “infinite” (only a slight exaggeration).
He started buying stripper wells from larger companies, a niche that is relatively cheap to break into. As a well ages and the underlying reservoir is depleted, pressure in the well drops, and production along with it. The price for a package of these wells tends to be low — one friend recalled “when a big deal for Jeff was $5 million” — but to turn a profit, the new owners have to cut costs. Typically they do this by playing fast and loose with environmental rules, according to Clark Williams-Derry of the nonprofit Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, who calls this the “dung beetle model.”
As Hildebrand expanded into other states, loading up on debt to make ever larger acquisitions, there’s evidence he followed this model. According to records obtained by ProPublica from state and federal environmental regulators, his company has racked up dozens of violations over the past decade. To cite one notable example, after a Hilcorp natural gas pipeline ruptured in Alaska’s Cook Inlet in December 2016, it spewed methane for nearly four months until it was finally repaired. Activists across the country call the company “Spillcorp.”
The penalties, though, have largely amounted to a slap on the wrist, rarely exceeding $500,000 — and often coming in far lower. “I would frankly put that in the category of just operating costs,” said Matt Bernstein, an analyst at the research firm Rystad Energy.
What set Hildebrand apart from other “dung beetles” was that he also found ways to squeeze out more oil and gas from aging wells, not only cutting costs but increasing revenue. His secret was what he has called a “pretty simple” formula: attract top geologists and engineers by offering Wall Street-style incentives, allowing them to effectively take partnership stakes in projects. According to a person involved in an early deal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Hildebrand would offer 1.1 times what Hilcorp’s own analysis said an acquisition was worth, betting on the “magic” of his team.
The 2010s saw the landmark Paris Agreement on global warming, the rise of teen activist Greta Thunberg and the first pledge by a major oil company to effectively zero its emissions. None of that dissuaded Hildebrand from doubling down on aging wells. In 2017, he spent $3 billion to mount his largest acquisition yet: ConocoPhillips’ operation in the San Juan Basin, where Pinto and Eisenfeld would later identify so many leaks. Once among the country’s top sources of natural gas, the region had since fallen into decline — and it was already notorious for its methane pollution.
Soon after, according to a Clean Air Task Force analysis of data companies report to the EPA, Hilcorp became the No. 1 emitter of methane in the entire U.S. oil and gas industry.
President Joe Biden presented the first serious threat to Hildebrand’s business. As part of his ambitious climate agenda, the EPA issued rules aimed at cutting methane pollution from oil and gas operations by a whopping 80% — and they took direct aim at stripper wells.
For the first time, outside a patchwork of state rules, older wells would face requirements for regular leak inspections and limits on venting and flaring. Companies would be forced to respond to satellite reports of super-emitters, making repairs if necessary. A fee would also be imposed on excess methane emissions, costing the oil and gas industry an estimated $500 million a year.
Even the Department of Justice got involved, filing suits to crack down on improper methane releases. One found that Hilcorp had failed to capture the emissions when it redrilled 145 wells in the San Juan — discharges large enough that Don Schreiber, a rancher who documented some of the events, described hearing a “jet engine” sound as the gas rushed into the air. This time, the penalties were more than a slap on the wrist; although Hilcorp did not admit to wrongdoing, it settled the allegations for $9.4 million.
With the new rules gradually being phased in, Hildebrand effectively made parallel bets. Getting a jump on compliance, Hilcorp started upgrading much of its aging equipment — and its methane numbers declined.
“That’s a win,” said Lesley Feldman of the Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit that advocates for cutting emissions. “That means the policy is working. And we’ve seen evidence of other companies doing this too.”
Yet while Feldman celebrated the reductions, she did question their magnitude. Hilcorp spokesperson Piatek said the company’s methane numbers had fallen by “nearly 80% in recent years.” But, Feldman said after examining Hilcorp’s most recent data, that decline is artificially inflated by recent changes to the reporting rules, which make comparisons to previous years misleading. The data itself may be suspect, she added, because the EPA has yet to publicly verify it — and Hilcorp has previously made huge upward revisions to its reported emissions. (Piatek didn’t respond when ProPublica pointed out the artificially inflated reduction.)
Even taking the numbers at face value, Hilcorp remains one of the oil industry’s top methane emitters, according to a ProPublica analysis of EPA data.
Since he was still looking at substantial compliance costs, Hildebrand’s other bet was to step up his political contributions. Since 2020, he and his wife have given more than $15 million to Trump and other Republicans in federal races, placing them among the top donors in an industry that overwhelmingly supports the president and his party. (That compares to just over $3 million in the entire two decades prior.) The recipients have included Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. August Pfluger, both of Texas — two of the most vocal opponents to the methane fee, which they call the “natural gas tax.”
During the 2024 campaign, Hildebrand also co-hosted at least three high-dollar fundraisers for Trump, who promised to “unleash American energy” by dismantling climate regulations. One was a lavish dinner held a short drive from Hildebrand’s Aspen ranch, at a home sprinkled with art by Andy Warhol (a tiny self-portrait), Damien Hirst (a mirrored pill cabinet) and Jack Pierson (mismatched lettering that spelled out the word “badass”). The home belonged to another donor later graced with an appointment: the investor John Phelan, who would briefly serve as Trump’s Navy secretary.
Hildebrand co-hosted two of the fundraisers in Houston. One was reportedly scheduled to take place at his own home, but, due to security concerns, it was moved to a hotel owned by the sports and entertainment magnate Tilman Fertitta, who would be named ambassador to Italy. The other was followed by a private roundtable where, according to Teofilo Lingi, an investor who was present, oil executives discussed the methane rules with Trump himself.
At a previous event with Trump, Hildebrand said, “I’m really here today to represent the independent energy companies, the family-owned businesses that are in this industry.”
This mom-and-pop image clashes with the reality that the independents, as they are known, are highly organized into an alphabet soup of newly influential lobbying groups — with Hildebrand a member of several. Hilcorp CEO Greg Lalicker sits on the board of the American Exploration and Production Council (AXPC), which also represents Diversified, the country’s single largest owner of stripper wells. At least until recently, another Hilcorp executive was a director at the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), which represents smaller producers, including many stripper well owners.
In an industry long hostile to regulation, the independents have often displayed a more open contempt toward climate policy than the global oil giants. And they have historically had little say in emissions rules. “They didn’t want to be regulated, but they kind of knew that was a losing argument,” said Joseph Goffman, who held top EPA roles under both President Barack Obama and Biden.
Hildebrand received an early sign that was going to change when, less than three weeks after the 2025 inauguration, Trump tapped his wife to be ambassador to Costa Rica — even though she was primarily known for charity work and for opening a doughnut shop in their wealthy Houston neighborhood of River Oaks. Melinda Hildebrand didn’t respond to requests for comment, but when ProPublica asked Trump why he appointed her, he said, “I don’t know, because you know, I get recommendations. … I see the list of people, but we only name good people, and I’m sure she’s very good.”
Later that month, the Republican-controlled Congress effectively killed the methane fee, and Trump nominated a former Hilcorp lobbyist named Aaron Szabo to oversee the EPA’s climate regulations.
Szabo, an otherwise inconspicuous former bureaucrat, helped to unite two distinct networks with overlapping ambitions. As a lobbyist for Hilcorp and other oil and gas companies, he had already helped to draft a letter from the AXPC opposing the new methane rules. He then became a fellow at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute and gave advice on climate regulations for the EPA chapter of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, the deregulatory blueprint for the second Trump administration. The chapter specifically recommended dismantling the program to address super-emitters.
Now tasked with rewriting the methane rules, Szabo has been seeking input from oil industry groups including the AXPC, the IPAA and the National Stripper Well Association (NSWA), according to interviews with industry representatives and current and former EPA officials, records of closed-door conversations, and agency emails and calendar entries obtained through public records requests by the watchdog group Fieldnotes and shared with ProPublica.
“It’s the first time in 20 years of my business that they’ll even answer the phone,” NSWA Chair Patrick Montalban told ProPublica, referring to top regulators. He described an informal atmosphere where independent oil executives called on old personal connections to open the doors. He himself had met not just with Szabo but with EPA chief Lee Zeldin, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright. He and Wright, he noted, have both served on the board of yet another oil industry group. (Press offices for the departments of Interior and Energy didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.)
The IPAA’s Lee Fuller, on a private conference call with industry representatives, also spoke glowingly about a meeting with Szabo’s office last year. Previously, he said, the EPA had never even considered the group’s requests to create separate methane rules for stripper wells. This time, though, agency staff brought it up unprompted — which suggests that it was already on Szabo’s agenda. Presented with this opening, the IPAA later asked for stripper wells to be exempted from the methane rules entirely.
Hilcorp spokesperson Piatek declined to answer questions from ProPublica about the influence campaign. The IPAA also declined to comment but sent an email linking to a recent statement of support for deregulating stripper wells that nonetheless nodded toward “our shared environmental goals.”
The heart of the stripper-well owners’ argument is that they simply cannot afford to be regulated. “Venting and flaring are essential for the survivability of low production wells,” an IPAA lawyer named James D. Elliott wrote in an email to EPA officials last year. He cited estimates that the methane rules would force 300,000 of the lowest-producing wells to shut down. Framing this as a blow to small-business owners, he didn’t acknowledge that it would have almost no impact on the U.S. energy supply.
The AXPC declined to answer ProPublica’s questions about the group’s interactions with Szabo’s staff but sent a statement from CEO Anne Bradbury saying its members were “committed to building on a legacy of world-leading methane emission reductions.” In a “policy roadmap” published on its website in March, however, it asked the EPA to “incorporate greater flexibility for low-producing and mature assets.”
Some members of the coalition have argued, inaccurately, that stripper wells are not significant sources of methane pollution. In a Zoom interview with ProPublica, NSWA board member Sam Bradley played a slideshow that he said he’d shared with Szabo’s staff. One slide purported to show the emissions from various sources. Stripper wells ranked lower than both the collective exhalations of the U.S. populace and what Bradley called “smoke and brisket” — barbecues. (In reality, these are negligible sources of emissions.)
Hildebrand and his fellow stripper-well owners appear likely to win exemptions. Speaking with industry representatives last month, the AXPC’s Wendy Kirchoff shared early details of Szabo’s plan to weaken the methane rules, confirming it will cover stripper wells, according to a recording reviewed by ProPublica.
Szabo himself didn’t respond to questions sent by ProPublica, and the EPA’s press office declined to comment on the details. But the agency confirmed it is working on a proposal to “provide relief” to the oil industry, saying in a statement, “We heard consistently from American oil and natural gas producers (shocker that we meet with stakeholders) that the Biden-Harris Administration’s oil and gas methane regulations were unworkable and unnecessarily restricted American energy dominance.”
To protect carve-outs from rollback by a future Democratic administration, Pfluger, the representative from Texas, and Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., have proposed a bill to simply exempt stripper wells from EPA emissions rules — allowing them to pollute the atmosphere at will, with scant economic benefit. The NSWA and the IPAA both helped to craft the legislation, according to an internal newsletter from a state trade group that represents many stripper-well owners.
In effect, the Trump administration and its allies in Congress are weighing whether to preserve the business model that made Hildebrand rich, no matter the cost to the global climate. As energy assets, his wells may be marginal. But as political currency, they have become more valuable than ever before.
The post Trump Plans to Protect Methane-Leaking Stripper Wells. This Billionaire Donor Will Benefit. appeared first on ProPublica.
The world’s most successful gamer content creators, many of whom have spent their entire adult life on the platform, have met up at TwitchCon in Rotterdam
Aimee Davies, better known as Aimsey to their fans, is 24 but looks much younger. Sitting in a bland meeting room above the annual TwitchCon event in Rotterdam, they’re a barely contained whirl of energy in a beanie hat and T-shirt, all smiles and lightning-fast chatter. Aimsey (who uses they/them pronouns) is also a Twitch veteran, having started streaming eight years ago at the tender age of 16. A million subscribers tune in every week to see them chaotically play Minecraft and share snippets of their life. They have grown up, from teen to young adult, carrying a vast audience with them into maturity. What is it like to experience that?
“When you’re 16 you want to tell everyone everything about you,” they say as music blares from the event below. “When I came out as a lesbian, I told the world. Every part of my identity, my mental health struggles … I thought if I could help one person feel like they weren’t alone, I wanted to do that.”
Continue reading...No 10 is worried about retaliation from White House over restrictions on under-16s’ internet use
Ministers have embarked on a concerted lobbying operation to prevent a backlash from the Trump administration to the under-16s social media ban announced by Keir Starmer.
Officials said they had spent weeks trying to reassure senior Trump officials and the US president himself that the restrictions were not specifically aimed at US technology companies.
Continue reading...Few analysts believe final settlement can be reached in 60 days – and even if it is, war and instability could soon return
In much of the Middle East, news that the US and Iran had come to a fragile agreement was greeted with relief tempered with doubt that any deal would resolve the turbulent region’s deep problems or even prevent a future return to war.
In Kuwait, a frequent target of Iranian drone strikes during the 15-week conflict, Iyad Joumma, a 37-year-old Jordanian engineer, spoke for many.
Continue reading...If you open up your battery box you’ll see the BMS has 4 different cables going into it. The smallest one that sticks out perpendicular to the PCB is what lets your BMS tell your ESC that your board is charging. If you unplug it, it has no way of knowing so you can charge your board as you ride if you get a backpack setup
This might break FM firmware as well, I can’t be completely sure.
Personally, I recommend the PintV Kit. That opens your door far beyond FM support and restriction, so the skies (or rather your wallet) the limit for battery possibility. Easy as to install
If you’ve got more dough to throw around just buy an atom. Its the combine price of a stock Pint and the PintV kit, and that really opens your door to far better Hill Climb Performance, NOOB VESC and more range.
Either way when it comes to VESC, your range is quite dependent on your Motor and Battery Current Limit, which is an inverse relation to Torque (hill climb performance).
Its possible that you would get marginally better range from a Pint S-Series motor (straight from FM) but no guarentees.
Thinktank says decoupling electricity from gas prices has also helped shield Spain from hikes caused by Iran war
Spanish households save €10 a month on electricity bills because of wind turbines and solar panels installed in the last five years, a report has found.
Typical energy bills would be 19% more expensive if electricity costs were still as tightly coupled to gas prices as in 2021, according to Ember, a climate thinktank. It found Spain’s “strategic” expansion of renewables since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 has shielded Spanish households from the latest rises in fossil fuel prices caused by the Iran war.
Continue reading...A Chinese Zhuque-2E rocket's upper stage broke apart shortly after last week's June 9 launch, likely creating 100 to 150 pieces of debris in a busy region of low-Earth orbit crossed by the ISS and lower-altitude Starlink satellites. Most fragments should reenter within months because of atmospheric drag, but experts say the incident adds to a worsening trend as China leaves more large rocket bodies in orbit while expanding its launch rate. Ars Technica reports: The US Space Force confirmed the breakup event in a post on space-track.org, a website used by the military to distribute orbit data to the public. "The tracked pieces are being incorporated into routine conjunction assessment to support spaceflight safety," the Space Force wrote in an advisory. "There are currently no threats to human spaceflight. Analysis is ongoing." So far, the Space Force has not added any of the debris fragments to the official catalog of human-made space objects. [...] The bad news is that the Zhuque-2E's breakup is the latest chapter in China's growing contribution to the space junk problem. After decades of leaving spent rocket bodies in orbit, launch operators in most countries now reserve enough fuel to steer their upper stages back to Earth for controlled reentries. Rocket bodies attributed to Russia and the former Soviet Union account for the bulk of the launch-related debris in long-lived orbits, followed by China and the United States. But the Russian and American numbers are declining or holding steady, while the mass of Chinese rocket bodies in these long-lived orbits has grown by more than 150 percent in the past five years, according to a new analysis by Space Domain Awareness expert Jim Shell. The increase comes as China ramps up launches of its own megaconstellations designed to compete with SpaceX's Starlink. Rocket bodies are the most concerning sources of space debris because they are typically fairly large in size and mass, often with residual propellant and high-pressure gases that can trigger an explosion. There is no way to maneuver or dispose of them if left abandoned in orbit after releasing their payloads. McKnight characterized the recent breakup of the Zhuque-2E rocket as a "slight space safety issue," but the trend is not good. China's Long March 6A rocket has an especially bad track record, including two explosions that littered a higher-altitude low-Earth orbit with more than 1,000 debris fragments, where they will remain for decades or centuries. "Three of the top four breakup events in LEO are of Chinese origin, with two of these events being from Chinese (rocket body) explosions in the last four years," McKnight said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
I’ve notice recently (after some general maintenance) that my board has this sort of ‘shudder’
Its super mild when I switch between directions, but its definitely noticeable when I jump dismount
It seems the motor is rapidly firing to try and keep itself upright for the 400ms of fault delay, holding its previous speed before I dismounted, but its indecisive of which direction it should be going.
Higher full switch fault delay does yield longer shudders.
Jumping off at a higher speed (like body varials) still works fine, as the board keeps its speed. Quickstops and Half-Sensor fault stops don’t yield this behavior either.
Another way to describe it is that the board doesn’t have enough of a middleground voltage to play with, like its snapping from maybe -5V to 5V (I have no earthly idea how much voltage) when it needs to instead have like 1.5V, so it rapidly switches between the 2.
Or rather, because everything is pulses (PWM not analog), the mosphets don’t have enough Hz to create a smooth, low speed. My understanding of these things is comically limited.
Its a Pint X-V, with the white PCB version of controller. I believe this is identical to the floatwheel adv1 controller.
General Maintenance included:
Update VESC firmware to v6.06, not sure what I was on previously
Update Refloat Package to 1.2 (also not sure what I was on before but Data tab didn’t have that graph and there was no Haptic Feedback or BMS tab in RefloatCfg)
Attempted IMU recalibration (got some extremely weird RTData so Reset to Default Settings)
Full board disassembly for cleaning, and replaced bumpers
I’ve had my board for about 3 months now, I’m quite familiar with navigating VESCTool and what normal ride feel is like. Its not a complete problem, like my board is still rideable, but I’m a little concerned for hardware wear and tear.
Appreciate any advice
Tech is helping to identify and save new specimens and could open ‘genomic goldmine’ of fungi data
The rise of AI and digitisation could be a turning point in the “race against extinction” faced by botanists trying to identify and save vital plants before they vanish, according to a major report from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
New technology is enabling scientists to track how flowering times have shifted by weeks around the world, rapidly identify new specimens and even get crucial genetic data from 180-year-old fungus specimens, potentially opening a “genomic goldmine”. Digitisation and online access to millions of specimens that were until now only accessible in archives is also producing new insights, especially in the global south.
Continue reading...Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for June 16.
Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for June 16, No. 631.
Almost every child, including those from high-income countries, is now exposed to at least one hazard
Half of the world’s children are exposed to at least three overlapping climate hazards threatening their health, education and survival, according to a Unicef report.
Globally, children face increasing threats from heatwaves, storms, floods and droughts as the climate crisis worsens, with more than one billion facing at least three of these at once.
Continue reading...Brian Gu says he sees Chinese car firms competing on quality rather than launching price war as at home
Motorists in the UK and EU should not expect a sharp drop in the cost of electric vehicles despite increased competition among Chinese manufacturers, one of the country’s biggest electric carmakers has said.
Brian Gu, the vice-chair of the manufacturer Xpeng, said that Chinese carmakers could compete on quality to win customers in the EU and UK, rather than unleashing a brutal price war as they have in China.
Continue reading...Senate Republicans say there are many unanswered questions about the deal and question inclusion of funds for Iran
The US vice-president, JD Vance, has said a number of issues still need to be figured out with Iran, as many Republicans expressed scepticism of the agreement reached this week by Donald Trump, and pressed the White House to release more information about it.
The memorandum of understanding (MOU) announced Sunday to end the war in Iran, set for a ceremonial signing on Friday in Geneva, is centred around reopening the strait of Hormuz and lifting the United States’ naval blockade in the region, along with financial incentives for Iran if it meets certain benchmarks.
Continue reading...So-called ‘good behaviour’ legislation fiercely criticised by opposition politicians and rights groups
Sweden’s parliament has voted to escalate the country’s crackdown on immigrant rights, backing laws that allow authorities to revoke residency permits based on a vague criteria of bad behaviour and obliging most public sector workers to report anyone suspected of being undocumented.
The new legislation comes ahead of parliamentary elections in September, pitting the centre-right government, which currently depends on the support of the far-right Sweden Democrats to govern, against a far right that has said its intent is to create one of Europe’s most hostile environments for non-Europeans.
Continue reading...How the Iran war will transform America’s military role.
The alliance has survived 80 years of disagreement—and it will survive again.
This blog is now closed – see our full report on the US-Iran agreement and an analysis of what it means
The agreement between the United States and Iran should allow for the “immediate reopening” of the Strait of Hormuz, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday.
“The priority now is its swift and full implementation by all parties,” von der Leyen said about the announced deal.
Continue reading...An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A group made up of dozens of cybersecurity experts, including several well-known veterans of the industry, published an open letter to the U.S. government asking it to lift the export control order on Anthropic's Fable and Mythos models. According to the open letter, "this action has taken the best models away from [cybersecurity] defenders" who now can't use the models to find vulnerabilities and make their software and products more secure. "To pull the best capabilities away from defenders without a good reason when our adversaries are rapidly advancing is dangerous," read the letter. On Friday, the U.S. government ordered Anthropic to limit the export of Fable and Mythos, citing national security concerns, without explaining the specific reasons behind the order, according to Anthropic. In response, the company suspended access to the models to all users worldwide. As of this writing, the letter is signed by 76 cybersecurity experts, including Alex Stamos, former Facebook chief of security; Casey Ellis, the founder bug bounty platform Bugcrowd; Jon Callas, famed cryptographer and former Apple security design and architecture manager; Paul Vixie, computer scientist ; Dino Dai Zovi, the former head of applied security engineering at Block; Katie Moussouris, the founder of Luta Security; and Rachel Tobac, the CEO of the security awareness training firm SocialProof Security. [...] Anthropic said that the White House export control order may have been based on a report that there was a method to bypass -- or jailbreak -- Fable to unlock its powerful Mythos-level capabilities. According to Katie Moussouris, one of the signatories of the open letter, the method was demonstrated by Amazon researchers in a paper that is not public but that she has reviewed. But Moussouris said in a blog post that the paper did not actually demonstrate a real jailbreak. Instead, she wrote, the researchers simply asked Fable to fix open source code with public and known vulnerabilities along with "deliberately planted vulnerabilities," after the model initially refused to "review the code for security issues." "The behavior described in the paper cannot meaningfully be fixed, and any attempt would only weaken the model for defense," Moussouris wrote. "Defenders need to be able to ask AI to fix the bugs in a file, explain why the fix matters, and write tests that confirm the patch works. That is not a guardrail bypass. It is the most valuable thing an AI model can do for defensive security: executing the find, fix, and test loop defenders run every day." Moussouris' critique was echoed in the open letter, which also said that the group of experts believe the model capabilities in the Amazon paper "can be replicated" on OpenAI's GPT-5.5, on Anthropic's own publicly available Claude Opus 4.8 and Sonnet, "and even Chinese models like Kimi 2.7." Moussouris told TechCrunch that "the bugs used to demonstrate the techniques in the paper can be found using the other models. The method in the paper is a guardrail bypass technique. Other models that lack the Fable guardrails often won't refuse the straightforward request to look for security bugs, so they don't need a bypass." The letter also asked for transparently and fairly enforced regulations created by "a democratic rule-making process" that are based on scientific research done by industry and academic experts, and "used only to the minimal extent necessary to ensure the safety of the American public."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The closures, so employees can watch a recorded lecture, will cost the company an estimated 2.1bn won ($1.4m) in sales
Starbucks Korea will simultaneously close all its stores for a mandatory history lesson, after a disastrous promotion that evoked memories of a pro-democracy massacre sparked public and political backlash.
More than 2,000 stores will temporarily close at 3pm on 22 June, the company said, so staff can watch recorded lectures on modern Korean history and engage in “social sensitivity” training. The half-day closures will cost Starbucks an estimated 2.1bn won ($1.4m) in lost sales, according to data firm IGAWorks.
Continue reading...Bluetti's new FridgePower helps protect refrigerated food and perishables when your home loses power.
Dr. Peter Stafford, his wife, Rebekah Stafford, and their four children all arrived safely on Monday, according to Serge, a Pennsylvania-based Christian missions organization.
Experts say criminal networks favour Sri Lanka due to ease of getting tourist visas and limited regulation on sim cards and internet connections
Experts have warned that Sri Lanka is emerging as a hub for transnational cybercrime, after a crackdown in south-east Asia pushed Chinese-run criminal networks to relocate their vast scam operations.
Sri Lankan police spokesperson Fredrick Wootler said the country was witnessing an “alarming increase of cybercrimes” perpetrated by people entering the country as tourists, and then illegally setting up scam operations targeting people across the world.
Continue reading...The teen was initially released pending trial after being charged as a juvenile, but after he was charged as an adult, a judge ruled he was no longer subject to rules regarding juvenile detention.
Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for June 16, No. 1,823.
Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for June 16, No. 1,101.
Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for June 16 No. 835.
The all-out splurge, the killer deal, or the Goldilocks middle ground. We've tested every Apple Watch to help you land you perfect match.
The Federal Aviation Administration said British Airways Flight 271 landed safely at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas after the crew reported a cellphone fire on board.
⚽️ World Cup kick-off: 6pm EDT/11pm BST/8am AEST
⚽️ Spain 0-0 Cape Verde | Player guide | Bracketology
2 min The Saudi Arabia attack is led by Salem al-Dawsari, who scored the winner in their astounding win over Argentina four years ago.
1 min Saudi Arabia kick off from left to right as we watch. The match is only four minutes behind schedule, so you can all go chill, relax.
Continue reading...⚽️ Kick-off time: 6pm local/11am AEST/2am BST/9pm EDT
⚽️ Player guide | Bracketology | Wallchart | Mail Martin
By Maree Mahony
New Zealand, known as the All Whites, are back at the World Cup for just the third time, thanks to winning the Oceania region’s sole qualifying spot. Since their last World Cup in 2010 New Zealand have evolved from part-timers to professionals and there is belief they have the skillset and experience to make the knockout rounds for the first time.
Continue reading...The aircraft was on a routine test mission at Edwards airfield, located in the western Mojave Desert, about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
This live blog is now closed.
JD Vance also dodged the question when he was asked by CNBC who would be at the signing of the agreement on Friday.
Without addressing who would be present for the US side, he said they “expect the negotiating team from the Iranian side is going to be the Speaker of the House [Mohammad Bagher] Ghalibaf, and also the foreign minister [Abbas] Araghchi, along with a number of security officials and people who represent the different constituencies within their country.”
I think it’s a great day for the American people … our expectation is that the strait is going to be opened in a toll-free way for the long term.
That’s the sort of thing that we’re going to figure out in these technical negotiations. There are a lot of very important details to figure out that we’re actually going to sit at the table and discuss together and figure out a path forward on these details.
And what we’ve said is, OK, let’s talk about how exactly we’re going to do that.
They want access to an unsanctioned economy. We’ve talked about, ‘OK, we’re open to that,’ but that would require a long-term commitment to the inspection and verification regime.
Continue reading...Health advocates criticized Kennedy’s move demanding answers from journal that removed ‘flawed’ vaccine study
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, is demanding answers from a medical journal that recently removed a paper suggesting a link between vaccines and infant death, saying their decision was “of great interest to me”.
Public health advocates immediately criticized the move, and said Kennedy appeared to be trying to intimidate and influence the journal’s editorial process. The journal Toxicology Reports had removed the paper this spring after editors determined it was so seriously flawed it could harm patients and pose a risk to public health.
Continue reading...But overall interest in news has increased, particularly among women and young people, 2026 Digital News Report finds
The majority of Australian adults under 25 have never used newspapers or radio as a source of news, according to the 2026 Digital News Report which tracks the changing habits of news consumers.
However, overall interest in news has increased, in particular among women and young people, after years of decline. Since 2024, the interest of 18 to 24-year-olds in news has risen sharply (+12) to 47%.
Continue reading...The Federal Data Center Enhancement Act (FDCEA) is set to expire in September without an apparent replacement, potentially ending requirements for federal agencies to report on data-center efficiency, resilience, energy and water use, and contractor sustainability. Wired reports: Despite the public backlash, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the government agency that sets guidance for how agencies implement policies in line with the president's agenda, is not providing any plans for how federal agencies should manage the sunset or continue to implement reporting beyond the timeline of the law. This, current and former workers at OMB and the General Services Administration (GSA) say, signals that the Trump administration is set to take an even more hands-off approach to data center oversight and regulation. A replacement for the requirements laid out in FDCEA would, in other administrations, have been in the works for months ahead of its expiration. An employee with the GSA, the agency that oversees the government's IT services and helps to implement the FDCEA, says that the lack of any sort of plan is highly uncommon. The employee spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. "Never in the history of data center policies has a policy expired without another one having been painstakingly worked on for three years behind the scenes," says the GSA employee. "The technology has changed so much it's not about getting everything right, it's about doing the best they can and updating to a new policy. They claim they're going to make sure private companies pay their fare share, but they haven't explained how they'll do that." [...] There has been a burst of data-center-related legislation introduced in Congress this year, from bills that mandate environmental reviews of data centers to bills designed to protect local moratoriums. However, it appears that none of these bills are designed to address the requirements in FDCEA, nor do they specifically address federally run or leased data centers. [...] A search of reginfo.gov, the OMB website that contains reports on the president's Unified Agenda, also turns up nothing for the FDCEA. "By letting this expire, OMB is going to enter into this new age of prioritizing rapid AI development over any sort of centralized control or rigorous standards," says the anonymous GSA employee who spoke to Wired. "In the absence of a new policy from OMB, [GSA] has no directive or measurable standards with which to point agencies towards managing data centers efficiently."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Welsh singer, best known for 1983 hit Total Eclipse of the Heart, had emergency intestinal surgery in May
Welsh pop star Bonnie Tyler is no longer in a coma but remains “very unwell” in intensive care at a hospital near her home in Faro, Portugal.
The 75-year-old singer received emergency intestinal surgery in May and was placed in an induced coma to aid her recovery.
Continue reading...B-52 crashed shortly after takeoff at Edwards air force base in southern California’s Mojave Desert, officials say
Eight people are presumed dead after a B-52 bomber crashed shortly after takeoff on Monday morning at a US air force base in California’s Mojave Desert, officials said.
“An Air Force B-52 Stratofortress carrying eight people on a routine test mission crashed today shortly after take-off at 11:20 a.m,” Edwards air force base said in a statement Monday afternoon. “Initial indications are that the crash was not survivable. “Emergency response personnel are on scene, and officials are working to account for all personnel.”
Continue reading...Images of Merlin, a two-year-old duck, parading on the streets of Mexico City celebrated by fans on social media
Julián Quiñones and Raúl Jiménez may have scored the goals, but a duck stole the show.
As Mexico celebrated its World Cup-opening victory over South Africa on Thursday, Merlin, a two-year-old duck dressed in the national team’s colors, became an unlikely internet sensation and the tournament’s first unofficial mascot.
Continue reading...Take to the virtual skies without having to download the desktop app.
alternative_right shares a report from The Hill: The FBI released an urgent security warning to the public about a fast-acting scam targeting Microsoft 365 users on Teams, Outlook and OneDrive. The agency warned that the hacking platform Kali365 seeks out OAuth device codes, allowing scammers to sneak past multi-factor authentication codes, and without the need for a password, to access Microsoft accounts. Scammers will send a phishing email impersonating a trusted document-sharing service with a device code and instructions on how to verify, according to the FBI. "Kali365 lowers the barrier of entry, providing less-technical attackers access to AI-generated phishing lures, automated campaign templates, real-time targeted individual/entity tracking dashboards, and OAuth token capture capabilities," the FBI stated. The platform is sold to scammers with a $250 per month subscription. The FBI, which first detected Kali365 in April, described the hacking platform as an "emerging Phishing-as-a-Service platform." Hackers with limited skills can access advanced phishing tools through the platform, according to NordPass.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that his administration has “cut” by 97% “the flow” of illegal drugs entering the U.S. “by water, by ocean and sea.” But available federal data do not support that claim.
There is no comprehensive data on the total amount of drugs trafficked to the U.S., including how much authorities don’t capture. Without that information, drug policy experts have told us that it’s not possible to know if the president’s claim is accurate.
“[W]e do not know the true amount of drugs coming into the country because we don’t know the amount that comes in undetected (the known unknown),” Katharine Harris, a fellow in drug policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, told us in an email.
She said the amount of drugs “seized” — which is what the federal government reports — is not equivalent to total drug “flow.”
However, Trump, based only on cherry-picked seizure data, continues to claim that his administration has almost completely stopped drugs from being brought into the U.S. by way of water.
“We cut the flow of fentanyl across our border by 59%, which is unheard of,” Trump said in May 22 remarks in New York. “And we cut the flow of fentanyl and drugs into our country by the ocean and the sea, in other words, coming in by water, by ocean and sea by 97%.”
Then, on May 28, in an interview with his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, on Fox News, he said, “We have drugs down 97%. Fentanyl and various drugs down 97% on drugs coming in by water.”
The president has made the 97% reduction claim more than a dozen times since late December.
We already addressed in February Trump’s unsupported claim that fentanyl coming across U.S. borders is down by more than half.
The amount of fentanyl seized by Customs and Border Protection decreased by about 50% in the first full 15 months of Trump’s second term, going from 26,398 pounds seized in President Joe Biden’s last full 15 months in office to 13,216 pounds seized in Trump’s first full 15 months, according to the most recent CBP data. Also, based on provisional data, the National Center for Health Statistics estimates about a 22% decline in overdose deaths from synthetic opioids, or fentanyl, between 2024 and 2025 — from 48,913 to 38,084.
The seizure data is often used as a proxy for how much enters the country undetected. To some, fewer pounds seized indicates that fewer drugs are being smuggled in — not more.
The fact that the seized amount has declined could mean that less of the drug is being trafficked into the U.S., but it could also mean that authorities are catching less of it. In October 2024, we wrote about then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ claim that the Biden administration had cut the flow of illegal fentanyl “by half” because the amount seized by border officials had increased in Biden’s first two years as president.
But experts said there was also insufficient data to support her statement.
“If you don’t know the denominator” – meaning the figure for the total flow of a drug to the U.S. – “you can’t have an answer,” David Luckey, director of the RAND Rural America Partnership Initiative and professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy, told us for that 2024 story.
Trump’s claim about drugs coming by water is flawed for similar reasons.
When we asked for the source of his claim, a senior administration official sent only a hyperlink to the webpage with statistics on drugs seized by CBP’s Air and Marine Operations, which does aviation and maritime law enforcement.
Sometimes — such as in June 10 remarks in the Oval Office — Trump sounds as though he’s claiming that there has been a 97% cut in fentanyl coming by water. But that’s not really what he means.
Administration officials have told other fact-checkers that the president’s claim is based on the decrease in the amount of all drugs seized in July 2025 compared with November 2025.
There were 4,476 combined pounds of cocaine, fentanyl, marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine interdicted by CBP’s Air and Marine Operations last November, about a 98% drop from the 224,805 pounds seized four months earlier in July. But that particular comparison was cherry-picked.
That July, there was a huge one-month spike in the amount of drugs seized – mostly marijuana. The total weight seized had increased 1,140% from 18,132 pounds in June. Using July as a starting point made the change in drug seizures under Trump look like a much larger decline.
“Picking a different month” to start “would have shown a smaller decline,” Harris, of the Baker Institute, said of the White House’s calculation. She added, “Generally it’s more informative to look at these trends over at least a 12-month period, especially when the data are available, in order to account for things like seasonal variation and outlier events.”
In fact, as of April, the most recent data available, there had been 547,603 pounds seized by CBP’s Air and Marine Operations in Trump’s first full 15 months back in office. That was an increase of about 81% from the 302,548 pounds seized in the last full 15 months under Biden.
Even if the unusually large amount of drugs seized in July 2025 is excluded from that 15-month tally, the amount seized under Trump was still almost 7% higher than under Biden.
If an increase in seizures indicates more drugs getting into the country undetected – as some Republicans have said – that’s the opposite of what Trump has claimed is happening.
In addition, the U.S. Coast Guard says it — not CBP — is “the lead federal maritime law enforcement agency” responsible for water-based interdiction of illegal drugs.
In fiscal year 2025, which included about eight months under Trump, the Coast Guard said it seized a record of almost 510,000 pounds of cocaine in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean – more than three times its annual average of 167,000 pounds.
In September, the last month of that fiscal year, the U.S. military began striking boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean that it claimed were bringing drugs to the U.S.
But the New York Times, citing epidemiologists, addiction scientists and public health experts, reported in May that cocaine is still widely available in the U.S., as drug smugglers have seemingly adjusted to the boat strikes by transporting their product in large shipping containers or using land routes through Central America.
Harris, the drug policy fellow, said the amount of drugs seized “can be paired with other data points, like the purity, price, and availability trends for a particular substance, to infer whether there has been a reduction in supply.” If drugs are more scarce, less potent and prices are higher, she said that could indicate a supply interruption.
“But the seizure data alone cannot substantiate claims about the true drug flow,” she said.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, P.O. Box 58100, Philadelphia, PA 19102.
The post Trump Makes Unsupported Claims About Drug Flows appeared first on FactCheck.org.
Hello! I'm new here, I'm super pumped right now since my friend just gifted me a onewheel pint and I've always wanted to have one. He's a new dad and it's been a long time since he last used it. Long story short, he thought it was time for it to have a new owner.
The one catch (for a lack of a better word since I'm still getting a free onewheel and am eternally grateful) is that the battery seems to be completely dead.
My question is, is there something I can do to repair it, replace it or but a new one without paying the $300 service on the website? I'm trying to save some money.
Haven't had any luck finding batteries on FB Marketplace which makes me think this isn't as easy?
G7 told ‘we will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes’, with Russia’s finance networks and shadow fleet targeted
Keir Starmer has vowed to “choke off” Russian revenue with further sanctions and to provide hundreds of millions of pounds worth of energy support for Ukraine, as he met world leaders in France for the G7.
After a torrid political week at home, the British prime minister sought to put himself on the front foot on the international stage at the meeting of the group of seven, which kicked off on Monday in the French spa town of Évian-les-Bains, on the shore of Lake Geneva.
Continue reading...Elections chief says bid by ex-teacher to challenge senator with same name was filed ‘to confuse or mislead’ voters
There will still be one Dan Sullivan on the ballot, but election officials in Alaska determined a second man by the same name cannot run against him in the high-stakes Senate race.
A man named Dan Sullivan, or Daniel J Sullivan Jr, filed to run as a Republican against incumbent Alaska senator Dan S Sullivan, also a Republican. Republicans filed complaints against the other Dan Sullivan, saying the candidate had coordinated with a Democratic campaign to confuse voters.
Continue reading...It's next to impossible to attend high school or college without a laptop. Here are my favorite laptops that I've tested and reviewed for student budgets.
The lawsuit claims that the AI company is misleading customers about its $200-per-month Claude plan.
State’s attorney general alleges TikTok exposed children to harmful sexual content and addictive features
Florida became the latest state to sue TikTok on Monday after the attorney general accused the company of violating a state law that limits social media access for teenagers.
In a press conference, Republican James Uthmeier said TikTok exposed children to harmful sexual content and addictive features, such as unlimited scrolling and push notifications. “It’s designed to keep kids stuck on those screens for hours,” Uthemeier said at a press conference. “Our evidence suggests that so many kids are on TikTok for upwards of six, seven, eight or more hours a day. We are going to get our kids their lives back.”
Continue reading...
In the leadup to America’s 250th birthday, an Ultimate Fighting Championship event at the White House became a platform for a long-debunked claim targeting a former first lady.
After winning a bout, UFC fighter Josh Hokit used his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan to amplify the claim that former first lady Michelle Obama isn’t a woman.
"And lastly, Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?" Hokit said.
News reports said the remark drew some laughter from the audience.
PolitiFact has fact-checked various versions of the claim that Obama is or was a man, dating back to 2020. There remains no evidence. Obama, born Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, was never a man.
In attempts to prove the conspiracy theory, people have circulated altered images of Obama, an out-of-context video clip of Obama’s podcast interview with actor and comedian Marlon Wayans and an unverified voter registration card. Other fact-checkers have also debunked the narrative.
UFC CEO Dana White told Time in a text message, "I understand that the Obama’s are public figures but I’m completely against saying nasty and false things about people’s families."
Other powerful women, such as France’s first lady Brigitte Macron and former Vice President Kamala Harris, have also been targeted with claims they are men. Experts told PolitiFact such conspiracy theories seek to undermine their power and achievements.
We contacted Hokit and receive no response.
We rate his claim that Michelle Obama is a man Pants on Fire!
Donald Trump posts ‘Let the oil flow’ as US-Iran peace deal sparks immediate drop for Brent crude
Global oil prices have tumbled to a three-month low and stock markets closed at a record high amid fresh hopes that a US-Iran peace deal could end the greatest energy supply crisis in the history of the market.
The price of Brent crude dropped about 4% to about $83 (£62) on Monday amid optimism that the strait of Hormuz could reopen shortly and bring a return of Gulf oil exports to the market. Wholesale gas prices fell 6% in Europe.
Continue reading...An election official ruled a candidate with the same name as Sen. Dan Sullivan was involved in a "determined effort and a deliberate attempt" to confuse Alaska voters.
Preliminary agreement between Washington and Tehran has prompted anger in Israel, and criticism of Netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed a historic victory over Iran and ruled out any immediate withdrawal from Lebanon, saying that Israel’s forces would remain there “for as long as necessary”.
“We established deep security zones around the state of Israel. We did this in Gaza, in Lebanon and in Syria,” the Israeli prime minister said in a televised press conference on Monday. “And I want to make it clear: we will remain in these security zones … to protect our country.”
Continue reading...The dispute over an unconventional order raises questions about how the government will regulate advanced AI models.
Google is removing Chrome's last remaining workarounds for Manifest V2 extensions, effectively ending support for legacy ad blockers such as the original uBlock Origin. 9to5Google reports: CyberNews points out a Chromium commit that removes support for the "kExtensionManifestV2Disabled" flag, which is referred to as "dead code" seeing as Chrome no longer supports Manifest V2 extensions. This removal acts as the final stop for many Manifest V2-based ad blocker extensions that were still in use today -- the flag was effectively a loophole to continue using these extensions. A Googler on the commit explains: "MV2 extensions are no longer allowed in any supported version of Chrome, and we are removing support for them and the associated functionality. We won't be able to provide / maintain this functionality indefinitely due to the complexity and tech debt, as well as the security risks it entails (we've actually found a number of bugs that are specific to MV2 lately). Of course, other browsers can continue supporting these if they so desire." This will also impact other Chromium-based browsers, though the comment notes that "other browsers can continue supporting these if they so desire." Neowin points out that Microsoft Edge and Opera are likely to follow suit. Chrome 150, set to be released later this month, will remove this flag, while other leftover bits of Manifest V2 will be removed in the v151 release.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Israeli officials disparaged the peace deal and said Israel’s fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon would go on.
I come from a mountain biking, motorsports, and motorcycle background. 95% of the time, I am off-roading with the Onewheel. I am trying to get some gear to keep myself protected.
For a helmet, I will be getting a DOT-approved dirt bike helmet.
Body armor-wise, I am trying to decide what type of armor is best. Alpinestars was my go-to when I rode motorcycles, so I was considering an Alpinestars motocross vest. There seem to be two styles of armor for motocross:
We have this honeycomb-like protection:
https://www.alpinestars.com/products/bionic-action-v2-protection-jacket-sand-black-tangarine
Then we have this large, hard padding:
https://a.co/d/08UwnCrP
For off-roading, what would you deem to be best? I feel like if you land on a rock, the hard-plastic armor would be best, as it would distribute high-pressure impact points, such as rocks, across the whole bone area. Though this stuff isnt really safty rated.
Dicussion also applys to pants/knee & shinguards.
What do you all think?
Thank you for all the input and advice on my last post.
Quick breakdown of what I ended up doing:
•Sold my “daily driver” — a souped-up Pint X.
•Kept my GTS, which is currently my work commute board and casual trail board.
•Used the money from the Pint X to buy an X7 Supercharged.
Some context:
I’m fairly poor when it comes to this hobby compared to some people.
My Pint X was originally a gift and was perfect for university, casual town travel, lectures, restaurants, and everyday errands because it was small and easy to carry around.
My GTS was a Black Friday purchase that I got for way cheaper than normal. It’s been my long-distance commute board, work board, and trail board with friends.
To be honest, I had no idea Fungineers even made a board until recently. I’ve only ever ridden FM boards and the ADV 1 and ADV 2 And I like both of those for their own reasons. A guy in a Onewheel Facebook group told me I’m in for a treat with the X7 lol.
Now for the big question:
Which board should become my daily driver?
Right now, my GTS is what I call my all-season board. I ride it rain, snow, or shine. It’s weatherproofed to the max and has pretty much every weatherproofing upgrade you can do. I also follow all the usual battery precautions, like not charging outside safe cell temperature ranges.
So when the X7 arrives, should I:
•Make the X7 my new all-season daily driver and let it handle the commute duties?
•Keep the GTS as the all-season “abuse” board and save the X7 for nice weather and recreational riding?
From what I’ve read, the X7 is reliable, easier to service, and less of a headache than FM boards since Fungineers actually lets you own and work on your board. At the same time, I’ve heard they can still have issues just like FM boards. Most of that has been word of mouth, though.
I’d love to hear from people who actually have significant time on an X7. What has reliability been like, and what am I really getting myself into? Any input is much appreciated. Thank you.
President’s son says screenshots that appeared to show him asking analyst Daniel Cormier for information were ‘fake’
Eric Trump has denied cheating allegations after screenshots shared online appeared to show UFC commentator Daniel Cormier receiving a message from an account under Trump’s name asking whether any of the White House’s UFC fights on Sunday would be rigged.
Several screenshots posted – and then later deleted – on Cormier’s X account showed alleged messages from Donald Trump’s 42-year old son that said: “Anything you can tell me about the fighters tomorrow? Who you got winning?”
Continue reading...Google's smartwatch software got buried under a heap of AI health news at I/O 2026.
California governor says Trump is ‘coming after me because I am considering running for president’
Gavin Newsom said on Monday that Donald Trump directed the US Department of Justice (DoJ) to investigate him and his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom.
The California governor said in a video statement that federal agents had knocked on the doors of family friends and former employees in recent days as part of an effort to find a crime, demanding records and “abusing the grand jury process”.
Continue reading...Augmented World Expo this week will give us the best look yet at the state of the art in high-tech eyewear.
Senior U.S. officials say President Trump and Iran's top negotiator have already remotely signed a memorandum of understanding ahead of an expected signing ceremony.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said the Justice Department is investigating he and his wife, Jennifer.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A decade ago, AMD added a protection to its high-end CPUs to protect them against cold boot attacks and other types of physical exploits that siphon sensitive data out of the connected memory chips. Short for Transparent Secure Memory Encryption, TSME encrypts the entire contents stored in memory, making the data useless to physical attackers. Over time, AMD added TSME to lower-end processors, including the consumer version of its Ryzen chips, a CPU that costs less than the Pro version. Over the years, users of these lower-end chips have gotten used to the added security. Recently and without warning or notice, this lower-end line of AMD chips suddenly dropped the protection, and did so in a way that was impossible to detect on Windows machines and required a fair amount of technical work when using Linux. AMD has yet to say why TSME worked on these CPUs, or even to confirm the change. AMD declined to answer questions sent by email other than to say TSME "is a security feature only applied to PRO CPUs as part of AMD PRO Technologies." The statement is the first known time the chipmaker has explicitly made this restriction public. [...] There's no indication that AMD ever advertised or marketed TSME as being available in consumer CPUs. AMD has long said that a related memory protection, Secure Memory Encryption (SME), is available only in the Pro and Epyc CPU tiers. SME is OS-managed. It uses a single key and allows the OS to selectively encrypt individual memory pages. TSME is firmware-managed. It encrypts all RAM with no OS involvement. When active, it provides protection against physical attacks, including cold boot exploits, DRAM interface snooping, and memory module removal. It activates silently when enabled in the BIOS, making it the more practically useful of the two protections. Ben Kilpatrick, a self-described "privacy-conscious Linux hobbyist," discovered that TSME had stopped working on his consumer Ryzen processor despite remaining enabled in the BIOS. He spent months investigating, persuaded MSI engineers to test multiple CPUs, motherboards, and firmware versions, and filed a public AMD bug report that traced the change to newer AGESA firmware apparently disabling TSME on consumer chips while retaining it on Pro and EPYC models. "AMD engineers' comments, such as those mentioned above, and the years of TSME working just fine in the lower-cost tier processors, have understandably conditioned Kilpatrick and other users to reasonably regard it as an expected part of the chip package," reports Ars Technica. "AMD quietly removing it and providing no acknowledgment or explanation strikes these users as something of a betrayal." Joe Fitzgerald, an expert in silicon-level security, said in an interview: "They could have not realized they did it leading to their cagey responses, or they could have done it intentionally and tried to get away with it, leading to the same cagey responses. But I really feel like an explanation should be in order, even if it was 'TSME was never supposed to be supported. We did ship some firmwares that erroneously enabled it, but you shouldn't use them since we can't guarantee it'll work properly.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Stelo can now be marketed for children 2 years of age and older who do not use insulin.
Research relationships with Intel, IQM, Qblox, Quantinuum, QuEra Computing, Quantum Machines, Rigetti, and Riverlane to accelerate hybrid classical-quantum computing
LAS VEGAS, June 15, 2026 – HPE today announced it has expanded relationships with eight companies to integrate high performance computing (HPC) and quantum computing systems to pave the way for practical and scalable hybrid classical-quantum applications in the future.
As a global leader in HPC with the HPE Cray supercomputing platform, HPE is in a unique position to advance quantum computing and provide the critical HPC and networking infrastructure necessary to enable hybrid application workflows and integrate emerging quantum technologies into existing supercomputing environments. By partnering with quantum processing unit, quantum error correction, and quantum control leaders, HPE is pioneering a hybrid approach that combines classical supercomputing with quantum computing, enabling faster, more efficient solutions to apply to some of the world’s most complex scientific and industrial challenges.
“By bringing supercomputing and quantum technologies together in a hybrid platform, we will accelerate the transition from research to real-world application,” said Trish Damkroger, senior vice president and general manager, HPC & AI Infrastructure Solutions at HPE. “Our new strategic collaborations will extend world-class HPC infrastructure to make quantum accessible, scalable and operational.”
Advancing Full-Stack Hybrid Quantum Supercomputing Across Multiple Modalities
HPE is collaborating with leading companies – Intel, IQM, Qblox, Quantinuum, QuEra Computing, Quantum Machines, Rigetti, and Riverlane – across a diverse set of architectural approaches with the goal of building out a full-stack hybrid quantum supercomputing platform. These collaborations will support the development of integrated testbeds for hybrid algorithm co-design, software interoperability, and system-level performance benchmarking across HPC and AI environments.
HPE is bringing together multiple quantum modalities – including neutral atom, ion trap, superconducting, and silicon spin quantum bits (qubits) – along with quantum error correction and quantum control systems. Through these efforts, HPE is enabling exploration of architectural trade-offs, validation of hybrid workflows, as well as development and benchmarking of quantum application workloads and workflows running on HPC systems and AI factories.
HPE continues to extend the capabilities of classical HPC while building a shared community committed to practical innovation in quantum computing. By enabling the seamless integration of quantum and classical HPC and AI, HPE is shaping the future of hybrid architectures, driving progress in scientific discovery, national security, and industrial innovation.
Explore hybrid classical-quantum computing at HPE Discover demo #629 or attend a quantum computing session at the show:
About HPE
HPE (NYSE: HPE) is a leader in essential enterprise technology, bringing together the power of AI, cloud, and networking to help organizations achieve more. As pioneers of possibility, our innovation and expertise advance the way people live and work. We empower our customers across industries to optimize operational performance, transform data into foresight, and maximize their impact. Unlock your boldest ambitions with HPE. Discover more at www.hpe.com.
Source: HPE
The post HPE Advances Quantum Computing at Scale with Expanded Industry Collaborations appeared first on HPCwire.
Third annual Cleveland Discovery and Innovation Forum convenes global leaders to examine the future of advanced computing in biomedical research
June 15, 2026 — The third annual Cleveland Discovery and Innovation Forum, hosted by Cleveland Clinic and IBM, highlighted progress in applying quantum computing and AI to healthcare and life sciences research. The forum brought together global leaders in healthcare, science and technology to share insights into how advanced computing is accelerating discovery and shaping the future of patient care.
“AI-Powered prevention: Aligning visions, strategies and policies for impact.” Panelists (l to r): Alex Shalek, Ph.D., MIT; Stacey Adam, Ph.D., Foundation for the National Institutes of Health; Aled Edwards, Ph.D., Structural Genomics Consortium; James Kozloski, Ph.D., IBM; Steve Nissen, M.D., Cleveland Clinic. Courtesy of Cleveland Clinic
The one-day event, held today on Cleveland Clinic’s Main Campus, featured more than 30 speakers from academia, industry, foundations, venture capital and government. Discussions focused on the growing impact of AI and quantum computing in tackling some of the most complex challenges in healthcare and life sciences research.
“The Cleveland Discovery and Innovation Forum highlighted how AI and quantum computing are advancing research across every stage of disease – from prevention and early detection to treatment,” said Lara Jehi, M.D., Cleveland Clinic’s Chief Research Information Officer. “Cleveland Clinic is at the forefront of applying quantum computing to life sciences research. Through this forum and our broader research efforts, we are helping define how advanced computing can unlock new scientific insights and ultimately improve care for patients around the world.”
The forum also highlighted five years of progress by Cleveland Clinic’s and IBM’s Discovery Accelerator, a partnership focused on advancing the pace of biomedical research through high-performance computing, AI and quantum computing. Since its launch, the Discovery Accelerator has supported more than 50 projects, contributed to multiple peer-reviewed publications and developed an innovative education curriculum aimed at building the skilled workforce needed for the future.
“As we mark five years of our collaboration with Cleveland Clinic, we are seeing how quantum and AI can work together to transform biomedical research — modeling molecular interactions, refining machine learning for personalized care, and pushing the boundaries of what’s achievable across healthcare and life sciences,” said Alessandro Curioni, Ph.D., IBM Fellow and Vice President, Algorithms and Applications, IBM Research.
The agenda included keynote presentations, panel discussions and fireside chats led by Cleveland Clinic and IBM executives alongside international leaders. Featured speakers included Eric Isaacs, Ph.D., of Research Corporation for Science Advancement; Curtis Priem, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and co-founder of NVIDIA; Alex Shalek, Ph.D., MIT; Sergii Strelchuk, University of Oxford; Serpil Erzurum, M.D., Cleveland Clinic; Alessandro Curioni, Ph.D., IBM; and Percy Carter, Pfizer.
Sessions included panels on applied quantum computing and its role in building a world-class research and healthcare ecosystem, and how AI and quantum computing can realize the potential of personalized therapy as well as a fireside chat on visionary leadership and advanced computational methods in healthcare.
The forum also featured a project showcase from Cleveland Clinic and IBM researchers, including recent work modeling a protein of more than 12,000 atoms, the largest protein structure known to be simulated on a quantum computer. The findings underscore the growing potential of quantum computers as scientific tools for solving fundamental problems in biology, chemistry and life sciences.
Several research announcements and updates were shared during the event and highlighted Cleveland Clinic’s steadfast progress in shaping quantum computing applications in medicine, and building the Ohio Discovery Corridor through its Cleveland Innovation District. These included:
About Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. Founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation, Cleveland Clinic has pioneered many medical breakthroughs, including coronary artery bypass surgery and the first face transplant in the United States. Cleveland Clinic is consistently recognized in the U.S. and throughout the world for its expertise and care. Among Cleveland Clinic’s 83,000 employees worldwide are more than 6,600 salaried physicians and researchers, and 21,900 registered nurses and advanced practice providers, representing 140 medical specialties and subspecialties. Cleveland Clinic is a 6,725-bed health system that includes a 173-acre main campus near downtown Cleveland, 23 hospitals, 300 outpatient facilities, including locations in northeast Ohio; Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; Toronto, Canada; Abu Dhabi, UAE; and London, England. In 2025, there were 15.9 million outpatient encounters, 343,000 hospital admissions and observations, and 336,000 surgeries and procedures throughout Cleveland Clinic’s health system.
Source: Cleveland Clinic
The post Cleveland Clinic and IBM Forum Highlights Advancements in AI and Quantum Computing for Healthcare Research appeared first on HPCwire.
 | bought an XRC and it arrived after work friday. finally got a chance to ride it a lot today and went for a fun 6 mi ride this AM. I grew up skating and snowboarding and surfed a lot in my twenties so naturally overconfident. It was super easy to learn but addicting and i was going like 15 mph just now on a loop around my house and a car came so I had to alter course right into a small pothole that was concealed by dappled shade. I'm almost 42, 6' 210 and ate shit flat out on the concrete for the first time in like 15 years lmao. so fun though! [link] [comments] |
COLUMBIA, Md., June 15, 2026 — EigenQ, Inc. today announced a collaboration with TD SYNNEX intended to help public-sector, defense, critical infrastructure and enterprise customers assess and prepare AMD EPYC processor-based server environments for the post-quantum security transition.
As organizations plan for the migration from classical public-key cryptography to quantum-resistant approaches, many must protect data with long confidentiality lifetimes while continuing to operate large installed bases of production systems. The collaboration is expected to support practical modernization paths that help customers evaluate post-quantum readiness, identify deployment models and add quantum-safe security capabilities to new and, where technically appropriate, already-deployed AMD EPYC processor-based infrastructure.
EigenQ’s platform combines post-quantum cryptographic software, cryptographic-agility tooling, quantum entropy hardware and integration capabilities for high-assurance computing environments. When aligned with AMD EPYC CPU-based server platforms and ecosystem deployment models, the EigenQ approach is intended to support use cases including encrypted communications, secure workload protection, identity and access systems, key generation and lifecycle management, attestation, cryptographic agility and phased infrastructure modernization.
“Modern enterprises need infrastructure that delivers performance, efficiency and security while giving them the flexibility to prepare for what comes next,” said Derek Dicker, Corporate Vice President, Enterprise Business Group, AMD. “Our collaboration with EigenQ and TD SYNNEX aims to help organizations evaluate practical, ecosystem-ready approaches for preparing AMD EPYC CPU-based environments for the post-quantum security transition.”
“EigenQ is honored to work with AMD and TD SYNNEX to help bring practical post-quantum security capabilities to AMD EPYC processor-based server environments,” said Dr. José R. Rosas-Bustos, Chief Executive Officer, EigenQ. “Customers are asking for solutions that can strengthen resilience, support migration planning and protect existing infrastructure without disrupting mission operations. By aligning technology integration with scalable channel pathways, we believe this collaboration can help organizations prepare for the next major transition in cybersecurity.”
TD SYNNEX is expected to support EigenQ’s ecosystem motion by helping align partner enablement, distribution readiness and public-sector channel pathways for customers seeking to evaluate post-quantum security solutions for AMD server environments, subject to applicable approvals, program requirements and customer requirements.
“As customers prepare for the post-quantum transition, they need practical solutions that can be evaluated, procured and deployed through trusted technology ecosystems,” said Dennis Levenson, Vice President, Vendor Management, TD SYNNEX. “TD SYNNEX is committed to helping partners and customers assess emerging security technologies and bring scalable, operationally practical solutions to market. We look forward to working with EigenQ as it advances post-quantum security readiness for enterprise and public-sector environments.”
The collaboration is expected to be particularly relevant for organizations operating long-lived infrastructure in regulated, mission-critical or high-availability environments. These organizations often need a phased migration path that supports post-quantum readiness while preserving operational continuity, procurement flexibility and the economic value of existing systems.
“Post-quantum migration is no longer only a future compliance exercise; it is becoming an infrastructure planning issue for organizations that must protect sensitive data over long time horizons,” said said EigenQ Chairman Dr. Jesse Van Griensven Thé. “The market needs deployment models that meet customers where they are – across current systems, mixed environments and real-world mission constraints. This collaboration is designed to help address that need through technology readiness, platform alignment and practical ecosystem execution.”
Together, the companies intend to help customers bridge the gap between post-quantum standards development and deployable security implementation. By focusing on platform-level integration, rollout flexibility, ecosystem enablement and operational continuity, the collaboration is designed to support practical migration planning for organizations preparing AMD compute-based server environments for CNSA 2.0 alignment and future quantum-era cybersecurity requirements.
About EigenQ
EigenQ develops quantum-security and post-quantum cybersecurity technologies, including quantum entropy hardware, cryptographic-agility software and integration platforms designed to help organizations prepare for the quantum era. EigenQ focuses on practical deployment models for enterprise, public-sector, defense, critical infrastructure and high-assurance computing environments. For more information, visit www.eigenq.com.
About TD SYNNEX
TD SYNNEX (NYSE: SNX) is a leading global distributor, solutions aggregator, and original design and contract manufacturer that plays a central role in connecting the technology ecosystem. We support more than 150,000 customers across over 100 countries with a comprehensive edge-to-cloud portfolio spanning cybersecurity, analytics, artificial intelligence, mobility, and Everything-as-a-Service. We are a Fortune 100 company that helps partners maximize the value of technology investments and achieve measurable business outcomes through our global reach, expertise and enablement capabilities. Headquartered in Clearwater, Florida, and Fremont, California, the Company’s distribution business brings together a broad portfolio of IT hardware, software and systems, providing access to products across the global IT ecosystem. The Company’s Hyve Solutions business partners with technology companies to design, manufacture, and deliver traditional and accelerated compute, cloud, and connected infrastructure.
Source: EigenQ
The post EigenQ and TD SYNNEX Target Post-Quantum Migration for AMD EPYC Infrastructure appeared first on HPCwire.
The Federal Reserve will meet again this week. Here are three CD account questions savers should ask afterwards.
Varley presented himself in court as a doting dad but prosecution said he used adopted boy as a sexual ‘plaything’
‘They were an ordinary couple,” said one neighbour. Their baby “was happy, he was smiley, he was beautiful”, said a friend. There were no big concerns about the teacher and the sales manager who were doing what thousands do every year – adopting a child.
In reality, Jamie Varley and his partner, John McGowan-Fazakerley, were child abusers and Varley murdered the baby boy they adopted, Preston Davey, when he was 13 months old.
Continue reading...A five-year-old girl was swept away and a woman was pulled into the water, prompting authorities to urge precaution
Massive waves, coastal flooding and dangerous rip currents are roiling the California coastline this week as authorities advise people to take precautions while visiting beaches following two deaths last week.
Turbulent waters swept a five-year-old girl, who was walking with her mother and brother, out to sea from the shore of Treasure Island Beach in Orange county in southern California on Tuesday. Bystanders were able to rescue the mother and son, but the girl was not found and her body was recovered on Thursday.
Continue reading...Dan Jarvis says vessel tracked for several days as opposition suggest decision linked to his predecessor’s resignation
Dan Jarvis has told MPs that the Russian oil tanker seized on Sunday had been monitored for several days as he deflected suggestions that its seizure had been ordered by a prime minister under pressure after the resignation of John Healey last week.
The new defence secretary, flanked supportively in the Commons by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said the Smyrtos had been “closely tracked” as he faced a question from the Conservatives as to why the capture took place over the weekend.
Continue reading...It’s been a while since we’ve had a new operating system project written in Rust, so let’s look at Zinnia.
The kernel is written in (almost) 100% Rust and attempts to avoid unsafe code where possible. It implements a big range of POSIX APIs in system calls, but also exposes common extensions found in Linux and BSDs, like epoll and timerfd. This allows it to run a somewhat modern desktop using Wayland and X11 sessions.
Most drivers are implemented as modules. These are Rust ELF dylibs which get loaded and linked during boot from an initrd, similar to Linux systems. Zinnia can boot from any UEFI based system thanks to the Limine bootloader.
↫ Zinnia OS website
At least Weston and Xfce can run on Zinnia, even on real hardware, which is quite an achievement. The project was started in 2024 as a learning endeavour, but quickly grew out of control, as these projects are wont to do. The code’s open source.
We’re a little deep into June already, but it’s only now that Haiku published its monthly progress report for May. There’s a bunch of fixes for drag-and-drop behaviour in Tracker, AVX512 support can now be enabled thanks to changes to the kernel’s FPU handling, some low-level changes were made for the Rust and Zig compilers, and further improvements were made to the boot process on the Raspberry Pi 5 (although a lot more work is needed on that front).
There’s still no sixth beta since a few more blockers remain, but don’t let that stop you from installing Haiku – it’s stable enough as it is, sixth beta or no.
Tribblix, the Illumos distribution focused on giving you a classic UNIX-style experience, has been updated with the release of Milestone 40.
This version has some major component updates. Perl in now 5.42 instead of 5.34, and the default Python is now 3.13. The GCC suite is now version 14.2.0, go is version 1.26, Xfce has been updated to version 4.18, node is v22, with v24 added and v20 removed.
↫ Tribblix M40 release notes
There’s a more detailed changelog, as well as the downloads page to get started. If you’re already running Tribblix, you can update in-place, of course.
Acquisition expands the AMD AI portfolio and helps customers with memory optimization technology designed to improve performance, reduce total cost of ownership and accelerate time to deployment.
June 15, 2026 — Modern data center infrastructure is evolving rapidly, and customers are increasingly facing a common challenge: access to memory.
As AI models, data analytics, virtualization and high-performance computing workloads grow in size and complexity, memory has become a critical constraint across cloud and enterprise environments. For customers, addressing these bottlenecks is essential to improving performance per dollar, increasing efficiency and accelerating deployments at scale. AMD is addressing this challenge by acquiring MEXT, a pioneer in AI-driven memory optimization technology.
MEXT has developed innovative AI-powered predictive memory technology designed to make flash behave more like DRAM, helping expand usable memory capacity while maintaining performance and efficiency. This approach has the potential to reduce infrastructure costs, improve resource utilization, and help customers more effectively scale general-purpose and AI workloads.
The acquisition adds to AMD’s ability to deliver differentiated, full-stack compute and AI solutions. By integrating MEXT’s technology across the AMD data center portfolio, the company expects to help enterprise customers unlock greater value from their infrastructure investments while accelerating AI deployment.
Just as important, MEXT brings a talented team with deep expertise in memory systems and AI infrastructure. Their innovation and technical leadership will further strengthen efforts at AMD to solve some of the most important challenges facing modern data center buildouts.
Demand for memory is growing across every category of enterprise compute. By combining AMD leadership in high-performance computing and data center platforms with MEXT’s memory optimization technology, AMD is taking another step to help customers deploy workloads more efficiently, cost-effectively and at greater scale.
About AMD
AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) drives innovation in high-performance and AI computing to solve the world’s most important challenges. Today, AMD technology powers billions of experiences across cloud and AI infrastructure, embedded systems, AI PCs and gaming. With a broad portfolio of AI-optimised CPUs, GPUs, networking and software, AMD delivers full-stack AI solutions that provide the performance and scalability needed for a new era of intelligent computing. Learn more at www.amd.com.
Source: AMD
The post AMD Acquires MEXT to Advance Memory Optimization for Compute Infrastructure appeared first on HPCwire.
US president says strait of Hormuz will be open from Friday but questions remain over waterway fees and Israeli breaches of ceasefire in Lebanon
Donald Trump has declared that the strait of Hormuz will be “completely open” from Friday, as western leaders gathering at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains battled to prevent the fragile US deal with Iran from almost immediately unravelling.
“The deal’s all signed. And the strait is already partially opened,” Trump said as he arrived at the summit in France, but Israeli breaches of the ceasefire in Lebanon and Iran’s claims about its right to charge fees in the crucial waterway revealed the agreement’s many loose ends.
Continue reading...NEW YORK, June 15, 2026 — IREN Limited today announced it has completed the acquisition of Ingenostrum, S.L. (Nostrum Group), a developer of grid-connected AI data centers based in Spain.
The acquisition marks IREN’s entry into the European market, adding approximately 490MW of secured, grid-connected power in Spain and an additional development pipeline. Nostrum also brings a team of more than 50 people across development, engineering, construction and operations.
The acquisition establishes a strong foundation for IREN to serve rapidly growing AI Cloud demand across Europe, one of the largest and fastest growing markets.
Nostrum’s operations will continue under the IREN brand.
Daniel Roberts, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of IREN, said: “Europe is one of the largest and fastest-growing markets for AI infrastructure, and Spain is among its most compelling entry points, with abundant renewables and strong fiber connectivity. Nostrum gives us secured power today along with a development pipeline and a great local team we’re excited to work with.”
Gabriel Nebreda, CEO of Nostrum Group, said: “We have spent years assembling one of Spain’s most advanced AI infrastructure pipelines. Joining IREN means we can now develop it at the speed and scale Europe’s rapidly growing demand for AI infrastructure requires.”
About IREN
IREN is a vertically integrated AI Cloud provider, delivering large-scale data centers and GPU clusters for AI training and inference. IREN’s platform is underpinned by its expansive portfolio of grid-connected land and power in renewable-rich regions across North America, Europe and APAC.
Source: IREN
The post IREN Completes Acquisition of Nostrum Group Expanding AI Cloud Platform to Europe appeared first on HPCwire.
Longtime Slashdot reader necro81 writes: The heavily promoted, $499 T1 "Trump Phone" was originally said to be "Made in the USA" and ship in September 2025. Later, that was downgraded to "Assembled in the USA." Given the Trump Organization's lack of engineering or supply chain expertise, many assumed the "T1" would just be a private-label phone made by someone else. After a number of delays, the first phones are finally shipping. iFixit has performed a teardown and concluded that the T1 is a just gold-painted 2024 HTC U24 Pro -- a device from a Taiwanese company, probably using mainland China design and supply chains. In collaboration with NBC News, the iFixit team examined both phones using CT scans, side-by-side teardowns, and even reassembled a working T1 using a U24 Pro main board. As for "assembled in the USA," that may be true, in the same sense that your phone's repairman can "assemble" a phone from a handful of subassemblies sourced from someone else. Or it may have been assembled in Guangdong, China like the other U24 Pros. iFixit sums it up: "What you have is not an 'American-Proud Design,' but a phone designed in China, made in China, with the vast majority of parts sourced from China. I'm failing to find any stirring of American pride within me. I've certainly felt it before, so I can confirm that it is absent at this time." Quinn Nelson of Snazzy Labs on YouTube also published a comprehensive video of his experience ordering, unboxing, and tearing down the phone. "From pre-order emails landing in Gmail spam thanks to botched DMARC records, to paying for the $47.45 Trump Mobile 47 Plan over the phone, the entire buying experience was a disaster worthy of its own review," writes Nelson.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The mayoral election in fast-growing Frisco was seen as a rejection of anti-Islamic rhetoric that has become prevalent among the state GOP.
Apologies if this is redundant, but coming from an engineering controls background why can the controller in these boards not divert all power to the balance loop and cut power to forward motion when the current demand for both exceeds the batteries capability?
I have not had a nosedive yet, but did have a horrible, bone breaking crash mid-march where i did not see a pot-hole the board fell into and abruptly stopped. Broke my left femur, my helmet and left me with stitched and a walker. In my defense pothole was “hidden” by shadows and was new - it had literally formed while i was in CR for a few months.
I am just starting to ride again and geared up for the next crash, but do wonder why nosedives can’t mostly be controlled.
The Trump administration is boasting about pending plans to conclude its war with Iran, having achieved none of the original objectives laid out by President Donald Trump.
With a commitment to a ceasefire and the scheduled signing of a “framework” later this week, Iran is expected to agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days. Negotiations over an agreement regarding Iran’s nuclear program are expected to take place in the 60 days following Friday’s signing ceremony.
If the deal is signed on this week, it will mark a return to the status quo antebellum when the Strait of Hormuz was open and no nuclear deal with Iran was in place. Aside from killing top regime leaders, thousands of civilians — including more than 150, most of them children, on a strike on an elementary school — and damaging almost 149,000 civilian infrastructures, the United States has functionally achieved nothing. The same regime is in power and it maintains missile capabilities, still has a navy, and still supports regional proxies.
Trump also teased the prospect of a U.S. protection racket under which Middle Eastern nations would be forced to pay monetary tribute to America if the U.S. and Iran do not finalize a nuclear accord.
On Monday, Iran’s government declared victory and appeared to vow revenge on the U.S. for the war.
“The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday, his 80th birthday. “I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz.” An hour later, Trump offered a caveat, stating the strait would only be opened “upon the signing of the Deal on Friday.”
“This victory was achieved through absolute national cohesion, under the wise guidance of the Supreme National Security Council and all state pillars,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei announced on Monday, claiming that the conflict “cost the aggressors heavily.”
“Moving toward diplomacy does not mean we will ever forgive or forget the crimes against the Iranian nation; the pursuit of justice for our martyrs is permanent,” said Baghaei.
The White House did not reply to a request by The Intercept for comment on Iran’s declaration of victory and apparent vow of revenge for its dead.
The new “deal” is a complete capitulation for Trump who claimed, on March 6: “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” No such surrender occurred.
Nor is it the first ceasefire Trump has claimed would result in a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
“Iran has now agreed to a ceasefire and reopening the Strait of Hormuz,” the White House announced on April 8, essentially the same agreement publicized on Sunday. That original ceasefire collapsed months ago, but the fiction was observed by the administration and mainstream news media outlets alike, until the new agreement was rolled out.
Pakistan says it will oversee a formal signing of a memorandum of understanding on Friday in Geneva, Switzerland. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told the National Assembly session in Islamabad “the immediate and permanent cessation of military operations has been announced across all fronts, including Iran, America, and Lebanon.”
Self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed on Sunday that the agreement guarantees “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, won’t seek one, won’t buy one, won’t have one.” Iran previously agreed to those terms when it first ratified the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1970, and reaffirmed that agreement on the first page of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, negotiated by former President Barack Obama’s administration. Trump unilaterally withdrew from that pact during his first term.
Trump indicated Hegseth was lying or uniformed in an interview with the New York Times on Sunday. The president said the U.S. was still negotiating whether Iran would suspend its enrichment for 20 years but hinted that he might settle for a 15-year suspension.
Trump has consistently criticized the JCPOA. “Barack Hussein Obama gave them 1.7 Billion Dollars in ‘Green” Cash,’” he wrote during a social media rant in April. Iran’s Mehr news agency reported that the U.S. would release $12 billion in frozen assets to Iran before the start of nuclear negotiations. “The accord secures the unfreezing of all Iranian assets and addresses compensation for wartime damages,” said Baghaei.
Trump said that if the U.S. does not sign a final nuclear agreement with Iran, the United States might assume the role of “the guardian of the Middle East” in return for 20 percent of the region’s revenues. The proposed extortion scheme appears akin to the 19th-century Barbary States, which practiced state-supported piracy to exact tribute from other nations. The United States fought two separate wars against two of these North African states: Tripoli from 1801 to 1805, and Algiers from 1815 to 1816.
A recent Intercept analysis of Trump’s claims about the Iran war, his stated objectives, and supposed American achievements found the U.S. has fallen short or flamed out on all counts. The public record shows an administration that has consistently scaled back its goals and downgraded its claimed successes, without nearing anything resembling the victory Trump has touted.
On the first day of the conflict, Trump laid out his most ambitious objectives. “The heavy and pinpoint bombing … will continue, uninterrupted … as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on February 28.
Since April, the White House has not replied to requests for further information about Trump’s inability to achieve world peace. Trump has also failed to accomplish even his more modest goal, as the region remains mired in conflict. Israel continued its war on Lebanon on Sunday and said it was not involved in the new pact. “Trump’s agreement does not bind us. … We are not party to this agreement,” Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on Telegram on Sunday.
“He’s a very difficult guy,” Trump said of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday. “He should be very thankful to us for doing this,” he said of the war, lapsing into typical hyperbole. “Because if Iran had a nuclear weapon, Israel wouldn’t be around for two hours.”
The post Trump Celebrates Achieving Absolutely Nothing in Iran appeared first on The Intercept.
Mark Carney says Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise office hasn’t been ‘effective’ since its 2019 setup
Canada is eliminating a watchdog that investigates alleged human rights violations committed by Canadian companies operating abroad, after Mark Carney said the office hadn’t been “effective” since it was set up in 2019.
The move comes as Canada faces criticism from Donald Trump’s administration over its “unacceptable” efforts to combat forced labour.
Continue reading...Deal will leave things almost exactly as they were before feckless war of choice started
If we get to a Friday signing ceremony without this uncertain new US-Iran deal being derailed by any of its inherent ambiguities, then nuclear talks can finally restart in the same place – and at almost exactly the same point they were before this conflict started.
The world will have irrevocably been changed in other ways. There is no going back for the 120 Iranian children in Minab killed in their primary school in the war’s first hours, nor for their bereaved parents, or any of the thousands in Iran, Lebanon and around the region whose lives were erased or blighted by a feckless war of choice.
Continue reading...Clandestine operation run by Chinese national in Prato moved €80-100m a year through intermediaries
Italian police have dismantled an underground bank used by drug traffickers through which several hundred million euros are believed to have moved over at least three years.
The clandestine bank, whose logistical base was located in Prato, north-west of Florence, has been run since 2021 by a Chinese national, officials said.
Continue reading...President Trump is in France for the annual G7 summit, as the world awaits a signing of a deal with Iran.
About half a dozen parents told CBS California Investigates they had not been informed of the daycare's probationary status, even though the state requires the facility to inform all current and prospective parents.
Scott Vincent Borba was an accomplished business leader, making millions after he co-founded e.l.f. Cosmetics. Then he left everything behind to become a Catholic priest.
IMG_5889.JPG IMG_5890.JPG
Actually went for a little ride after work taking advaantage before it decides to rain again!
Roman Lavrynovych and Stanislav Carpiuc appear to have operated under instruction of online handler ‘El Money’
Two men found guilty of conspiring to carry out arson attacks on property connected to Keir Starmer appear to have operated under the instruction of an online handler with links to Russia.
Roman Lavrynovych, 22, from Ukraine, and Stanislav Carpiuc, 27, from Romania, were found guilty at the Old Bailey on Monday. Another Ukrainian man, Petro Pochynok, 35, was cleared of the same charge.
Continue reading...Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from NBC News: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced a sweeping ban on social media use for those under 16, joining other countries around the world seeking to protect children online. "It's a big step for our country," Starmer said in a recorded video message released Monday. "Social media is making our children unhappy and unsafe, and as a parent, as much as a Prime Minister, I just can't let that go on anymore," he added. The ban will include social platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X, while there is no intention for messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal to be included, the government said in a release. [...] Starmer's government called Monday's announcement a "landmark" move, saying the new measures would be brought to Parliament before Christmas, with protections expected to come into force next spring. Beyond the blanket social media ban, the restrictions will also include blocks on functions such as livestreaming and stranger communication with children for under-16s, it added. "It's not an easy thing to do. I'll be honest about that," Starmer said. "We haven't rushed into it. We've looked carefully at the evidence, and we'll have to adapt our approach as technology changes, learn from other countries which are taking similar steps." He went on to say that it will face resistance from some of the most powerful companies in the world. "But we will take them on, and we will win, because the need for action could not be any clearer."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Does anyone know a good website for helping with technical issues? My dad just bought a used GT that was working when the previous owner showed it to him but since getting home it wont engage. All the power is good, had it apart and power seems to be going to everything. Of course the seller has ignored my dad since buying it, hopefully the guy didn't scam him.
Pet insurance can do more than reduce your vet bills. It can also make room in the budget for other spending.
A recent paper submitted to ArXiv by famed HPC scientist Satoshi Matsuoka, Director of the RIKEN Center for Computational Science in Kobe, Japan, has shaken the tried-and-true FP64 HPC relationship to its core. The paper is entitled: FP8 is All You Need (Part 1): Debunking Hardware FP64 as the HPC Holy Grail: A Tensor–Memory Equilibrium Model and Implementation Strategy for Ozaki Scheme II on Memory-Bound Workloads in the Post-FP64 Era.
There is quite a lot to unpack in the paper, let alone the title. Matsuoka is basically positing that FP64 (64-bit double-precision arithmetic) hardware is not the best way to perform certain HPC computations that require 64-bit precision on newer Nvidia GPUs. Instead, he demonstrates how FP8 (8-bit floating-point operations) found in abundance on modern GPUs can be combined using the Ozaki Scheme II to achieve faster computation at the same 64-bit precision. This rebuke of legacy 64-bit floating-point technology is Matsuoka’s flag-in-the-sand moment, and it will have consequences throughout the HPC industry. This article attempts to summarize some of the paper’s major points; however, consulting the paper provides greater breadth and support for Satoshi’s arguments and predictions.
Using a simple yet strained analogy, Matsuoka is saying: stop using F1 autos to get around the HPC track as fast as possible. Instead use a bunch of ebikes! In this sense, Matsuoka’s proposal seems absurd and would never work, given traditional HPC beliefs. The “F1-FP64” car has delivered floating-point performance to HPC applications for decades and is considered an integral part of any performance race. Historically, CPU and GPU vendors have consistently delivered generational increases in FP64 performance. That trend is changing because, in a market driven by Gen-AI, many FP8 e-bikes are preferred. While HPC applications require higher precision FP64, Gen-AI training and inference require lower precision. To accommodate the larger market, Nvidia has regressed FP64 performance on newer-generation processors (AMD has no such plans) and created an F1-FP64 gap that Matsuoka posits can be filled by lower-precision FP8-ebikes.
The HPC market has often borrowed technology from larger markets. Back in the early days of Linux Clusters (Beowulf), HPC shifted away from custom supercomputing processors and toward commodity hardware. The cost of creating next-generation processors required large sales volumes, which were not available for specialized supercomputing and workstation processors. The commodity desktop/server market could justify these volumes, and HPC took advantage of this trend. GPU-assisted computing began as video cards evolved into true HPC acceleration devices. Server GPUs (not necessarily desktop video cards) offered a large FP64 capability needed by HPC applications and helped establish a viable market — initially dominated by Nvidia.
Enter the age of GenAI. LLM model training works faster with lower-precision floating-point numbers during training and inference. This reduction in precision corresponds to a commensurate decrease in the memory required to represent numbers, without any loss in training fidelity. In addition, the reduced amount of data requires fewer math operations and is much faster. For instance, performing standard 64-bit arithmetic operations requires manipulating 8 bytes per operand. Using an 8-bit floating-point format requires 8 times less memory and only requires manipulating 8 bits. These reduced floating-point sizes range from 32 bits to 4 bits (FP32, FP16 (BF16), FP8, and even FP4).
The GenAI market has pushed GPU and CPU designs to emphasize lower precision “AI-format” operations over FP64. The current trend in FP64 vs lower precision for Nvidia is evident in Table 1, which compares recent Nvidia and AMD results.
Table 1: Comparison of floating-point precision performance for Nvidia and AMD GPUs. Data taken from the Sotachi paper (Table 2) and AMD documents. The “emulated” result is explained below.
As shown in Table 1, FP64 performance on Nvidia GPUs has regressed, and on the B300 it is effectively non-existent. The AMD GPUs, however, are maintaining the FP64 growth. As shown in the lower-precision results, Nvidia is driving GPU performance growth in these areas. This migration of GPU silicon from FP64 to FP8 and FP4 is clearly due to the GenAI market.
The HPC community has recognized this trend for years. Outside of AMD, the HPC community is asking: “Where will we get our FP64 performance? It seems we have become second-class citizens in the Nvidia GPU space.” To answer that, we need to consider using what is now available in abundance- lower-precision hardware to produce high-precision results.
Back in the Spring of 2025, I wrote “Have You Heard About the Ozaki Scheme? You Will” as an introduction to a family of error-free transformations (EFTs) that allow higher-precision arithmetic to be emulated using lower-precision hardware.
In 2012, five years before Tensor Cores were placed in Nvidia GPUs, Katsuhisa Ozaki, Takeshi Ogita, Shin’ichi Oishi, and Siegfried M. Rump published a paper entitled “Error-free transformations of matrix multiplication by using fast routines of matrix multiplication and its applications.” In the paper, the authors describe a technique for fast, error-free splitting of floating-point numbers. Using this technique, they first develop an error-free transformation of a product of two floating-point matrices into a sum of floating-point matrices.
The Ozaki-I scheme, as it is now called, is a method for performing high-accuracy matrix multiplication by leveraging INT8 Tensor cores on modern GPUs. It achieves this by splitting high-precision input matrices into multiple components and then performing matrix multiplications on these components using low-precision arithmetic. The results are then combined to obtain the final accurate high-precision matrix product.
A second EFT method, Ozaki II, is now available. The Ozaki-II scheme offers advantages over the conventional Ozaki-I scheme by providing superior computational efficiency and better scalability for large-scale, high-fidelity numerical computations. In early 2026, Uchino, Ozaki, and Imamura observed that the original Ozaki-II algorithm cannot be directly adapted to FP8 matrix-multiply-accumulate units. They introduced a quantization trick that emulates modular arithmetic over FP8. This adaptation is why Ozaki-II remains viable on Blackwell Ultra and the upcoming NVIDIA Rubin GPU, both of which have reduced INT8 support compared to increased FP8/FP4 hardware.
Matsuoka’s argument hinges on assumptions about roofline graphs for applications running on specific processors. The roofline graph shown in Figure 1 is an easy way to visualize the behavior of HPC applications. In general, all applications running on a processor are subject to one of two limitations. The first is memory bandwidth, or the speed at which data needs to be moved into and out of the processor for a given application. The diagonal line on the left side of the graph in Figure 1 represents this performance region. The second limit is the peak speed at which the processor can perform. This region is the horizontal line at the top of the image.
Figure 1: Roof line graph example (Image from Wikipedia)
As shown in the figure, App1 is in the bandwidth-limited zone, while App2 and App3 are in the peak performance zone. Several conclusions can be drawn from this graph: App1 is clearly memory bandwidth-limited, and increasing processor performance will have no effect on App1 (save your money on faster processors). In the case of App2 and App3, they are running at peak performance, and increasing memory bandwidth will not affect performance (Again, save your money on faster memory). The ideal spot for an application to live is on the ridge point, the intersection of memory bandwidth and peak performance. At this point, the processor is being “fed” data as fast as it can process it, which represents a good balance between the characteristics of the processor’s memory subsystem. Remember, most HPC applications are memory-bandwidth-limited and lie on the diagonal line in the figure.
As shown in Table 1, Matsuoka points out that the regression of FP64 performance dramatically changes the roofline for newer Nvidia GPUs. He points out two important consequences of these changes.
Consequence 1: Previous memory-bound kernels become compute-bound. The classical roofline ridge point is given by the peak FP64 throughput divided by the HBM bandwidth. On B300, this ridge sits at 1.3 TFLOPS/8 TB/s = 0.16 FLOPS/Byte, forcing every dense linear-algebra kernel narrower than a General Matrix-Matrix Multiplication (GEMM) into the compute-bound regime. In other words, there is more than adequate memory bandwidth for application needs, because only a small amount is consumed by the arithmetic units.
Consequence 2: Low-precision tensor units are dormant. By design, the B300 carries 10 PFLOPS of dense (NV)FP4 throughput (15 PFLOPS sparse) and 5 PFLOPS of dense FP8 (10 PFLOPS sparse). When running a typical FP64-only HPC kernel, these units are idle and contribute nothing to the kernel’s time-to-solution. This situation is the Dark Silicon manifestation of the AI–HPC divergence.
As Matsuoka aptly points out, despite the rapid maturation of Ozaki-I and Ozaki-II for dense General Matrix-Matrix Multiplication (GEMM), all published performance studies have focused on the compute-bound regime, where the Ozaki technique most obviously wins due to the sheer number of lower-precision Tensor Cores.
He indicates that no published analysis (to their knowledge, as of May 2026) has asked the question: When is Ozaki-II profitable for memory-bound kernels? As mentioned, most HPC applications live in this region of the roofline. The conventional wisdom that EFT methods like Ozaki-I and II cannot help bandwidth-limited kernels because they inflate operand counts deserves a careful look on hardware where the FP64 compute roof has collapsed below the memory roof.
Based on the analysis presented in the paper, Matsuoka dramatically labels native PF64 processing as the only way to achieve HPC-level performance, as dogma when using Nvidia B300 generation (and beyond) GPUs. The often staid HPC community has something to discuss.
To demonstrate and support his position, Satochi examines performance using four standard HPC primitives.
Table 2 reports speedups within each GPU, that is, how much Ozaki-II/FP8 accelerates each workload relative to that GPU’s own native FP64 performance. Satoshi suggests this view is correct for evaluating emulation on a single chip. Still, it is not the correct view for evaluating whether FP64-emulated execution regresses or progresses relative to the prior-generation HPC baseline.
The appropriate baseline for that question is the H100, the last data-center Nvidia GPU whose architecture was balanced for HPC rather than for AI inference. Table 2 therefore reports absolute achievable FP64-equivalent throughput for the same five workloads, with all GPUs normalized to the H100 native FP64.
Table 2: Achievable FP64-equivalent throughput per workload, in TFLOPS, and relative to H100 native FP64 (last column block, in parentheses). Native throughput uses the FP64 tensor path for dense GEMM and the FP64 vector path for the memory-bound primitives.
As Matsuoka states in the paper, “Three patterns in the above table (table 4 in the paper) support a single thesis: Ozaki-II does not regress performance against the H100 baseline; on the contrary, it restores or improves the prior-generation scaling on every workload.” He also states, “Ozaki-II is not just a compensation mechanism for Nvidia’s FP64 regression; it is the mechanism that converts the silicon-area savings into bandwidth-scaling and into AI-grade tensor throughput, both of which the application then sees as faster FP64.”
Using the Ozaki-II library requires recoding many of the standard libraries (e.g., DGEMM). Indeed, any HPC applications that wish to take advantage of the emulated FP64 performance on new Nvidia hardware will require adaptation to the Ozaki-II scheme — there is no free lunch. This situation is not unlike the past when applications were migrated to CUDA. Ozaki is a bit more complex and may slow adoption. However, as Matsuoka points out, the reported success of GenAI-assisted coding may provide a rapid path forward for enabling applications with Ozaki-II emulation. He states in the paper:
This represents an unusual moment in which two ostensibly unrelated AI developments—the architectural pivot of GPUs toward low-precision tensor cores, and the maturation of AI coding assistants—combine to make the emulation strategy practically realizable on the timescale of the FugakuNEXT, Doudna, and Blue Lion deployments.
This assumption/suggestion covers a lot of ground. While GenAI coding assistants are reporting increased productivity, their use is not without issues. Time will be needed to see if this prediction plays out.
As noted in Table 1, AMD GPUs are following the traditional FP64 trajectory by increasing performance with each new generation. As a result, AMD is less focused on emulation than Nvidia. Indeed, in the HPCwire article AMD Hints at Big FP64 Increases in MI430X GPU as Ozaki Underwhelms, AMD Fellow Nick Malaya points out several issues with error-free transformations, such as the Ozaki methods.
First, the software is not IEEE-compliant, and it does not produce the same results as running the code on actual FP64 hardware. He states in the article, “In some cases, that’s okay, but in a lot of matrices that are common that we’ve observed, the accuracy implications are pretty profound. In fact, you can give it matrices that differ by a few orders of magnitude in terms of the elements in the matrix…Ozaki has accuracy problems.”
The second major problem with Ozaki concerns its expectation for square matrices. If the HPC workload does not use square matrices, the performance drops below native FP64 hardware performance, Malaya said. In addition, Malaya also states that traditional HPC applications are vector-based, for which Ozaki methods show little benefit, and that fewer than 10% of these applications have been covered in a matrix format that allows Ozaki methods to be used.
Finally, AMD will support Ozaki emulation on its chips, Malaya said. “There’s no reason not to. It’s software. We can release it and support it. And you can have libraries that allow you to dynamically switch between the native and the Ozaki method and probably estimate it,” he said. “But we’re not finding it compelling as, ‘You can replace all the 64-bit hardware pipes.’ You need those FP64 pipes to fall back onto.”
HPCwire is honored to be cited three times in Satoshi’s paper. It is gratifying to report on the significant advances in HPC. There are, however, some points that could use clarification.
In the paper’s introduction, Matsuoka wrote that there is “an announced reliance of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission on Ozaki emulation” by reference to an article entitled Genesis Mission Will Lean Heavily on Ozaki Scheme for FP64 Capability written by HPCwire Managing Editor Alex Woodie. And further on, he states, referencing the HPCwire article: “DOE’s Genesis Mission explicitly identified Ozaki emulation as its fallback path for FP64-accurate scientific computing on AI-centric hardware.”
Although the article title may give that impression by using the phrase “Lean Heavily,” the article was a bit more nuanced. As part of the interview, Darío Gil, DOE Under Secretary for Science, stated;
“In discussions I’ve had with both [AMD CEO] Lisa Su and with [Nvidia CEO] Jensen [Huang], they have expressed a strong commitment for FP64, that it will continue,” Gil said in an interview last week. “For us, it’s very important, because we don’t view this [as a] substitution. These are complementary.“
As the article continued, Gil said, adding that the two types of computing will work together to support Genesis Mission’s goal of pushing the limits in AI-powered science and engineering. To be clear, Gil never explicitly stated Ozaki techniques as a “fallback” to traditional FP64 methods, nor did he announce a reliance on Ozaki emulation in the interview. As more research and testing continues, HPCwire will provide updates and analysis of the situation.
This paper is undoubtedly the first of many addressing FP64 emulation. The FP64 bifurcation will continue because GenAI provides a strong economic justification for emphasizing lower precision, which has changed the broader Nvidia hardware market. Matsuoka paper represents a solid new HPC path forward in that regard.
There is much to be learned, however. From one perspective, jumping in an AMD F1-FP64 car and racing your existing application around the HPC track has a definite convenience factor. On the other hand, connecting FP8-ebikes may provide higher absolute, high-precision track speed as the Gen-AI skew continues in Nvidia hardware. We sense a disturbance in the FP64 force.
The post HPC Precision Wars: Satoshi Matsuoka Plants the Ozaki Flag appeared first on HPCwire.
Interest earnings on a CD account of this size could be substantial and available to savers in just a few months.
The US-Iran ceasefire is welcome. But the US president is trying to disguise a failed war of choice as a diplomatic victory
The US-Iran agreement to halt fighting for 60 days is welcome, because even cynical diplomacy is better than war. But Donald Trump should not be allowed to call this a triumph. He has bought a pause after an illegal war of choice that failed to secure its declared aims, devastated Iran, destabilised Lebanon and sent shocks through energy and fertiliser markets, leaving many people poorer and hungrier. A campaign launched to display US military strength is likely instead to be remembered for demonstrating its limits.
A deal with Iran is better than war with Iran. But the US president is hailing as victory the partial easing of a crisis that he, and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, helped create. The measure of success will not be the reopening of the strait of Hormuz, which war had closed, but whether the next two months produce a verifiable nuclear settlement and put out the flames fanned by the US-Israel attacks.
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...If you're getting overwhelmed with all the deals out there, we're giving you the shortcut to the best sales.
Instructors hurled Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas into 40-metre abyss without attaching safety equipment
A 21-year-old woman who died when two rope-jumping instructors threw her from a bridge without first harnessing her to security equipment has been buried in Brazil’s São Paulo state.
Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas was rope jumping on Saturday at Ponte do Esqueleto, an abandoned bridge in the municipality of Limeira where tourists practise extreme sports. The young woman, who aspired to become a physical education teacher, had asked to be launched from the bridge airplane-style, with two instructors hoisting her above their shoulders as she spread out her arms.
Continue reading...  | I’m hoping it’s as simple as swapping out a new footpad? Anyone have experience with this. 2ish weeks old. Never seen a drop of water. Error code pictured. [link] [comments] |
Vice President JD Vance denied that Iran will receive "billions of dollars of assets" as part of the U.S.-Iran deal that was announced Sunday and is set to be signed later this week.
RUEIL-MALMAISON, France and TAIPEI, Taiwan, June 15, 2026 — Schneider Electric, a global energy technology leader, today announced a strategic collaboration with Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn), the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, to help define and scale the next generation of AI data centers.
Credit: Schneider Electric
As AI adoption surges, the demands on digital infrastructure are being fundamentally reshaped. This collaboration brings together Foxconn’s unmatched expertise in advanced compute platforms, AI rack integration, and global manufacturing with Schneider Electric’s leadership in power systems, cooling, and energy management. Together, the companies aim to deliver integrated, ready-to-deploy solutions that enable customers to build and operate AI infrastructure with greater speed, efficiency, and predictability across regions. Production will begin later this year.
“At the pace AI is evolving, the industry requires a new model for how infrastructure is designed, built, and delivered,” said Young Liu, Chairman of Foxconn. “By combining Foxconn’s strength in AI systems and global manufacturing with Schneider Electric’s deep expertise in power and energy, we are creating a path for customers to deploy AI capacity at scale—faster, smarter, and more sustainably.”
“AI demand continues to accelerate, and as compute scales to keep pace, the energy behind it becomes a fundamental enabler,” said Olivier Blum, CEO of Schneider Electric. “If we want to scale AI responsibly, these systems must be connected. This is where energy intelligence becomes essential. At Schneider Electric, we are advancing energy tech to build the most efficient and sustainable AI factories by bringing integrated power, cooling, and digital capabilities into AI data centers. Working with Foxconn, we are helping customers build capacity with real speed, resilience, and efficiency, as energy technology partners to an industry that is firmly entering the era of intelligence.”
Through this collaboration, Foxconn and Schneider Electric will co-develop next-generation reference architectures for AI data centers. The partnership will also explore innovations in closed-loop energy optimization, modular power and cooling skids, and standardized design frameworks, creating repeatable, high-performance blueprints for AI factories worldwide. By aligning manufacturing excellence with energy intelligence, the two companies are setting the foundation for a new class of AI infrastructure that is scalable by design, efficient by default, and ready to meet the accelerating demands of the AI era.
About Foxconn
Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn) (TWSE:2317) is the world’s largest electronics manufacturer and leading technology solutions provider, ranking 28th in Fortune Global 500. In 2025, revenue totaled TWD8.1 trillion (approx. USD260 billion). The Group’s market share in electronics manufacturing services (EMS) exceeds 40% and covers four major product segments: smart consumer electronics; cloud and networking; computing; and components and other. Operating over 240 campuses across 24 countries, Foxconn is one of the world’s largest employers with approx. 900,000 employees during peak manufacturing season. We are committed to sustainability in the manufacturing process and serving as a best-practice model for global enterprises. The Group is guided by its 3+3+3 strategy, actively investing in industries of electric vehicles, digital health, and robotics; in technologies of artificial intelligence, semiconductors and next-generation communications; in intelligent platforms of Smart Manufacturing, Smart EV and Smart City. Foxconn is dedicated to becoming a comprehensive, world-class enterprise, with AI as its core driving force. Learn more at www.foxconn.com/en-us.
About Schneider Electric
Schneider Electric is a global energy technology leader, driving efficiency and sustainability by electrifying, automating, and digitalizing industries, businesses, and homes. Its technologies enable buildings, data centers, factories, infrastructure, and grids to operate as open, interconnected ecosystems, enhancing performance, resilience, and sustainability. The portfolio includes intelligent devices, software-defined architectures, AI-powered systems, digital services, and expert advisory.
Source: Schneider Electric
The post Schneider Electric and Foxconn Collaborate on Next-Gen AI Data Center Infrastructure appeared first on HPCwire.
The accomplished musician, who recorded over 70 albums in his career, died peacefully in Germany after a short illness
The South African jazz composer and pianist Abdullah Ibrahim has died at the age of 91.
His family announced his death in a statement released on Monday.
Continue reading...Eleven skydivers and the pilot were killed in a plane crash in Missouri shortly after takeoff on Sunday.
 | I'm attempting to change my tire after running the old one completely to the ground. However watching the TFL video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-3TixixB7I) I didn't get far because these two connectors which the guy simply removes with his fingers are completely stuck, and the area is too tight to bring any sort of tools into to remove. Are there anyone who has had the same issue, or now of a smarter way to remove them? I understand they're a little fragile so I'd like to not use a lot of pressure. Thanks in advance [link] [comments] |
Fox is buying Roku for $22 billion, combining Fox's sports, news, entertainment, Tubi, and Fox One offerings with a streaming platform that reaches about 100 million people. The companies say the merger would create the "third-largest player in US television by share of viewing," while Fox insists Roku will remain open to competing apps after the deal closes. CNN reports: Fox has dabbled in streaming over the past few years -- finally launching its Fox One competitor last August -- but has lacked a serious streaming business with the ability to compete in a space dominated by YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+ and Peacock. With CNN parent company Warner Bros. Discovery receiving initial US regulatory approval to combine with Paramount, Fox's purchase of Roku became more urgent. [...] The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027 with the companies forecasting $400 million in savings. "This is a defining moment for Fox, and a natural extension of the deliberate and focused strategy we have been executing for nearly a decade," said Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch. "Today, we take the next step: bringing together the most valuable live content portfolio in video consumption with the preeminent streaming platform through which America watches it." Murdoch said Roku will continue to offer competing apps. "It's essential that Roku remain open and partner-friendly business. We don't see that changing at all."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Agent opened fire at car, striking it, as suspect fled scene and has not been located, Stafford Township police say
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in New Jersey was reportedly struck by a vehicle and shot at the car as it fled the scene on Monday morning, according to local authorities.
The police department of Stafford Township said in a statement that it had been provided with information that ICE “was attempting to apprehend a suspect when the suspect fled from the scene in a vehicle, striking [an ICE agent]”.
Continue reading...A new analysis projects how much Americans will pay for electricity from June to September, depending on their state of residence.
Markets rally on expectations that the agreement will ease global energy supply concerns, though analysts warn gas prices may remain elevated for some time.
BrianFagioli writes: Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivered Stanford University's 2026 commencement address, but despite leading one of the companies at the center of the AI boom, he spent very little time discussing artificial intelligence. Instead, the speech focused on optimism, working on hard things, and following your interests. The omission is notable given how many graduates are entering a job market being reshaped by AI. While Pichai briefly referenced a "rewiring of technology," he largely avoided discussing AI's impact on careers, automation, or the future of work. Was the Google CEO intentionally steering clear of a controversial topic, or was he simply trying to deliver a timeless commencement speech rather than a technology-focused one? Hyping AI during a commencement speech has been a surefire way to get boos -- unless you're Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, who reminded college graduates that they already posses "AI" of their own: "actual intelligence." You can read Pichai's commencement speech here. "If you're not from here, California is advertised as being really lush and green. But when I looked out the window, it was more... brown," said Pichai during his speech. "I guess I said this out loud, I'm not sure why. My host, Mrs. Jane Earl, gently corrected me. 'We prefer to call it golden,' she said.And that's exactly what I mean by choosing optimism. It's about reframing for the positive: Where I saw brown, she saw golden. This slight change of perspective had a huge ripple effect on how I thought about the world around me."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The number of metropolitan areas around the country with basic homes worth at least $1 million has tripled since 2020.
Eleven skydivers and a pilot were killed in Sunday crash as aircraft for Skydive Kansas City was taking off in Butler
The Missouri skydiving community is mourning the loss of several of its members after a plane crash south of Kansas City killed 11 skydivers and a pilot.
The crash occurred around noon on Sunday in Butler, Missouri, as an aircraft supporting operations for Skydive Kansas City was taking off, the company said in a statement on Monday, as reported by the local news outlet KCTV.
Continue reading...The US and Iran have reached a tentative deal to end the conflict in the Middle East, but competing claims from Donald Trump and Tehran have left the details shrouded in uncertainty. Questions remain over the reopening of the strait of Hormuz, Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, and the future of Iran’s nuclear programme. Nosheen Iqbal speaks to the Guardian’s senior international correspondent Julian Borger
Continue reading...As practical quantum computing edges closer, global leaders begin making plans to demonstrate its advantages
June 15, 2026 — With the first practical quantum computers expected to arrive in about two years’ time, global quantum computing leaders are thinking about how these systems should first be deployed for the largest scientific impact.
Quantum computing leaders gathered this spring to discuss how near-term quantum computing and hybrid quantum-classical computing can deliver early demonstrations of utility for solving complex chemistry and materials science problems. Image credit: Ben Watson, PNNL.
This spring, the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) brought together quantum computing leaders for the second annual Quantum Computing for Chemistry workshop, organized by the PNNL Quantum Algorithms and Architecture for Domain Science (QuAADS) initiative.
Karol Kowalski, director of QuAADs and an expert in advanced computational chemistry, opened the event with a challenge to the assembled group: identify scalable and adaptive algorithms capable of operating across varying system sizes and qubit counts to solve practical problems.
Participants explored how near-term quantum computing and hybrid quantum-classical computing can deliver early demonstrations of utility for solving complex chemistry and materials science problems.
Bindu Nair, Associate Director of DOE’s Office of Science Basic Energy Sciences program, addressed the role of DOE in supporting quantum computing and driving its advancement globally. Quoting DOE Undersecretary for Science Dario Gil, she said that “we are at an inflection point in computing and because of that we are going to be able to do science in ways that have never been done before.”
“The charge to you,” she added, “is to come up with what the parameters need to be to make a quantum computer useful to this community so that you can demonstrate something useful in quantum chemistry.”
DOE has made a large investment in quantum computing through the National Quantum Initiative and its Quantum Centers, she added. Now that it is coming close to paying off, the hard part begins.
Up Next for Quantum Chemistry
Meeting participants spent two days investigating how and when a quantum calculation could solve complex problems in chemical conversions, materials science, energy storage and other pressing needs.
The participants stressed the importance of running quantum chemical simulations that cannot be done with classical computing alone. Further, they stressed the need to choose chemical systems that can also validate simulations through laboratory experiments.
Speakers from Microsoft, IBM, IONQ and Xanadu presented case studies from their research organizations.
From these discussions, several participants noted the potential for further acceleration of quantum computing through computing code developed by AI.
Marwa Farag, a quantum algorithm engineer at NVIDIA, discussed the use of AI to design better quantum algorithms. The approach involves using AI models to demonstrate significant speedup and improved accuracy when designing quantum algorithms for modeling chemical systems.
She also pointed to NVIDIA’s work in hybrid quantum-classical computing with the NVIDIA CUDA-Q platform. A recent collaboration between PNNL, academic and industry partners demonstrated the utility of such an approach.
Victor Batista from Yale presented applications of quantum machine learning for chemistry, including predicting chemical reactivity, binding affinity and molecular properties. The work involves using quantum circuits and variational algorithms to achieve accurate predictions and optimize molecular designs.
Similarly, Daniel Claudino from Oak Ridge National Laboratory presented a hybrid software framework for integrating classical high-performance computing with quantum computing. The framework manages resources and enables efficient communication between quantum and classical systems, he said.
Francesco Evangelista of Emory University and Nick Mayhall of Indiana University, Bloomington, among others, discussed strategies for enabling realistic quantum computing simulations to predict the energy and properties of complex chemical structures.
After two days of discussion, Kowalski, who is also a Laboratory Fellow at PNNL, summarized the key outcomes of the meeting, emphasizing that there will also be a formal workshop report published in a peer-reviewed journal, similar to the report from the first workshop held in 2025.
How Many Qubits?
Kowalski stressed the need for more than 100 logical qubits to achieve meaningful quantum utility. He reiterated the need for identifying problems that are both conceptually interesting and not easily solvable by current classical methods, as well as the role of experimental validation in supporting quantum computing results.
And he noted that AI, an emerging tool to quantum computing, may help speed initial insights into chemical systems and predictions, as well as serve as an accelerator for quantum algorithm development.
“This workshop demonstrates PNNL’s commitment to support DOE’s goal of elevating quantum computing into a trusted, mission-relevant tool to advance science,” said Marvin Warner, PNNL’s Chief Scientist for Quantum. “Practical quantum computing requires sustained commitment to working collaboratively across industry, academia and our national laboratory partners. At PNNL, we have invested in doing what’s needed to advance the state-of-the-art quantum computing workflows and outcomes.”
Learn more here about PNNL’s commitment to using quantum computing to address a range of science challenges.
About PNNL
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory draws on its distinguishing strengths in chemistry, Earth sciences, biology and data science to advance scientific knowledge and address challenges in energy resiliency and national security. Founded in 1965, PNNL is operated by Battelle and supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.
Source: Karyn Hede, PNNL
The post PNNL Prepares for Quantum Advantage appeared first on HPCwire.
Nigel Farage’s party has announced three uncosted proposals since the byelection campaign started, according to Conservative rivals
Starmer acknowledges some teenagers will get round these restrictons. But that does not make the rules pointless, he says.
Will it mean that no child ever looks at social media again? No.
But look, this might shock you, but it doesn’t shock parents of teenagers; they get around other laws too.
Some technology companies want us to think that social media is unchangeable, part of an almost natural order.
But we have to resist that kind of learned helplessness. We have agency, we can change it, and we will.
Continue reading...These types of debt collection mistakes are rare, but they can still have major consequences for your money.
Garelli bike recovered by police in Italy after they spotted it without licence plate during roadside check
A moped stolen from a northern Italian town in 1984 has been traced and returned to its rightful owner after four decades.
The case of the missing moped – a dark grey Garelli that these days might be classified as vintage – was finally cracked by police in Volpiano, a suburb of Turin, after they spotted a 64-year-old man travelling without a licence plate during a roadside check.
Continue reading...Fox said it will buy Roku for $160 per share in a cash-and-stock deal that it expects to complete in the first half of 2027.
Proscription of direct action group has led to more than 700 people being charged under Terrorism Act
Protesters arrested for allegedly supporting Palestine Action have expressed anger at the court of appeal’s decision that the ban on the direct action group was lawful.
On Monday, five judges overturned the high court’s February ruling that proscription was unlawful, meaning that more than 3,000 people who have been arrested under the Terrorism Act since proscription, more than 700 of whom have been charged, could now face prosecution.
Continue reading...A free climber dubbed the "Spider-Man of Yemen" died after falling almost 400 feet into a volcanic crater.
Some war-weary residents displaced from the south found relative quiet, with guarded optimism that Trump will pressure Israel to adhere to a truce.
Professor alleges Institute of Astronomy has a ‘bad history of misogyny’ and staff were mistreated
The University of Cambridge’s prestigious Institute of Astronomy has been accused of tolerating misogyny and a “cycle of bullying” in an employment tribunal.
The claim, brought by a professor of astrophysics, Wyn Evans, also alleges the University of Cambridge has retaliated against whistleblowers.
Continue reading...While officials welcome ceasefire, many people are uncertain it will last – and return to find homes destroyed
Hours after the US-Iran ceasefire was announced, residents of south Lebanon began to race back to their villages. One man filmed as he drove into the entrance of Harees, his arrival interrupted as the car in front of him suddenly veered off the road. An Israeli armoured vehicle was parked in the middle of the road less than 100 metres ahead; he scrambled to turn around.
“It was packed with explosives. I guess they still want to blow things up,” said Abdullah al-Ali, a municipal official in Harees. Ali said that the entrance to the town had been blocked off after two other explosive-laden vehicles left by the Israelis were discovered in the area.
Continue reading...Agreement contains no restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missiles, nor does it call for regime change or surrender
The basic structure of the US-Iran deal reached late on Sunday – a return to the prewar status quo – has been on offer from Iran for more than a month. So has the specific architecture: an immediate unwinding of the consequences of the US-Israeli war through the reopening of the strait of Hormuz and a deferral of the actual negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme, the ostensible cause of the war. The concept of a 60-day ceasefire to resolve these issues has also been a fixture for more than a month.
But it has taken the mounting pressure on the US and Iranian economies for both sides to recognise politically that a return to all-out war was unlikely to resolve the impasse, and if so, compromises would have to be struck.
Continue reading...Don't miss these handpicked discounts on some of our favorite products ahead of Prime Day.
Ukraine’s president dismisses Moscow’s claim that it did not target Kyiv’s Pechersk Lavra monastery, ahead of meeting of G7 leaders in France
Kyiv monastery set on fire in night of Russian attacks across Ukraine
Macron frames Évian G7 agenda in hope Trump will stay for whole summit
Meanwhile, Unesco has formally condemned the Russian strikes on Ukraine that hit the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, “one of Ukraine’s most significant spiritual and cultural landmarks.”
In a statement, the body said:
“The strike reportedly caused significant damage to the exterior and interior of the Dormition Cathedral. Adjacent historic structures, including elements of the Lavra’s fortification complex and Ivan Kushnik Tower, were also reportedly impacted.
Unesco condemns attacks against cultural property, educational institutions, students, education personnel and media professionals protected under international law. Damage to such institutions deprives communities of access to culture, education, and shared spaces that are essential for recovery and social cohesion.
Continue reading...Residents of West Oakland, which suffers from toxic waste and high pollution rates, rally against a coal export facility
West Oakland, a California neighborhood known for its rich history of Black activism from the Pullman Porters’ union to the Black Panthers, might not seem like the site of the country’s next great coal project.
But that’s exactly what the Trump administration is pushing for – with the injection of $75m to build a sprawling coal export terminal in the nearby port of Oakland.
Continue reading...AI agent traffic grew 7,851% in a single year. Now, for the first time, bots outnumber humans on the open web.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Voters in Switzerland have rejected an unprecedented far-right proposal to cap the country's population at 10 million in a divisive referendum dubbed "the Swiss Brexit." Some 54.79% of voters were against the proposal by the Swiss People's party (SVP) and 45.21% were in favor. Turnout was 58.86%. A different outcome would have obliged the Swiss government to limit the population, currently 9.1 million, to 10 million by 2050, enacting tough restrictions on family reunification, residency permits and asylum if the number had reached 9.5 million before that date. Under the proposals, if the threshold of 10 million people was exceeded before 2050, the Swiss government would have been obliged to withdraw from the country's free movement agreement with the EU -- ending its access to the bloc's single market. The SVP, which has the most seats in parliament, has for years fueled anti-immigrant sentiment, especially concerning workers from neighboring EU countries. The party had insisted that a so-called "sustainability initiative" was needed to address the increase in population, which it argued was putting pressure on Swiss infrastructure, housing, social programs, natural resources and way of life. "Voters were worried about negative consequences for Switzerland's relationship with the EU and for the labour market," said Urs Bieri, from the polling firm GFS Bern. "People are also worried about things like having enough care and health workers. Also, there's a feeling that in the current international environment it's not sensible for a small country to do this."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
It makes sense to assume an inherited IRA is protected like your own retirement money, but is that really the case?
The Insta 360 Luna Ultra has a lot in common with the DJI Osmo Pocket 4. I've used both cameras, so let's see how they compare.
The Fed is set to meet again on June 16 and June 17. Here's what may happen to mortgage interest rates afterwards.
Schoolteacher Jamie Varley described as ‘serial manipulator and a serial liar’ in Lancashire court
A schoolteacher described as a “serial manipulator and a serial liar” has been found guilty of sexually abusing and murdering a baby he adopted.
Jamie Varley, 37, of Staining, Lancashire, had denied the murder of 13-month-old Preston Davey and 25 other offences but was found guilty after an eight-week trial.
Continue reading...Finally relented to my 9yr old's requests to ride my PintX and covered her in pads and safety gear. She took to it pretty well and was up riding on day one. Just one minor crash and right back up. Set the level to redwood for beginners and had practiced riding my vintage Per Welander with loosened trucks. She may be doing a skate camp this summer too. Although she's taken to it pretty well I'd welcome any tips- not getting too crazy on it. The only specific thing I was wondering was her small feet seem to be a little challenging for the grip sensors. I wonder if there's something we can do to effectively increase the sensing reliability. Thanks for any ideas!
Markets welcome US-Iran peace deal but prices may stay high as buyers race to refill depleted emergency crude stockpiles
After more than 100 days of the greatest recorded disruption to the world’s energy supplies, the global oil and gas markets have breathed a sigh of relief.
Hours after Donald Trump confirmed that a US-Iran peace deal would lead to the reopening of the strait of Hormuz for tankers carrying millions of barrels of oil and gas, the price of Brent crude tumbled to lows of $82 a barrel. Wholesale gas prices fell about 6%.
Continue reading...The dispute rejected by the Supreme Court involved the scope of students' free speech rights and schools' ability to restrict expression that could be viewed as reflecting their endorsement.
Judge Pauline Newman, who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, has been suspended from hearing cases because of concerns about her fitness to serve.
Fox says Roku will continue to operate independently.
As artificial intelligence (AI) transforms nearly every aspect of modern life, preparing students for a future shaped by computing is more important than ever. From June 1-5, 2026, students from grades 7–12 had the opportunity to explore that future firsthand through Cybersecurity and Computing in the Age of AI (CCA-AI), an immersive academy designed to introduce participants to cybersecurity, AI, programming, data science, and emerging technologies. Thirty-one students from Illinois, Oklahoma, and Texas participated in the program facilitated by Texas A&M University’s High Performance Research Computing (TAMU-HPRC) team led by Executive Director Honggao Liu, Ph.D.
HPRC Associate Research Scientist Wesley Brashear, Ph.D., played a pivotal role by developing the academy curriculum, teaching several sessions, and overseeing camp logistics. Python was a cornerstone of the academy, giving participants hands-on experience with one of today’s most versatile programming languages. As an ideal language for beginners, Python powers applications ranging from web development to AI and scientific computing. Dr. Brashear and HPRC Assistant Research Scientist Josh Winchell, Ph.D. overhauled the academy’s approach to teaching programming by deploying a project-based learning strategy to help students understand how they can use Python in school projects or personal hobbies.
Academy staff preparation was managed by HPRC Associate Director Marinus Pennings (User Support and Helpdesk). Nineteen HPRC professional and student staff were required to complete Child Protection Training and pass a background check prior to participating. K-12 training experience was an important addition to the resumes of eight TAMU student counselors who assisted. It was the ninth summer program for children that HPRC professional staff have hosted since 2017. Previous camps were financially-supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, National Security Agency, and Texas Workforce Commission. While Dell Technologies provided laptops and sponsored this year’s tee shirts, everything else was covered by a registration fee and an HPRC subsidy (staff supported by the National Science Foundation-funded ACES project). “We found that parents were willing to pay a nominal fee to cover catering and incidentals; past events have been so popular that we’ve seen returning students and their younger siblings,” said HPRC Director of Advanced Computing Enablement Lisa M. Perez, Ph.D.
The academy welcomed students from all backgrounds and skill levels to experience hands-on learning and collaborative projects. A campus tour and admissions talk helped participants envision themselves on a path toward academics and careers in computationally-intensive science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Throughout camp activities, students were challenged to think critically, solve problems creatively, and work together on teams. Guest speakers shared their personal insights into careers in cybersecurity, AI, research computing, and technology innovation.
Monday morning launched with student arrival, orientation, and introductions. Since participants reflected a range of ages and experience, care was then taken to break them into synergistic groups where beginners could learn from more advanced peers.
Following introductions, everyone enjoyed an interactive cybersecurity-themed escape room challenge where students worked together to solve puzzles, decode clues, and think like cybersecurity pros. Rather than simply listening to lectures, they became immersed in a realistic scenario that demonstrated how critical thinking and teamwork are essential skills in cybersecurity and life, in general; important not only for future STEM professionals but for informed digital citizens of all ages.
The afternoon featured hands-on experience with Raspberry Pi clusters. Raspberry Pi computers are small, affordable devices that enable students to explore computing concepts in a tangible way. By connecting multiple components into a cluster, students learned how parallelism enables supercomputers to quickly solve large and complex problems.
That afternoon, teams began work on cybersecurity-themed group projects they would refine throughout the week, and present on Friday at the closing ceremony. Tuesday’s guest speaker introduced practical applications for computing technologies. Such presentations help bridge the gap between classroom learning and professional practice by demonstrating how learned concepts are applied.
They then returned to Python, building upon skills introduced the previous day. Through guided exercises, they learned how to write code, solve problems algorithmically, and develop simple programs.
One of the week’s most exciting activities was: “Hack the Raspberry Pi,” where students learned how security professionals assess a threat landscape by identifying vulnerabilities in software, hardware, and networks, as well as people who have access to the infrastructure. The exercise demonstrated that cybersecurity is not simply about defense but also about understanding how systems function.
After lunch, students shifted gears to robotics with Sphero Bolt Cybersecurity Lab activities led by Dr. Winchell. These programmable devices allowed participants to apply coding concepts in a highly visual and interactive way. Students programmed their robots to navigate unique paths designed on the floor with blue painter’s tape, thereby reinforcing the connection between the human, software, and hardware. Subsequent activities taught them about network vulnerabilities by sending messages to control their opponent’s Sphero Bolt device over bluetooth.
In the afternoon, all were introduced to AI/Machine Learning (ML) concepts. Through engaging demonstrations and activities, they explored how computers learn from data, recognize patterns, and make predictions. Such foundational concepts helped to demystify technologies that increasingly influence our everyday lives. The AI/ML activity inspired students to think critically about opportunities and challenges presented by “intelligent” systems.
By Wednesday, teams had coalesced and were ready to tackle more advanced concepts. The morning focused on coding and collaborative project development, allowing each team to refine their ideas while applying newly acquired technical skills.
Later that day teams presented their developing projects and received feedback. Learning how to effectively communicate ideas is a critical component of STEM education, and this pitch session gave students valuable experience in proposal preparation and presentation. They then continued with Raspberry Pi cluster activities and a final Python session where they applied data science skills learned in previous sessions to datasets of their own choosing.
One of the most anticipated activities of the week followed: building a chatbot. Guided by instructors, students learned how conversational AI systems operate and explored the underlying concepts that enable computers to interact with users through natural language. The activity offered a practical AI demonstration while fostering creativity and problem-solving.
Thursday included a TAMU campus tour led by an official Aggie Guide from the Howdy Crew who identified landmarks and explained Aggie traditions. Participants began to envision themselves as university students while they learned about academic opportunities and educational pathways. Later that morning, project work continued, ensuring teams had time to strengthen their presentations before Friday’s ceremony. By this time, all had begun to demonstrate growing confidence in their newfound technical and presentation skills.
Friday provided a memorable conclusion; students visited a data center on the university’s West Campus, where they gained a rare behind-the-scenes look at infrastructure and supercomputers that power AI and modern research. For many, the tour transformed abstract concepts into tangible reality. They witnessed firsthand how servers, networking equipment, storage systems, and cooling technologies work together to support research and countless online services. This experience highlighted the scale and complexity of modern computing while reinforcing concepts introduced in a much smaller scale throughout the week. They then returned to the classroom to finalize project preparation and complete surveys while the experience was fresh in their minds.
The academy concluded with a closing celebration where each team presented its project before peers, instructors, family members, and invited guests. Their presentations showcased an impressive range of creativity and technical understanding of coding skills, cybersecurity concepts, data analyses, AI applications, and innovative solutions inspired by topics explored throughout the week. Team synergy was demonstrated through collaboration, communication, confidence, and problem-solving skills that extended beyond newfound technical aptitude. Each student then received a certificate of participation.
The CCA-AI academy was designed to help students envision themselves as future innovators, researchers, engineers, and technology leaders. As AI, cybersecurity, and advanced computing continue to shape society, the need for a skilled and informed workforce grows in importance and urgency. Programs, like the CCA-AI academy provide early exposure to these fields while helping students develop skills that will serve them well throughout their lives. Participants left with fresh technical knowledge, new friendships, and a deeper understanding of technologies that are transforming the world around them. Some may pursue careers in cybersecurity, while others may become software developers, data scientists, engineers, or AI researchers. Regardless of what the future has in store for them, the experience provided a valuable foundation for success in an increasingly digital world.
Notes: Academy t-shirts (design) and catering were arranged by Senior Administrative Coordinator Sheri Stebbene (HPRC). Photos were taken by HPC Systems Engineer Steve Tran (HPRC) and Dr. Perez. For more information about TAMU HPRC programs, resources, and services, visit this website.
About the author: Elizabeth Leake is an HPCwire contributor and founder of STEM-Trek, a global nonprofit that supports underrepresented STEM scholars with travel and professional development. She is also a project manager of advanced cyberinfrastructure at Texas A&M University.
The post Cybersecurity and Computing in the Age of AI: Empowering the Next Generation of Innovators at Texas A&M University appeared first on HPCwire.
Three children were found by authorities when they entered the suspect's apartment and were taken to a medical center to be evaluated, officials said.
Outpouring of public grief for Lidia ‘Taty’ Almeida, leader of group of mothers that has marched every week since 1977
The human rights activist Lidia “Taty” Almeida – who spent more than half a century searching for her son after he was forcibly disappeared by Argentina’s military junta – has died aged 95, prompting a public outpouring of grief.
Almeida, 95, was the president of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, made up of women who have marched around the square outside Argentina’s presidential palace every Thursday since 1977, demanding the return of children who were disappeared during the country’s 1976-1983 dictatorship.
Continue reading...The Trump administration and Carter Page reached a $1.25 million settlement only of his claims against the federal government in April.
 | So I have had a GTS for about 2.5 years now, and put about 1400 miles on it…. I only ride during the summer months now that I am old. Also Thus far only one ER visit, as despite my overcorrection at speed the Helmet did its job. However I’ve always felt like my ideal cruise speed is right about 22-23 mph and I’ve always been a little cautious at that speed with the GTS wishing I had a little more buffer. So I was debating getting the Supercharged. I walked downstairs and said to the wife, what do you think about me buying this? It’s for safety’s sake, lol. She’s like go for it! So here we are. Additionally, when I used to BASE jump years ago, I was always a dress for the crash in Gnarly jumps kind of guy. Any good recommendations on a full face helmet that’s light weight? I already do the full gloves / pads / shorts / chest/spine stuff. [link] [comments] |
I have a Onewheel Pint that hasn’t been ridden in about 1.5 years. I recently pulled it out to sell, but the battery appears to be completely dead. I’ve tried the common charging/revival methods I’ve found online, but nothing has worked.
At this point, I don’t really want to spend the time or money replacing the battery and would rather sell it as-is.
Included:
Onewheel Pint
Fender
Fender delete panel
Maghandle carry handle
Original charger
Extra charger
Mounting hardware/screws
For those familiar with the used Onewheel market, what would be a realistic asking price for the complete setup in its current condition? The board is otherwise in good cosmetic shape.
Homeowners association in Madison incites protests and calls for humane solutions after voting to kill geese
A homeowners association in Madison, Alabama, has incited protests and calls for humane wildlife management solutions after voting to kill off hundreds of local geese.
Dozens of people gathered in the city’s Edgewater neighborhood to protest against the non-unanimous plan by the homeowners association (HOA) there to euthanize the Canada geese at Lady Ann Lake by fatally gassing them in a chamber. They called for more humane alternatives such as using horns to scare off the geese or relocating the birds.
Continue reading...Despite a last-ditch legal bid to block the event, the White House spent the night as a marketing department for the private fighting company
A warm Sunday night on the South Lawn – with bright lights, fireworks, a fighter plane flyover, thousands of spectators, and the first major professional sporting event ever staged at the White House – produced many memorable scenes. One might linger more than most.
Justin Gaethje, the American interim lightweight champion, stood alone in the Oval Office in his fight shorts, draped in an American flag, studying a framed Declaration of Independence before he turned to walk out to the cage.
Continue reading...An infuriating story about something most of us don’t really stop to think about: e-books and the rendering engines companies and software use to display them.
It’s the year 2026. Thanks to the horrendous [Adobe] RMSDK which Kobo decided to use as their backbone for all book rendering (probably for DRM reasons), a single line of perfectly valid CSS turns a perfectly valid EPUB file into a “corrupted file” on Kobo and just drops the whole book. No clear error message, no fallback. Just a massive fail.
↫ André Klein
The level of obnoxiousness goes even deeper: Kobo devices ship with a better, actually maintained renderer for e-books as well, but in order to have a book use it, the book file in question needs to have a specific file extension. Remember that e-book files are just packaged websites; there’s no reason to do any of this nonsense with two rendering engines, one of which is shit and frozen in time.
I have never had to do anything related to creating an e-book – I just put books on my own Kobo and read them – and even I am getting annoyed just reading this.
CNET talked to the browser maker's new boss about privacy, choice and his vision for keeping the internet open and fair.
QuEra’s Libra system will bring cloud-accessible fault-tolerant quantum computing to early commercial and research workflows
BOSTON, June 15, 2026 – QuEra Computing today announced Libra, its first fault-tolerant quantum computer, arriving on Amazon Braket in 2028, alongside a deepened multi-year technical and go-to-market partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to bring fault-tolerant computing to customers worldwide. See the AWS announcement here.
Libra, QuEra’s Libra arrives on Amazon Braket in 2028
Fault-tolerant quantum computers are designed to run longer, deeper, and more reliable computations than today’s noisy quantum systems. For enterprises, research institutions, and governments, this creates a path toward workflows that may eventually support molecular simulation, materials discovery, optimization, and other problems where classical approaches face scaling limits.
Libra, QuEra’s first fault-tolerant quantum computer and the first system in the expanded QuEra/AWS partnership, is a megaquop-class system, meaning it is designed to perform on the order of one million reliable logical quantum operations. That matters because practical quantum applications depend not only on the number of logical qubits, but also on how many logical operations can be performed before errors overwhelm the computation. With projected specs of over 256 error-corrected logical qubits and a logical error rate of 10⁻⁶, Libra is designed to give AWS customers cloud access to fault-tolerant quantum computing in 2028 and support early practical commercial and research workflows.
The Libra architecture has been validated in multiple peer-reviewed publications. It builds on QuEra’s track record of building and deploying quantum computers, including Aquila, the 256-physical-qubit system live on Amazon Braket since 2022, and Gemini, a neutral-atom system with logical-qubit capabilities co-located with the ABCI-Q supercomputer in Japan.
“Fault-tolerant quantum computing is moving from a scientific milestone to an engineering and deployment roadmap,” said Andy Ory, CEO of QuEra Computing. “We have executed this roadmap in the open, with peer-reviewed milestones and validated system advances. Libra brings fault-tolerant computing to the cloud at scale in 2028. It is an important step forward, and subsequent generations will scale even further, as we will reveal in our roadmap webinar later this month. We are inviting leaders to engage now so they can build the talent, use cases, and workflows needed to be ready when these systems come online.”
An Expanded Strategic Collaboration with AWS
QuEra and AWS are expanding their multi-year strategic collaboration to bring QuEra’s fault-tolerant systems to AWS customers. Under the expanded agreement, Libra will be available on Braket starting in 2028. Braket provides customers a single environment to develop and run quantum applications alongside their existing classical infrastructure, with native integration to HPC and AI/ML resources, for hybrid quantum-classical workflows. The collaboration deepens a relationship that began in 2022, when Aquila became the first neutral-atom quantum computer on Braket.
“We believe fault-tolerant quantum computing will become a foundational part of how customers solve their hardest computational problems on AWS. QuEra’s technology has demonstrated a clear path to that future. By bringing these capabilities to customers through Amazon Braket, they can combine QuEra’s fault-tolerant quantum processors with the scalable AWS HPC and AI services they already rely on,” said Eric Kessler, General Manager, Amazon Braket, at AWS.
Built on Proof
QuEra ushered in the era of quantum error correction in 2023 and has continued to advance fault tolerance since. Because fault tolerance is a prerequisite for commercially useful quantum computing, QuEra has focused on getting there. Every building block of the Libra architecture has been validated in peer-reviewed research.
Teams at QuEra and at the labs of QuEra’s scientific founders at Harvard and MIT have published eight peer-reviewed papers in Nature and Physical Review Letters demonstrating the foundational capabilities behind the system, including:
In the run-up to 2028, QuEra continues to stand up successive generations of fault-tolerant systems in-house, each more capable than the last, to perfect the design, accelerate the roadmap, and give strategic partners hands-on access to working fault-tolerant environments ahead of broader release.
About QuEra Computing
QuEra is putting quantum to work. As the scientific and commercial leader in neutral-atom quantum computing, we help enterprise innovators leverage quantum to gain competitive advantage, support HPC centers as their users tackle classically intractable problems, and enable government programs to build national and sovereign capabilities. We do this by combining our quantum systems, available on-premises and via the cloud, with application co-design and collaborative research. Born at Harvard and MIT and still advancing together, QuEra builds neutral-atom systems on a public, peer-reviewed path to fault tolerance, and operates globally from Boston, New Mexico, Tokyo, and the United Kingdom. As quantum computing moves from “one day” to “Day One,” QuEra delivers practical impact today while leading the path toward large-scale, fault-tolerant systems. See what’s possible at www.quera.com.
Source: QuEra
The post QuEra Announces 2028 Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computer and Expanded AWS Partnership appeared first on HPCwire.
Marius Borg Høiby found guilty of two counts of rape, one count of domestic violence and other crimes
Marius Borg Høiby, the son of Norway’s crown princess, has been sentenced to four years in prison after being found guilty of several offences including two counts of rape.
The verdict was handed down by the Oslo district court on Monday morning in a courthouse packed with journalists, nearly three months after Høiby’s closely watched six-week trial.
Continue reading...U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer hopes to have a ban on kids using social media that is "designed to be addictive" enacted by early next year.
BOULDER, Colo. and LONDON, June 15, 2026 — Atom Computing and quantum algorithms company Phasecraft today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to explore how application-focused algorithms can be used to benchmark progress toward utility-scale quantum computers.
Through this MOU, the companies will collaborate on accelerating the delivery and adoption of quantum solutions in key application areas, such as the development of materials for batteries and photovoltaics. Through adapting Phasecraft’s advanced algorithms and software to Atom Computing’s neutral-atom quantum computing hardware, the collaboration aims to accelerate the path towards useful applications in materials science and energy.
Atom Computing continues to lead the quantum computing industry through its pioneering work in neutral-atom quantum technology. The company recently demonstrated a breakthrough in quantum error correction using toric code and announced a $100 million Letter of Intent with the U.S. Department of Commerce. Atom Computing is also deploying the world’s first commercial quantum computer with logical qubits and performing in Stage B of DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI), where it is demonstrating its pathway to utility-scale quantum computing.
Phasecraft is the leading UK and US-based quantum algorithms company, developing advanced quantum algorithms to solve real-world problems in materials discovery, chemistry, and optimization. Its focus is on making quantum computing practical today by designing software that works with existing imperfect hardware, bridging the gap between current technology and future large-scale quantum systems.
“Unlocking the true commercial potential of quantum computing requires a tight synergy between breakthrough hardware and hardware-optimized software,” said Dr. Ben Bloom, CEO and Founder of Atom Computing. “By fine-tuning Phasecraft’s industry-leading algorithmic methods to our neutral-atom architecture, we can pave the way for a new generation of commercial applications in materials science and sustainable technology.”
“We are excited to collaborate with Atom Computing to advance quantum applications in material science,” said Prof. Ashley Montanaro, CEO and Co-Founder of Phasecraft. “Real-world quantum utility will come from combining advances in hardware with equally powerful advances in algorithms. By bringing together Atom’s scalable quantum computing platform and our hardware-adaptive algorithms, we can accelerate progress towards applications in energy storage, solar technology, and advanced materials.”
By aligning cutting-edge neutral-atom quantum computers with purpose-built quantum software, this collaboration represents a decisive step toward realizing quantum advantage in critical industries and accelerating innovation across the global energy and materials landscape.
About Atom Computing
Atom Computing is developing large-scale quantum computers to enable companies and researchers to achieve unprecedented computational breakthroughs. Utilizing highly scalable arrays of optically trapped neutral atoms, the company has developed systems with over 1,200 qubits, featuring advanced capabilities towards fault-tolerant quantum computing. Atom Computing’s on-premises systems provide customers with new computational tools and logical qubit capabilities to address increasingly complex applications and to grow their quantum ecosystem. In 2025 Atom Computing sold its first commercial on-premises quantum computer to QuNorth, a Nordic quantum initiative funded by EIFO and Novo Nordisk Foundation. Learn more at atom-computing.com.
About Phasecraft
Phasecraft is the quantum algorithms company whose mission is to accelerate the practical application of quantum computing by redesigning quantum algorithms for the imperfect quantum computers of today. Phasecraft was founded in 2019 by Toby Cubitt, Ashley Montanaro, and John Morton, expert quantum scientists who have spent decades leading top research teams at UCL and the University of Bristol. Phasecraft works in partnership with leading quantum hardware companies, including Google, IBM, Quantinuum, and QuEra, academic and industry leaders, to develop high-efficiency algorithms to move quantum computing from experimental demonstrations to useful applications. Learn more: www.phasecraft.io.
Source: Atom Computing
The post Atom Computing and Phasecraft Partner to Advance Utility-Scale Quantum Applications appeared first on HPCwire.
generally we just assume any competition is better than FM but there actually isn't really any data on the Pint-S series motor (that FM video doesn't count)
For reference I have a Pint X-V, so still would need to do some work for cable conversion, and potentially axle block conversion? I'm familiar with DIY this isn't a big deal.
I think the $150 makes this easy, but I can't help but then be lured towards the SF 5" and buying another tire
but then again the 6" is 6.5 wide so maybe I would need to anyway
This is all with stock Pint X battery (15s1p), not sure how the SF handles that
Please don't suggest an MTE, I understand the perks but my current motor has some stator damage, which I would like to remedy
June 15, 2026 — Europe is preparing for the next frontier of computing with the launch of the Strategy for Post Exascale (SPE) project. Coordinated by Inria, SPE brings together 23 leading organizations to build a dynamic European vision for the convergence of HighPerformance Computing (HPC), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Quantum Computing Systems (QCS) from 2026 to 2029, strengthening and paving the way for Europe’s leadership in the post-Exascale era. The project started in April 2026 and officially launched on June 10 during its kick-off meeting at the Campus Cyber, in Paris La Défense.
SPE kick-off meeting at the Campus Cyber, in Paris on June 10, 2026.
SPE Lays the Foundations for a European Strategy to Shape the Future of Post-Exascale Computing
The post-Exascale transition is a major technological and strategic challenge for Europe. In a new era driven by AI disruptions, future computing systems are at the heart of the EU’s sovereignty, digital and industrial leadership. These systems will need to combine unprecedented performance with energy efficiency, software sustainability, industrial relevance, scientific excellence, sovereignty and advanced skills. SPE will address this challenge by identifying research and innovation gaps, emerging needs, disruptive technologies and new players across applications, algorithms, software environments, hardware technologies and systems.
The project aims to deliver an agile and continuously updated European roadmap for postExascale computing. It will be supported by a Policy Paper Factory, producing targeted policy notes, and by a Community of Practice gathering experts from academia, research infrastructures, industry, civil society and European organizations, including AI Factories and Giga-Factories. Through workshops, cartography work, challenge-based initiatives, user forums and world cafés, SPE will stimulate cross-domain collaboration and identify opportunities for disruptive innovation. SPE initial vision will be delivered by September 2026, followed by roadmap updates, policy papers and community activities.
A Roadmap Built with and for the European Community
SPE is about helping Europe anticipate rather than react. It will enable Europe to master the convergence of HPC, AI and Quantum, while ensuring that future technologies serve science, industry and society,” said Jean-Yves Berthou, SPE project coordinator and Inria Deputy CEO. “SPE will provide a collective framework to align strategic priorities, mobilize new communities and position Europe as a key contributor to global post-Exascale discussions. We invite researchers, industry leaders, innovators, policymakers and emerging stakeholders to join the Community of Practice and help shape Europe’s vision for the post-Exascale era.”
Through the International post-Exascale (InPEx.science) initiative and collaborations with major European and worldwide organizations and events, SPE will ensure European priorities both shape and benefit from global discussions on the future of advanced computing.
About Strategy for Post Exascale
SPE is a Horizon Europe-funded project launched on April 1, 2026 and will run for three years with a European Union contribution of €2.5 million. Coordinated by Inria, the French National Institut for Digital Science and Technology, the SPE consortium gathers 23 leading European organizations representing the fields of HPC, AI and QCS: the DAIRO/BDVA, ETP4HPC, QuIC, University of Bordeaux, GENCI, CEA, SiPearl, Neovia Innovation, Fraunhofer, ParTec, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Technical University of Munich, BSC, CSC, GRNET, ICSC, CINECA, INFN, and University of Turin, PCSS, CERN, and the University of Edinburgh. Together, these industrial alliances, research organizations, universities, supercomputing centers and technology companies from across Europe will work with European and international initiatives to support policy, funding and strategic decisionmaking for the post-Exascale era.
Source: SPE
The post Strategy for Post Exascale Initiative Unites 23 Organizations Around European Computing Roadmap appeared first on HPCwire.
America's Block Party will celebrate the nation's 250th birthday this Fourth of July with a benefit concert in Los Angeles and events in local communities around the country.
Move is part of broad effort to open public lands to industry and other uses, threatening wildlife and ecosystems
The Trump administration is executing a controversial plan to allow dirt bikes, ATVs, trucks, snowmobiles and other off-road vehicles to drive through tens of millions of acres of public lands and national parks, which environmental groups warn threatens endangered species and the environment.
The plan’s opponents say the impacts will be wide-ranging and that the vehicles will likely destroy sensitive habitats, harm waterways, drive large predators like grizzly bears into contact with humans, and otherwise damage pristine public lands and parks.
Continue reading...How far can you get, application development-wise, by using only the original APIs from Windows 1.0, and only whatever came included by default with Windows 1.0?
I finally decided to write an application for the very first version of Windows and see how different the modern WinAPI really is from its earliest versions. Windows 1.0 came out back in the mid-1980s – the era of 16-bit processors, MS-DOS, and cooperative multitasking. At first glance, you might think it has almost nothing in common with modern Windows, but when you look specifically at the application API, that’s where things get interesting.
I wanted to see how far it would be possible to go using only the capabilities of the first version of Windows. I didn’t want to just make a minimal example with a window and a menu, but a small, complete application with graphics, keyboard input, timers, and constant redrawing. For this experiment, I chose Xonix – a simple yet surprisingly addictive game.
↫ Stanislav Safronov
It turns out that surprisingly, despite the 40 years and massive changes since Windows 1.0, there’s still a lot that feels recognisable. It’s also remarkable that the code Safronov ended up with ran on every version of Windows from 1.0 to 10, but sine it’s a 16 bit application it no longer works on Windows 11. It also had a hiccup on Windows 95, but he suspects that’s an issue in the 16 bit subsystem in Windows 95, and not in his code.
The code’s available on GitHub.
Looking to purchase a Onewheel XRC or GT. I'm new to Onewheels and am on the fence about buying a used GT local in my area. Only has 17 miles on it and comes with lots accessories for $1800. Owner says he's selling because it's not a hobby for him. Any worries about buying used even if it's hardly used? Just looking for peace of mind. Any input is appreciated. Thank you.
Federal Reserve to make first decision under Kevin Warsh as Middle East hopes ease inflation pressures
Central banks in the US and UK are expected to leave interest rates on hold this week as the peace deal in the Middle East is predicted to ease inflationary pressures.
The US Federal Reserve is expected to hold its benchmark interest rate at a range of 3.5% to 3.75% on Thursday, in what will be the first policy decision under the new Fed chair – and Donald Trump’s pick – Kevin Warsh.
Continue reading...Some world leaders hailed the deal, but many in the Middle East were cautious, saying important details remain to be settled and warning the accord could easily fall apart.
Daphy Michel, a vulnerable asylum seeker from Haiti, died at Pittsburgh bus shelter days after leaving federal custody
A medical examiner has ruled the death of a Haitian asylum seeker in Pennsylvania after being released from federal custody a homicide.
Meanwhile, an attorney representing her family said he expects her relatives to sue Immigration and Customs Enforcement in connection with her death, though a spokesperson maintained in an email that the agency had “NOTHING to do with this woman’s death”.
Continue reading...Trump says strait of Hormuz to reopen as part of imminent agreement. Plus, best pictures from historic NBA night for New York
Good morning.
The US and Iran have announced a framework peace deal, expected to be signed later this week, that would bring their 15-week conflict to a tentative end, offering hope of relief for the Middle East and the world economy.
What do we know about the deal? Leaked drafts suggest an immediate 60-day period of intensive technical talks, during which the most contentious issues, including Iran’s nuclear program, will be discussed. Iran’s deputy foreign minister said negotiators would seek to reach a broader agreement including sanctions relief.
What has been the reaction in Iran? The Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, reports anger among the country’s hardliners, who say the proposed deal does not guarantee an end to sanctions, compensation or control of the strait of Hormuz.
And in Israel? Israel’s defense minister has said its forces “will remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza – indefinitely – to defend the border and Israeli communities against jihadist elements”. Israel was frozen out of talks, despite having jointly launched the assault on Iran with the US.
Will he have Trump’s blessing? “I have no doubt that the president of the US is going to be very supportive of anything that I ultimately decide to do,” Vance said. “I never bring it up. But sure, the president brings it up a lot, sometimes publicly, sometimes privately. You know, the president’s a political animal. He loves this stuff. He’s very fascinated by it.”
Continue reading...Judges overturn decision of high court that government proscription of group under Terrorism Act was wrong
The home secretary’s decision to ban Palestine Action was lawful, the court of appeal has ruled.
A five-strong panel, including the two most senior judges in England and Wales, overturned February’s decision of the high court that the proscription of the direct action group, the first to be banned under the Terrorism Act, was wrong.
Continue reading...Visitors say arbitrary and changing rules prevent visitation and cause stress to families and their detained loved ones
In January, Gabriela Soto’s husband was detained in Delaney Hall, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Newark, New Jersey. She has been “very stressed” in the months since, comforting her heartbroken children and spending thousands of dollars on asylum-related legal cases. She has regularly visited her husband on weekends at the facility. She is one of hundreds of visitors lining up every week to see loved ones.
But Delaney Hall has rejected her visits time and time again over supposed dress code violations. More than 10 times, Soto said, she has been told that either she or her children could not visit because of what they were wearing.
Continue reading...President Trump's investment accounts traded between $212 million and $695 million in stocks and other securities in the first three months of the year — an unprecedented sum for a sitting president.
In videos of the accident circulating online, two men launch the woman off Skeleton Bridge, while onlookers realize there is no safety mechanism attached.
Microplastics are showing up everywhere, including in the kitchen tools most people never think twice about.
View the companies and sectors the president's investment accounts bought and sold.
The list of government AI use cases has ballooned by 70% since Biden left office and includes many plans to hand over sensitive governmental functions to AI
On 14 April, the Trump administration quietly acknowledged the widespread use of AI to automate government processes. The office of management and budget (OMB) disclosed a staggering 3,611 active or planned use cases for AI across the federal government. The list has ballooned by 70% from the one published in the final year of the Biden administration, and includes many disturbing-seeming plans to hand over sensitive governmental functions to AI.
Scanning this list, many readers may find many causes for alarm. It represents a transfer of decision processes from human to machine on a massive scale over matters of individual freedom, public health and wellbeing, nuclear reactor safety and more.
Nathan E Sanders is a data scientist affiliated with the Berkman Klein Center of Harvard University and co-author, with Bruce Schneier, of the book Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship. Bruce Schneier is a security technologist who teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University and University of Toronto’s Munk School
Continue reading...Commentary: The phone's eighth year of software support isn't just a kindness. More people all over the world are using older iPhone models.
There are many smart rings on the market, but none come close to this one.
Pedro Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, charged and predecessor José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero investigated over offences including influence peddling
Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, is facing one of the longest and most difficult weeks of his premiership as his wife and his fellow socialist predecessor prepare to appear before judges investigating them for alleged influence peddling and other offences.
Sánchez, who came to power in 2018 by promising to end the corruption that had mired the ruling conservative People’s party (PP), has found his family, his party and his administration engulfed by a series of scandals.
Continue reading...The UFC hosted a fight series on the White House South Lawn Sunday night.
The U.K. prohibition is set to go further than those of other governments that are lining up against platforms engineered to maximize the time children spend on them
UNESCO, the U.N.’s world heritage agency, condemned the attack, which damaged the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery. Russia said it bombed military targets.
Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House's World Cup task force and the son of former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, said he stood by the U.S.'s decision to reject Omar Artan.
Futurism reports: in a new essay for The Chronicle Higher Education, university-level literature and writing instructor Tyler Jagt recalls how not a single one of his students could get through an assigned 20-page article, something that he had read "without complaint" as an undergraduate a decade ago. One student confessed that the reason they didn't finish was that they kept losing track of what the paper was about. And there's no doubt that they're not alone. Jagt cites the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress reading assessment results released last year. It showed that 12th grade reading scores were at the lowest level since the assessment began in 1992. Nearly a third of those 12th graders scored below the assessment's "basic" level in reading, meaning they likely "cannot draw general conclusions based on concepts presented explicitly in a text." Younger children aren't better off: a recent report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that 70 percent of fourth graders, or around two million kids, can't read at a proficient level. "What I am seeing in my classroom is no longer a hunch," Jagt writes. "There is a measurable, generational collapse in sustained reading and writing, and the academy is responding to it with improvisation and exhaustion rather than the structural overhaul it requires...." Jagt cites an MIT study that found users who used ChatGPT during cognitive tasks like writing essays showed lower brain activity in areas associated with creativity compared to students who only used a traditional Google Search or didn't lookup information at all. An astonishing 83 percent of the AI users couldn't quote a single line from the essays they had just written, and capstoning the alarm, the brain activity in the AI users didn't return to normal when they were later asked to write without AI... On our pernicious pocket devices, Jagt touted a 2017 study that found that simply having a smartphone physically nearby — even if it's face down or turned off — reduced available cognitive capacity and impaired cognitive functioning. "So when a student tells me they 'kept losing track' of a 20-page article, I have to acknowledge that they may be describing a measurable neurological condition," Jagt wrote. "The neural pathways that support sustained attention are built by use, and they atrophy without it. Your body is a use-it-or-lose-it system, and the brain is no exception." Sunday an "Ask Reddit" question went viral — drawing over 11,000 upvotes — for its question to any teachers reading Reddit. "Is the 'Gen Alpha can't read (write, or do math ext)' crisis real? If so how bad is it?" Some responses... "The run of the mill non-honors kids have gotten really bad," posted one high school teacher. "Very low tolerance for working hard, very short attention span, very short stamina for active listening... It's the group that is the most worrying because a decade ago, I'd estimate that maybe 10-20% of kids at a school are like this, and now it's probably 40-50% of each graduating class... Then there's of course the bottom 10-20% kids (excluding the special ed/severe/moderate learning disability kids). This is what the viral videos are about and it's not an exaggeration. They can't read, write, or do very basic math like multiplication or division as a 17 year old." "This is the first year the MAJORITY of my class cheated on their first essays...." posted one high school English teacher. "It was also the first year a kid yelled 'We don't care about your fucking books, Miss!' while I was in front of the class presenting books they might be interested in for their book reviews... Almost all of them cheated on the book review they had to write." Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
With matches being played in 11 cities across the U.S., Mexico and Canada, fans are getting three World Cup opening ceremonies.
Russia fired a barrage of missiles at several major Ukrainian cities, killing at least 11 people and sparking a blaze at one of the most important Orthodox monasteries.
Police released an image of the venomous scorpions, which appear to be individually wrapped in plastic.
The actor starts chant after president said he doesn’t ‘think about Americans’ financial situation, not even a little bit’
Robert De Niro has renewed his attack on Donald Trump at an event in New York on Sunday. Speaking at Rise Up, Sing Out: A Concert for the first amendment, the actor led the crowd in a repeated cry of “shut the fuck up!” in response to assorted remarks and policies of the current president.
“I’m pretty close to being a free speech absolutist,” said De Niro, “even speech I don’t like, and there’s plenty of that around. So when I hear something I don’t like, I use my own free speech to respond.
Continue reading...Finding a new TV that doesn't beg you to connect to the internet is a challenge. But even if you find one, there are good reasons to stick with a smart TV and go with a workaround instead. Here's why.
In a major shift caused by AI-induced memory and storage shortages, building your own PC is now more expensive than buying from an OEM or boutique builder.
Meta, YouTube and Snapchat say ban, which would stop children using their platforms, will drive them to ‘less safe services’
Britain’s plans to ban social media for under-16s will push teenagers towards more harmful platforms, the world’s biggest technology companies have said as ministers push to enact the new restrictions by next spring.
Meta, YouTube and Snapchat have all criticised the ban, which was announced by Keir Starmer on Monday and would stop younger teenagers from using their services.
Continue reading...RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Danny Beard to step into Lily Savage’s heels in Jonathan Harvey’s play
Few showbusiness careers begin in a towering blond beehive in the gay pubs of Vauxhall and end with MPs pausing prime minister’s questions to pay tribute.
But a new play inspired by the life of Paul O’Grady will chart the beginning of that unlikely journey from care worker to Lily Savage, with her dextrous use of expletives, to national treasure presenting heartwarming teatime TV shows about rescue dogs with Queen Camilla.
Continue reading...Bart and co’s latest video game venture involved the show’s writers, animators and voice talent – plus a showdown between the two infamous tycoons. ‘It’s a true little Simpsons episode,’ say creators
Every generation gets its own Simpsons game. Them’s the rule-diddly-ules. For some, it was the arcade cabinets that swallowed pocket money throughout the 1990s. For others, it was The Simpsons: Cartoon Studio. For millennials like myself, it was The Simpsons: Hit & Run. Joe Zanetti, vice-president of operations at Monopoly Go! developer Scopely, traces his Simpsons gaming nostalgia back to Konami’s 1991 brawler, The Simpsons Arcade Game. “That’s the one that made such an impression on me,” he says.
It certainly did, because Springfield has just crash-landed in Monopoly Go! itself through a collaboration involving Simpsons writers, animators and voice talent alongside a new animated short starring Dan Castellaneta, Nancy Cartwright, Harry Shearer and Will Ferrell. While most licensed TV games have faded into obscurity, The Simpsons keeps finding new digital lives.
Continue reading...The sordid UFC event represents his own efforts to symbolically fuse the federal government with his person, to insist that he is America and is the state
Hitler dreamed of a 1,000-year Reich; Putin is said to have baroque dreams of territorial conquest meant to restore a dubiously historical empire he calls “Greater Russia”. Sure, there are people around Donald Trump who imagine using his rise to power to establish some sort of grand, civilizational project: there are the white nationalists who dream of a country purged of those they deem racially impure; there are the Christian nationalists who imagine a future theocracy in which women wear long braids and skirts, and don’t vote; there are the techno-reactionaries who imagine a future of interplanetary colonies, techno-assisted eugenics, and polygamous harems.
But Trump himself is conspicuously small in his dreams: his are comparatively little ambitions, not extending far beyond the reach of his ego and his senses.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
Continue reading...
Why Should Delaware Care?
Spotlight Delaware’s Breaking Bread Tour, launched this year, gives residents a chance to speak directly about issues affecting their communities. By bringing neighbors together around the same table, the discussion is meant to allow residents to highlight concerns that might not always appear in local government meetings or policy debates.
Nearly two dozen residents gathered in a Dover community center last Tuesday, dining on pasta and garlic knots while discussing what they felt were the city’s most pressing issues.
Their conversations spanned a variety of both local and national issues, such as homelessness, gentrification, and the criminal justice system. Some also spoke about the importance of individuals connecting with their community.
The event, hosted by Spotlight Delaware as the final session of its “Breaking Bread” tour, took place at the Inner City Cultural League in Dover, less than a mile away from Legislative Hall.
Homelessness has become a controversial topic across the state in recent months. In Dover, city leaders have attempted to push forward proposals meant to ban panhandling within the city. They also have targeted the People’s Church Community Center, a homeless shelter that had requested $47,000 in city funds to be spent on workforce development programs at the shelter.
During last week’s dinner, some residents questioned how the city is actually helping its homeless population. One resident described her concerns that wages remain at the same rate despite the rising cost of rent, electricity, and other utilities.
Another said they do not believe other Delawareans are “making the connection” between homelessness and an inability to afford rent prices.
One table attempted to focus on solutions, speaking about ways to improve Dover without displacing people. They spoke about initiatives like empowering people by providing jobs and new youth initiatives for those experiencing homelessness.
Another table spoke about wanting to feel more connected as a community. Despite living in Delaware’s capital, some said most connections and events are held in Wilmington – the state’s largest city.
In response to those concerns, one resident said those living in Dover must find events like Breaking Bread and stay in touch afterward to build their own community.
Separately, another table spoke about criminal justice issues in the state. A few individuals spoke about charge stacking, which occurs when law enforcement agencies file multiple charges against a person stemming from a single incident.
Participants ultimately tied charge stacking back to homelessness, stating that the practice can prevent individuals from obtaining a job with their criminal record, thus preventing them from supporting their families.
One resident called the connection between charge stacking and homelessness a “never-ending cycle.”
The post Dover residents talk homelessness, creating community at Spotlight Delaware event appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
In a career spanning five decades, journalist was best known for ITV current affairs programme The Cook Report
The investigative journalist Roger Cook, best known for the current affairs programme The Cook Report, has died aged 83, his family has said.
Cook was born in New Zealand and grew up in Australia where he began his broadcasting career before moving to the UK in 1968. His distinctive style of investigative journalism, based on confronting and exposing criminals and conmen, began in the form of the BBC Radio 4 show Checkpoint, which he created in the 1970s.
Continue reading...Restrictions in the UK will go even further than those in place in Australia, preventing under-17s from accessing livestreams and chatting with strangers. Under-18s are also banned from using romantic companion AI chatbots.
Europe after Nord Stream: the limits of energy security 23 June 2026 — 12:00 TO 13:00 BST Anonymous (not verified) Chatham House and Online
As the debate continues in Brussels over how to defend infrastructure and strengthen energy independence, hear from experts on how Europe is facing up to this ongoing risk.
As the debate continues in Brussels over how to defend infrastructure and strengthen energy independence, hear from experts on how Europe is facing up to this ongoing risk.The sabotage of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline in 2022 exposed vulnerabilities in Europe’s energy system and wider infrastructure. It also highlighted risks linked to Russia’s grey-zone warfare and the vulnerability of undersea networks. It has driven efforts to strengthen resilience and raised urgent questions about Europe’s readiness to deter and respond to future threats.
This session discusses:
If Democrats won’t ensure accountability, Americans should look to the example of Argentina’s escraches
Recently Greg Bovino, infamous former Border Patrol commander, served as a star attraction at a “remigration summit” in Portugal; there he took selfies with Austrian activist Martin Sellner, one of Europe’s most notorious rightwing extremists, and told him: “We’ve never talked before – face to face, that is – until yesterday, and we were on the same sheet of music almost immediately.”
Meanwhile, Tina Peters, the disgraced former elections clerk whose sentence was commuted by Colorado governor Jared Polis, pontificates on Steve Bannon’s show about how Democrats will cheat in the midterms. It is rare that those out of government service show contrition, but it is also rare that they immediately monetize past cruelty and present-day conspiracy theories. Presumably it is only a matter of time before the men who killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti get to cash in with podcasts for Maga world.
Jan-Werner Müller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University
Continue reading...Self-deprecating jokes and mental health advocacy have gone viral, and his political commentary is proving popular
It’s been quite the journey for Hunter Biden. In the space of a few weeks, the former first son has gone from a man seen as a political liability to an unlikely galvanizing force within the Democratic party, through his emergence on social media as a mental health advocate, razzer of Republicans, and working-class whisperer.
In the process Biden has switched from the GOP’s bete noire to, actually, someone that a fair number of Republican voters seem to like.
Continue reading...Despite reports of Anthony Odiong preying on female congregants, the Catholic church extended his term
Catholic clergy leaders wanted to add nearly a decade to a priest’s temporary role as pastor at a suburban New Orleans church despite knowing several women had accused him of sexual misconduct or unwanted advances while ministering to them, the Guardian can report.
But Anthony Odiong did not make it to the end of an extension that was supposed to last until 2027. A jury in Waco, Texas, another community where Odiong worked, convicted him of criminal clergy sexual assault of two women, leading him to a sentence of life imprisonment in early June.
Continue reading...Church officials had extended the temporary term of Anthony Odiong, recently convicted of sexual assault, even after women came forward with allegations of abuse
Internal Catholic church files obtained by the Guardian reveal that clergy leaders wanted to quadruple what was supposed to be a temporary, three-year role as pastor at a suburban New Orleans church for a priest who had nearly a half-dozen women accusing him of sexual misconduct or unwanted advances while ministering to them.
Anthony Odiong was supposed to be at the St Anthony of Padua church in Luling, Louisiana, from 2015 to 2018 when – toward the end of that time frame – his supervisors extended his stint by three years despite a series of misconduct complaints, including one that ultimately sent him to prison for life in June.
Continue reading...Your thirsty pets deserve high-quality, moving water. I tested these cat fountains to find the smartest top performers.
The process to renew Daca immigration status used to take a few weeks – now it drags on for months
It’s been six months since Claudia first applied to renew her US immigration status – a process that, for the last 14 years, would only take a few weeks.
But now, the prolonged delay has put her life on hold. Claudia, who moved to the US when she was four, has maintained legal status as a “Dreamer” with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, which was created in 2012 to protect undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children from deportation.
Continue reading...Amanda Feindt sat in the fourth row during the Senate confirmation hearing of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. A U.S. Army major and former whistleblower who had submitted a letter supporting his nomination, Feindt listened as Hegseth spoke about troop readiness, military lethality, and protecting military families. Service members and veteran advocates around her wore shirts and hats bearing his name.
While Feindt sat in the Senate chamber, her 4-year-old son was in the military’s care, spending the day at the North Post Child Development Center at Fort Belvoir, in nearby Virginia. There, according to records reviewed by The Intercept, he was subjected to treatment that would leave lasting psychological effects.
It took a year for Feindt and her husband to figure out what it was.
In a series of interviews with The Intercept, Feindt described a grueling pattern of obfuscation in which military officials refused to answer questions about her child’s treatment, directed her to file public records requests, and claimed not to have the attendant evidence — then produced it months later. Military experts characterized these delays as part of a pattern in which the institution seeks to slow-walk and minimize findings of child abuse or mistreatment to decrease reputational damage. Over a year of persistent requests, Feindt and her husband finally pieced together a picture of their child’s treatment during at least two instances that January: The day of the hearing, when staff mocked and harassed the 4-year-old, and a few days earlier, when surveillance video showed them stepping on his feet and pinning his legs under a table. Local authorities later classified the treatment as child abuse.
“My son barely has the words to describe what happened to him,” Feindt told The Intercept. “You can see it in the video — they’re screaming while the abuse is taking place.”
Three other military families whose children suffered maltreatment in U.S. Army facilities described similar roadblocks. Parents who sought surveillance footage in other abuse investigations described receiving heavily redacted videos, incomplete clips, or footage with audio removed.
“This is a standard tactic in administrative cases,” said Ryan Sweazey, a retired Air Force officer and former inspector general. “They tell you the investigation is done, and if you want to challenge it, you have to file a FOIA request. The report then comes back heavily redacted months or years later.”
That’s what happened to the Feindt family: Army officials allowed them to review only a limited portion of the footage and would not provide copies of the video. While they watched, Feindt and her husband recorded audio and later described the scenes in a memorandum to Defense Department officials, both of which they shared with The Intercept. When the family sought additional footage and records, Feindt said officials directed them to file a Freedom of Information Act request before saying the remaining footage had been deleted after review.
According to Feindt’s memorandum, three staff members watched the teacher pin the 4-year-old’s legs and mock him without intervening. The footage then shows the teacher yanking the child upward by his clothing, grabbing him by the wrists, and pushing him out of camera view, Feindt and her husband write. In the audio the family shared with The Intercept, a child Feindt identified as her son can be heard screaming for the teacher to stop.
Accusations of child abuse in the Army are handled through a quasi-judicial body known as the Incident Determination Committee, or IDC, which operates without many of the safeguards found in civilian courts. These panels can include social workers involved in the underlying case, members of the chain of command, or personnel with limited subject-matter expertise. The committee applies a “preponderance of information” standard that experts say can produce conclusions at odds with civilian investigators reviewing the same evidence.
Once the committee reaches a determination, parents are typically not allowed to review how the decision was made. Proceedings occur behind closed doors, with no transcript, evidentiary record, or opportunity for cross-examination available to families or attorneys.
“It’s one entity acting as judge, jury and executioner. There is no real due process, and there are almost no checks and balances,” said Sweazey.
The Feindt family was left unsure why their IDC did not substantiate abuse claims despite medical concerns and video evidence reviewed by investigators. Feindt tried to attend the committee’s hearing, but her request was denied. Afterward, she sought additional CCTV footage from the daycare, but Fort Belvoir officials told her the case was closed and she would have to file a FOIA request.
The system overseeing military child care centers is so fragmented that even grieving parents struggle to determine who is responsible when something goes wrong, said Jason Degenhard, a retired Army master sergeant who served in special operations. In 2012, Degenhard’s 4-month-old son was in the care of the child development center on Pope Air Force Base (which today is part of Army base Fort Bragg) when a caregiver placed him on his stomach for tummy time, propped him against a rolled blanket, and left the room, as reported by WRAL News in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The infant’s muscles were not developed enough to support his weight, and he suffocated, causing catastrophic brain damage. The baby, named Sonny, was removed from life support days later.
“If you are a new parent trying to figure out how these centers are doing, you really do not have anything to go off of,” Degenhard said. In his telling, his chain of command supported the family immediately after Sonny’s death, but he remained troubled by what he described as limited institutional accountability afterward. Although the center was located on Pope Air Force Base, it operated under Army garrison authority, and Degenhard said the overlapping bureaucracies often left the family unsure who had the authority to provide answers or accept responsibility.
After federal prosecutors declined to pursue criminal charges, the Degenhards settled a wrongful death lawsuit against the federal government. Their emotional distress claims were dismissed.
“The heartbreak goes beyond the personal,” said Degenhard, who is still suffering from grief 14 years later. “The professional heartbreak is the lack of accountability, the lack of communication, and the lack of supervision.”
Feindt’s son became fearful and mistrustful of adults, regressed in potty training, and developed nightmares after Hegseth’s January 2025 confirmation, she told The Intercept. The family transferred him to another daycare, where Feindt said he struggled to adjust and accumulated roughly 20 behavioral incident reports in his first month, prompting administrators to bring in trauma specialists for support. His doctors said his symptoms resembled post-traumatic stress.
Army internal documents and communications acknowledged that supervisors watched her son being mistreated but did not intervene; no mandatory reporters documented the incident; and the parents were never notified. The conduct aligns with the Defense Department’s criteria for emotional maltreatment of a minor, but the Army IDC refused to classify the child’s treatment as abuse.
“For 15 months, the military told us this didn’t meet criteria,” Feindt said. “They made our lives a living hell.”
More than a year after the incident, in March 2026, Fairfax County Child Protective Services substantiated the case as child abuse and neglect, according to information provided to the family and confirmed by The Intercept. The finding will remain on the caregiver’s record for seven years.
On May 1, Fort Belvoir Child and Youth Services sent a letter to parents acknowledging a “founded disposition of a child abuse allegation,” stating that one caregiver had been removed from the facility and another was in the process of being terminated.
Records reviewed by The Intercept indicate the conduct at the childcare center extended beyond a single confrontation involving Feindt’s son.
Investigative materials obtained through FOIA describe repeated incidents in which caregivers allegedly mocked, threatened, and harassed children inside the classroom. Investigator notes reviewed by The Intercept describe a caregiver tugging a child’s hair, lifting a child by the back of their shirt, roughly repositioning children during classroom activities, and swinging a broom at a child.
In November 2021, when Pete Hegseth was a co-host on “Fox & Friends Weekend” and Amanda Feindt was an Army major, a storage tank maintained by the U.S. military began leaking jet fuel into the drinking water supply at Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam in Oahu, Hawaii. In what became known as the Red Hill incident, for the name of the fuel storage facility, about 20,000 gallons of JP-5 jet fuel contaminated drinking water for roughly 93,000 people, including members of the military and civilians. The Associated Press reported that about 6,000 people were poisoned.
Feindt and her family were among the military households exposed to contaminated drinking water during the Red Hill fuel leak. After developing severe gastrointestinal symptoms, the entire family sought emergency medical care. Her infant son suffered chemical burns after bathing; her husband underwent multiple medical procedures for ongoing complications; and her daughter later developed neurological issues that the family believes stemmed from the exposure. The Feindts were evacuated from their home, shuffled between seven hotels, and relocated across the country twice. Feindt, a former cancer patient, developed enlarged and suspicious cervical lymph nodes.
Feindt became a substantiated whistleblower and lead plaintiff in a lawsuit over the fuel leak, arguing that the contamination had upended her family’s health, finances, military career, and daily life. Hegseth was of the first national reporters to contact her about Red Hill.
“There was a lot of back-and-forth by email,” Feindt said, recalling that Hegseth knew her attorney and would write from his personal Gmail as he followed the case. “He would check in about Red Hill, and we would give updates to him and Fox. He always seemed like he would advocate for us as a reporter.”
“He always seemed like he would advocate for us as a reporter.”
In the four years since Feindt’s exposure at Red Hill, the family has managed more than 700 medical appointments, multiple surgeries, and long hospitalizations. The Army moved the family to Fort Belvoir so Feindt could enter the Soldier Recovery Unit, a program intended to support service members with complex medical issues.
When her son experienced abuse at the Fort Belvoir childcare center, Red Hill came back to haunt her.
Staff members for Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll told Feindt they would not meet with her because of her association with the Red Hill litigation, which she believed had already concluded. (A federal court found the U.S. government liable for poisoning military families through the Red Hill fuel spill, but awarded substantially lower damages than plaintiffs sought.) She escalated the matter beyond Army leadership, going up to Stephen Simmons, deputy assistant secretary of defense for military community and family policy, who acknowledged Feindt’s concerns and indicated he was aware of the situation as it unfolded in messages reviewed by The Intercept.
Simmons referred The Intercept’s request for comment to the Pentagon’s public affairs team, which did not answer detailed questions.
Sweazey, who also runs a nonprofit that supports whistleblowers, said he believes Feindt faced retaliation after pressing the Army for accountability.
“Unfortunately, it appears to be retaliation, and it’s not rare,” Sweazey said. “The moment someone questions the institution, they can become a target.”
Experts say abuse allegations inside military childcare centers often move slowly, with limited transparency and strong institutional pressure to minimize failures.
“Burying cases like these is a matter of control and institutional survival,” said Maj. Gen. Dennis Laich, a retired Army officer and director of the Eisenhower Media Network. “Incidents viewed as leadership failures can damage careers.”
When a toddler named Evie Glick came home injured from the Ford Island childcare center in Honolulu in 2022, staff told her mother that Evie had tripped, fallen, and hit her head. Jennifer Glick, a special agent with the Army Criminal Investigation Division, accepted that explanation at the time.
The following year, Navy Family Advocacy officials informed the family that Evie may have been physically abused at the daycare after another military family, the Kuykendalls, raised concerns uncovered while investigating the abuse of their own daughter, Bella. The Kuykendalls later launched Operation Mei Mei, an advocacy effort pushing for greater transparency and accountability in military childcare centers.
When the Glicks sought details, records, and footage, they said they received few answers.
It wasn’t until nearly three years after Evie’s injury that Glick saw surveillance footage through Operation Mei Mei. She said the videos contradicted the explanation she had originally been given.
“We were lied to. The [daycare] never told us our daughter was abused,” Glick said. “My first question, being in law enforcement myself, was: Where is the investigation?”
“The moment someone questions the institution, they can become a target.”
Glick said the footage showed a caregiver grabbing Evie by the arm, pulling her to the ground, and making her head strike the floor — causing the injury that, years earlier, the family had been told happened when Evie fell. In another clip, Glick said, a provider removed Evie’s shoes and socks and threw them away while the 18-month-old cried and wandered the classroom for 16 minutes.
Glick later filed a FOIA request seeking additional footage. She said the material she eventually received was heavily edited, redacted, and stripped of audio.
“They told me I could only view it with a JAG officer present,” Glick told The Intercept, referring to a judge advocate general, or a military lawyer. “There were three clips, each less than 20 minutes long. It wasn’t the full footage I asked for.”
As Feindt was fighting for recognition of her son’s abuse, and unbeknownst to her, the North Post Child Development Center at Fort Belvoir lost its accreditation.
In July 2025, the facility failed to complete required renewal requirements, including annual reporting and coordination of a site visit, as The Intercept confirmed with the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
The Intercept asked Fort Belvoir this April whether the center had experienced any recent changes to its licensing or accreditation status, including suspension, probation, or revocation. Fort Belvoir Public Affairs responded that the facility’s “current licensing status has not been changed” but did not directly answer questions regarding accreditation or respond to related follow-ups.
“My number one problem is that [Army childcare centers] are not responsible or reportable to the state.”
Unlike civilian daycares, Defense Department child development centers are not licensed by the state where they’re located. Instead, they operate under DoD oversight, but DoD policy requires centers to maintain national accreditation standards.
“My number one problem is that [Army childcare centers] are not responsible or reportable to the state,” said Degenhard, the father whose infant died in Army care. “They follow their own compliance and standards.”
According to a summary circulated among parents following a May 14 Fort Belvoir Parent Advisory Board meeting reviewed by The Intercept, installation officials later acknowledged the center had lost accreditation and recently reapplied. Families had not been informed the facility had operated without accreditation for almost a year.
Families had not been informed the facility had operated without accreditation for almost a year.
Feindt said she first learned of the lapse from a former daycare employee and independently contacted the accrediting organization to verify the information before raising it with installation leadership. The issue was later discussed at the parent meeting, where officials acknowledged the loss of accreditation.
Feindt said she was relieved that the caregiver who abused her child had been fired. “But this is not just about our family,” she said. “It’s a serious indictment of a system that failed to protect military children.”
“Leaders at all levels will be held accountable,” Hegseth announced at the confirmation proceeding Feindt attended in January 2025. “And warfighting and lethality and the readiness of the troops and their families will be our only focus.”
Since taking office, Hegseth has made the military’s killing capability and the restoration of what he calls a “warrior ethos” the defining themes of his tenure. He has ordered the elimination of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs across the Defense Department; repeatedly criticized what he describes as “woke” influences in the military; and personally intervened in a series of culture-war controversies involving military installations and schools. Critics argue those battles have consumed attention that could otherwise be directed toward long-standing quality-of-life issues affecting service members and their families.
Lawmakers like Rep. Jill Tokuda, D-Hawaii, are pushing for greater transparency through measures like the Military Child and Youth Program Abuse and Neglect Notification Act, which would require timely notification to parents and establish more consistent reporting standards across services when allegations of abuse arise. But experts say the military continues to struggle with accountability when abuse allegations emerge inside its own child care system.
“How can anyone be mission ready or focused on lethal force if the military, in my family’s case, literally poisoned my child and now I can’t take them to daycare because they were abused?” Feindt said.
For Glick, her child’s abuse fundamentally changed how she views military service and childcare inside the Defense Department.
“That affects readiness because people will walk away if they don’t feel their children are safe,” she said.
The Pentagon has shown it can respond quickly when controversies involving children attract national political attention. After parents complained and a flurry of right-wing press coverage erupted over a transgender teacher who wore an animal tail and collar at a Fort Bragg elementary school, Hegseth proudly announced the teacher’s firing within weeks.
Feindt said the speed of that response contrasted sharply with her family’s experience.
“It shows they can act quickly when something becomes politically important,” she said. “But when military children are actually being harmed, families are left fighting the system alone.”
More than a year after the incident involving her son, Feindt said she believes meaningful change will only come if military families and senior leaders speak publicly about what they have experienced.
She pointed to a photo Hegseth posted online showing him fist-bumping a child alongside the caption: “This is our why.”
“Well, if that’s the case,” Feindt said, “why aren’t we taking care of our military kids? Why do we have a system that protects itself instead of protecting our children?”
The post An Army Whistleblower Believed in Pete Hegseth — Until the Military Covered Up Her Child’s Abuse appeared first on The Intercept.
Why Should Delaware Care?
Homelessness and its rippling impacts have plagued municipalities across Delaware over the past year, from Wilmington to Georgetown. But a planned Hope Center-like homeless shelter in Kent County could breathe new resources into a region where experts say they are sorely lacking.
Delaware officials have reached an agreement to convert hundreds of Delaware State University dorms into a new homeless shelter modeled after the New Castle County Hope Center.
Gov. Matt Meyer and the Delaware State Housing authority announced last Thursday that the state would officially purchase the dorms, one month after Spotlight Delaware reported about ongoing negotiations over the property.
The Kent County Hope Center will be funded by federal grant money Delaware received last year to expand rural healthcare access. Pending a final contract, the state housing authority will purchase the dorms for more than $11 million, according to a June 11 press release announcing the venture.
“We must provide Delaware’s most vulnerable with safe, stable shelter with dignity, providing real hope for a brighter tomorrow,” Meyer said in the release. “The Kent County Hope Center will provide comprehensive services to address the root causes of those in our community who are most in need.”
The new endeavor would stand up a government-run homeless shelter in a county that advocates say sorely lacks services. It would also follow months of controversy in Delaware’s capital city about how leaders should address a growing homeless population.
The shelter will be located about a mile from Delaware’s second-largest higher education institution, inside a 132,000 square-foot building that currently houses DSU students and a charter high school.
In 2013, DSU purchased a Sheraton hotel on North DuPont Highway for $12 million, later converting it into student housing. The building is now called the “Living and Learning Commons.” It also houses the Delaware State University Early College High School, a charter school offering students the chance to earn a high school diploma and up to 60 hours of college credit.
Delaware State Housing Authority Director Matthew Heckles described the services the new shelter will provide – including fresh food and on-site medical care – as preventative tools to avoid homelessness and assets for the community at-large.
“We want this to not only be about the people who are living there… But we want it to be about making sure the community, more broadly, gets access to a different kind of series of services,” Heckles said during a presentation before the Dover City Council on June 9.
According to Delaware’s most recent homelessness point-in-time count, there are 277 homeless people in Kent County. But Heckles warned that this number is inaccurate, since it only counted people inside shelters.
During the presentation, he said the Hope Center will have 160 rooms, including suites that could accommodate larger families.
The state’s original project timeline put the Kent County Hope Center on track to open this fall, but Heckles told Dover City Council members it would take 12 to 18 months for the center to be “fully functional.”
That timeline change is largely due to the length of the real estate transaction followed by renovations to the building, a housing authority spokesperson told Spotlight Delaware.
The post Delaware officials pick DSU dorms for new Kent County homeless shelter appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
Voters want someone they trust to change the economic deal
Graham Platner’s victory in the Maine Democratic primary, despite controversies that would sink more conventional candidates, shows us that voters are not simply rejecting incumbents. They are responding to candidates – even those with pretty dire baggage – who speak to a widespread belief that the economic system is increasingly rigged in favour of billionaires and large corporations.
In my research with Harvard professor Taeku Lee, based on surveys of more than 36,000 voters across the US, UK, France and Germany, we see a hidden wave of voter opinion that is hostile to big corporations and billionaire influence.
Pepper Culpepper is professor at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and author of Billionaire Backlash: The Age of Corporate Scandal and How It Could Save Democracy
This article was amended on 15 June 2026. An earlier version incorrectly stated Platner is a lobster fisherman; he operates an oyster farming business.
Continue reading...Across computationally intensive domains, from materials science and fluid dynamics to quantitative finance, reducing time-to-insight is now the definitional challenge. While traditional HPC continues to push the boundaries of scale and speed, we are increasingly constrained by a different bottleneck: the human-in-the-loop design-test-refine cycle.
At Google Cloud, our vision is to enable a new generation of computing where scientific and technical computing workloads are not merely accelerated but fundamentally transformed by AI and agentic workflows. We are moving beyond the era of AI as a standalone tool, bringing it directly into the heart of the computational environment.
By integrating agentic systems capable of reasoning, using tools, and making autonomous decisions within a computational environment, we are enabling researchers and engineers to shift their focus. Rather than spending invaluable cycles navigating the manual complexities of scaling and configuring individual simulation runs, teams can now dedicate their energy to solving the most profound challenges in science and industry.
At the foundation of modern scientific breakthroughs is massive computational power. By building supercomputing-class infrastructure designed to fuel the new era of scientific and technical workloads, Google Cloud has created a unified discovery engine that accelerates the research and engineering lifecycle, compressing what might have taken years of work into a matter of days or weeks.
The heart of this integrated ecosystem is Google Cloud’s purpose-built for the most demanding simulations, modeling, and data analysis. And because no single architecture fits every requirement, this comprehensive portfolio offers tailorable performance across diverse use cases:
This supercomputing power serves as the execution layer for a new generation of autonomous intelligence. Sitting seamlessly atop are tools like Google’s Co-Scientist, an autonomous, Gemini-powered virtual collaborator that doesn’t just generate ideas, but acts as the intelligent driver for your HPC environment through an advanced, multi-agent coalition:
Additionally, Google’s AlphaEvolve takes algorithmic optimization a step further by autonomously refining the underlying code. AlphaEvolve is a Gemini-powered evolutionary coding agent that optimizes algorithms by running thousands of candidates against rigorous evaluators—which are themselves complex HPC simulations—to numerically benchmark speed, accuracy, and cost.
AlphaEvolve has already driven breakthroughs across diverse scientific and industrial domains, including life sciences, sustainability, and structural infrastructure. Its role as a transformative engine for automated discovery signals a new era where AI autonomously tunes the computational foundations of modern science and technology.
Both Co-Scientist and AlphaEvolve are currently being tested by customers and we are looking forward to making it more broadly available in the next few months.
We are standing at a pivotal moment of scientific computing. As advanced AI, agentic systems, and high-performance infrastructure converge, we are unlocking a new era of continuous, real-time innovation.
By deploying agentic systems alongside Google Cloud’s purpose-built supercomputing infrastructure, you transition from treating AI as an isolated pre-processing task to running it as a deeply integrated workload. This allows you to test exponentially more conditions and scenarios with greater speed, scale, and accuracy, unlocking breakthroughs that previously took years to solve.
Ready to accelerate your time to breakthrough?
The post Agentic Scientific Discovery and Engineering: Unlocking the Next Era of Supercomputing with Google Cloud appeared first on HPCwire.
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 meetings that are happening this week.
Below are some of the most important or interesting public meetings happening around the state this week.
Beginning on Tuesday, lawmakers will have just seven working days – about two full weeks – left in the 2026 legislative session to consider a bevy of bills with potentially wide-ranging impacts, including electricity costs for Delawareans.
The Senate will consider a bill on Tuesday that could further regulate the state’s largest electricity provider, Delmarva Power, while giving more oversight power to the state’s energy regulator.
Senate Bill 326, sponsored by Sen. Stephanie Hansen (D-Middletown), aims to rein in electricity costs by limiting how much money Delmarva can recoup from ratepayers based on its non-essential infrastructure upgrades. The electric provider often uses the cost of infrastructure as its reason for raising rates on customers.
Hansen’s bill also places more oversight on the utility by the state’s Public Service Commission, including transparency and audit requirements.
📍 The Senate is set convene at 2 p.m. Tuesday, June 16, inside Legislative Hall, located at 411 Legislative Ave. in Dover. For more details, including information about virtual attendance, click here.
The General Assembly will also consider more than 100 bills across nearly two dozen different committees this week. Some of those bills will then be voted on by the full House and Senate, but those agendas have yet to be released.
Some of the most interesting bills set to be considered this week include controversial housing regulations, a proposal to change how Delaware amends its constitution, reforms to the state’s free and discounted healthcare programs, and a bill that would limit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s ability to conduct arrests at certain locations.
📍 The General Assembly is set convene beginning at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday inside Legislative Hall, located at 411 Legislative Ave. in Dover. For more details, including information about virtual attendance, click here and scroll through the “What’s Happening” tab.
The City of Wilmington is scheduled to evict any remaining homeless residents of the Christina Park encampment by sundown Monday, June 15, which has already led some advocates to organize a protest.
Meanwhile, the City Council will discuss how to move forward in addressing the issues during a subcommittee meeting Tuesday night.
Mayor John Carney has been pushing the local legislators to make a choice in whether to pursue a tiny home project in the city, which could provide better shelter while utilizing federal funding, but has drawn local pushback.
The legislators will also discuss the future of a contract with Friendship House, a nonprofit that has worked with the Christina Park encampment to provide services and connect residents to transitional housing.
📍 The Wilmington Homelessness Subcommittee will meet from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 16, at the first floor conference room of the Louis L. Redding City/County Building, located at 800 N. French St. For more details, including information about virtual attendance, click here.
The Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council, an independent group of financial analysts, advisors and business executives who set the state’s official budget forecast, will finalize the Fiscal Year 2027 numbers during a Monday meeting.
DEFAC’s May meeting already gave good news to state legislators who craft Delaware’s annual budgets, adding nearly $200 million to the latest revenue tally with just a few weeks left. Historically, the June update is a comparatively minor adjustment up or down in revenue expectations.
The figures will allow the General Assembly to approve a final budget ahead of their annual June 30 deadline though.
DEFAC has also become the site of controversy in recent months over data related to Delaware’s corporate franchise industry and whether the so-called “DExit” movement is actually harming financial returns.
📍 DEFAC will meet from 1 to 3 p.m. Monday, June 15, at the Buena Vista Conference Center, located at 661 S. DuPont Highway near New Castle For more details, including information about virtual attendance, click here.
A reminder that most state, county and municipal offices across Delaware will be closed on Friday, June 19, in recognition of Juneteenth.
After President Joe Biden made the day – which commemorates when the last slaves in Galveston, Texas learned of their emancipation – a federal holiday in 2021, federal offices will also be closed and there will be no mail service.
The post Get Involved: Assembly ramps up, Christina Park eviction appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
I became a fan of this team to connect with my father. Their NBA championship does not erase the heartbreaks and hurt of the past – it completes the journey
Do you know what you want your last thought to be? I have waited my whole life for mine.
Most people, I imagine, don’t choose theirs. They arrive at the end and find loved ones’ faces gathered around their bed. Their subconscious gifts them the sound of their child’s laugh, or the memory of their wedding day rises from the dark like a lantern, unbidden. The mind, in its final kindness, selects for them. But I decided long ago that I would not leave that to chance. I decided, the way you decide anything important, deliberately and a little defiantly, the way I have decided most things in my life.
Continue reading...
What would you think of me, the ProPublica editor responsible for newsroom standards, if I placed a bet on the baseball game I’m currently listening to on the radio? Probably that I’m doing something plenty of others do, and that my wallet will be lighter in a few innings.
What would you think of me if I stood to make a tidy sum based on the outcome of a news event ProPublica has been covering? You’d probably think that’s downright shady, because isn’t the job of a journalist to report the news and not make money off it?
Lest you think I’m an ethically compromised editor, you can rest easy. According to a recent update to ProPublica’s code of ethics, “no employee should wager on the outcome of news events on the prediction markets — regardless of whether or not they are involved in coverage of said event.”
ProPublica has always prohibited employees from profiting off inside information, so you may wonder why we amended our code of ethics to specifically single out prediction markets. We have not encountered any instances of this happening on our staff, but it has become harder and harder to deny the influence and reach of prediction markets beyond sports. In fact, deals between prediction markets and news organizations abound, such as Kalshi with CNN, Fox News and The Associated Press, and Polymarket with Dow Jones.
But there have also been worrying examples of these markets at play. Look to the case of a U.S. soldier involved in the ouster of Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela who was said to have made over $400,000 by betting on the mission. (He was charged with “unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction,” according to the Department of Justice, and has pleaded not guilty.) Or to the political candidates who were accused of trying to make trades on their own races. (All three received fines from Kalshi ranging from about $540 to about $6,230 and were suspended from the platform for five years.) Or even to the journalist who detailed receiving threats from gamblers trying to get him to change his report on a missile impact in Israel. (He didn’t.)
At ProPublica, it felt imperative for us to establish professional boundaries in a world where a person can have a financial stake in almost anything. Our thinking was: If one of our employees has money riding on an outcome, can a reader be sure we’re covering a story without bias?
We take your trust seriously and know that it is something to be earned and maintained. We’ve always held ourselves to high standards. The code of ethics specifically exhorts our journalists to “avoid any actions that could make a reasonable reader doubt their ability to report fairly or with neutrality on the subjects of their coverage.” We know that even the appearance of us doing anything other than working in the public interest is troubling.
When we began seeing instances of people making money off the outcome of news events, one of our concerns was that readers might assume journalists were doing the same. Even gambling on news events that ProPublica would most likely not cover, like next year’s presidential election in France, isn’t a good look for a journalist. If someone on our staff is doing that, a reader might wonder if they are betting on something closer to home or to their field of expertise.
However, we also wanted to take care to not close the door on activities that don’t pose such an existential reputational risk. A bunch of investigative journalists throwing a few dollars into an office sports pool will probably not have the public thinking we’re incapable of being fair — although some of our team allegiances might make readers think we’re gluttons for punishment. And putting a bit of money on a ballgame isn’t a huge cause for alarm. So we took care to say that “betting on sporting events (like the Super Bowl or the Kentucky Derby) and taking part in small-stakes, friendly contests (like office pools on the Oscars) are permissible when legal and when employees are not involved in coverage of those events.”
(And even though our code of ethics allows us to bet on sporting events in these cases, I don’t because I prefer to spend my money on cheap seats and stadium novelties.)
Other outlets are also tackling this issue. NPR recently issued guidance that says “editorial employees are not allowed to use prediction markets or similar sites to place bets on developments of news events, or anything else we might cover, or on things NPR controls,” including who will appear on upcoming Tiny Desk Concerts. And the New York Times’ standards editor said in a memo to staff that “betting on the outcome of news events on the prediction markets is a violation of our principles and ethical guidance and is not permitted.”
Beyond journalism, this has also gotten attention at the state and national levels. Places like Maryland and New York have put rules in place to prohibit state employees from using inside information to bet on prediction markets. And a number of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives have called for banning members of the chamber and their staff from gambling on the platforms.
Our code of ethics isn’t immutable, and down the road we may revisit this topic and further bolster our guidelines. Or we may tackle something that isn’t even on our radar today. But we will always act with the reader in mind so you know you’re getting the truth from people who are accountable only to you. You can bet on it. Actually, maybe don’t do that.
The post Why We Changed Our Code of Ethics to Address Prediction Markets appeared first on ProPublica.
After congressional Republicans let expanded subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans expire at the end of last year, some families have decided the price is too great of a financial burden and canceled their coverage.
Relations at lowest ebb in years after Washington refuses to apologise for deaths in strait of Hormuz
Fury has continued to mount in India over the US’s refusal to apologise for the deaths of Indian sailors killed in strikes in the strait of Hormuz, further straining relations between the two countries as their leaders meet at the G7 summit in France this week.
Last week, three Indian seafarers, who were working on board commercial oil tankers, were killed when the US launched missile strikes on the vessel as it sailed through the strait of Hormuz.
Continue reading...Dormition Cathedral at Unesco world heritage site struck along with residential buildings across capital
A massive Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv has badly damaged the Dormition Cathedral in the Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, a Unesco world heritage site and one of Ukraine’s most significant religious and cultural sites.
Five people were killed in Kyiv, where waves of drones and missiles drove residents to underground shelters and heavy explosions echoed throughout the capital. Kyiv’s Oleksandr Dovzhenko national film studio, which houses Ukraine’s largest and oldest costume collection, was also hit.
Continue reading...Heatwave conditions build over much of continent, while mild start to winter continues in parts of Australia
Hot weather is expected across Europe this week as heatwave conditions build over large swathes of the continent.
A mass of hot air from the Sahara has settled over the Iberian peninsula and spread into southern and western France, pushing temperatures widely into the low- and mid-30s celsius.
Continue reading...Precise terms remain unclear amid conflicting claims over when access to vital global shipping route will be restored
A framework peace deal between the US and Iran has been reached, Donald Trump and senior Iranian officials have said, bringing the 15-week conflict to a tentative end and offering hope of relief for the Middle East and the world economy.
The secretariat of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said war and military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon, would end permanently from Monday night.
Continue reading...Who is winning the battle to be top scorer at the World Cup? Live and updated throughout the tournament
The Golden Boot is awarded to the World Cup’s top goalscorer, with assists used as a tie-breaker if two or more players finish level. The 2026 tournament has three former Golden Boot winners taking part: Kylian Mbappé of France (eight goals in 2022), England’s Harry Kane (six goals in 2018) and James Rodríguez of Colombia (six goals in 2014).
Mbappé and Kane are among the pre-tournament favourites to finish top scorer in North America, alongside Norway’s Erling Haaland – making his World Cup debut – and Argentina’s Lionel Messi.
Continue reading...I created a branch to node lock vesc with phone app
if vesc doesn’t see phone for 5min it locks.
this provides Tesla style lock and unlock. would like me branch to merge w tree.
testapp at CaliBike 33C3 Dashboard
rafe
1.951.454 .0893
"Battered by years of mass layoffs, California tech workers were hoping the job market would rebound this year," reports the Los Angeles Times. "But things are getting worse." The class divide is widening in Silicon Valley as a tiny group of employees is landing unprecedented packages for AI skills, while many others struggle to find work. The have-nots are doing everything that used to guarantee great jobs — refreshing resumes, optimizing LinkedIn profiles and doing interviews — but companies are much more picky these days. The tech jobless are rethinking their lives. Some are taking pay cuts, others are leaving tech. Some are going back to study or launch startups. Some have retired.... Since 2022, more than 815,500 tech workers have been laid off, according to Layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks job cuts. The tsunami of pink slips surged in 2023, when companies that had gone on hiring sprees during the COVID-19 pandemic began to cut back. From January to April, U.S. tech employers announced 85,411 job cuts this year, up 33% from the same period last year, according to global outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that the number of information jobs — which includes jobs in hard-hit Hollywood as well as tech — tumbled 17% between the middle of 2022 and this February. The San Francisco Bay Area has been hardest hit, the institute said in a recent report, with the number of jobs declining by 0.4%, compared with 7.5% growth over a similar time span before COVID-19 slammed into the U.S. economy. Tech layoffs are also spilling over into other industries. Automaker General Motors laid off roughly 600 workers in its information technology department, and Walmart is reportedly laying off or relocating roughly 1,000 workers in its technology and products teams. Recruiters say companies have become much more selective, requiring AI skills, combining different positions and interviewing more people for each job. "You're seeing elongated hiring cycles," said Robert Lucido, senior director of strategic advisory at Magnit, a California company that helps tech giants and other businesses manage contractors, freelancers and other contingent workers. "There's more opportunity to fill the need that they truly want." Paul Flaharty, district president at staffing firm Robert Half in Los Angeles, said companies are laying off workers, but also creating new roles tied to AI initiatives. "For individuals that are displaced, it's really important that they find ways to upskill themselves so that they can make themselves as attractive as possible for these new jobs that are being created," he said. Kira Martins was already taking on more work in a small team at Snap — the parent company of disappearing messaging app Snapchat — when she was laid off in April. The company said the layoffs were to cut costs as it focuses on profitability, noting how employees are using AI to "reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers...." Martins, a 36-year-old Los Angeles resident, views AI as a tool and is optimistic about finding her next role. People still need to decide how to use AI and check the work it generates, she said. "In tech, you want to be a first adopter, because if you don't move quickly, it's very easy to become irrelevant," she said. "Everyone's kind of hopping on the AI train." A former Google worker (laid off more than a year ago) says he's still job hunting, according to the article, and "he's learned it's not enough to just apply in this competitive market. Workers really need to network and leverage their connections to get seen by hiring managers and stand out." But when 64-year-old product manager Bruce Bowers lost his job at Oracle — along with thousands of others — he just started his retirement early.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Gaethje stuns unbeaten Topuria for lightweight title
Josh Hokit targets former First Lady after TKO win
For most of its 250-year history, the White House South Lawn has been reserved for state dinners, diplomatic ceremonies, Easter egg rolls, turkey pardons and carefully choreographed displays of presidential power.
On Sunday night it hosted cage fights.
Continue reading...Donald Trump and UFC president Dana White have now made their entrance, emerging from the White House to a Color Guard from the “military district of Washington” in a scene that feels equal parts campaign rally, state ceremony and fight night. As the Zac Brown Band reaches the closing bars of the Star-Spangled Banner, a rare Super Delta formation flyover by the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds roars overhead, providing a display of American military might to match the scale of the occasion.
The four-man studio desk for the broadcast consists of former UFC champions Dominick Cruz, Chris Weidman and Michael Bisping alongside veteran play-by-play broadcaster Brendan Fitzgerald. Judging by the opening segment, they are also serving as tonight’s department of patriotism, a role embraced enthusiastically by all involved, including Bisping despite the minor complication of being English.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: A peace deal between the US and Iran has been announced, but what it contains, and what could happen next, remain unclear
Good morning. A war which had no clear objectives and no obvious endgame, but unleashed havoc across the globe, looks to be on the brink of coming to a close. As he prepared to mark his 80th birthday with a cage fight on the historic White House lawn, Donald Trump announced via social media that “the Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete”.
The US president has been claiming a deal is close since very early on in the conflict, but this time his words have been backed up by Iranian officials and Pakistan, which has been acting as mediator. Iran’s deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi said the agreement puts an “immediate end” to the war, including the conflict in Lebanon. World leaders, including Keir Starmer, have welcomed the news.
Russia | British armed forces intercepted and boarded a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in the Channel in the early hours of Sunday, the first time the UK has led a naval capture since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine | One of the country’s most significant religious sites, Dormition Cathedral in Kyiv, was set on fire after continuing Russian bombardment.
Defence | The strategic defence review row drags on, after last week’s ministerial resignations. Culture secretary Lisa Nandy revealed her department is “actively involved” in identifying cash to divert to the Ministry of Defence.
Nature | A tropical western reef heron usually found between west Africa and India has been spotted in north Wales, the first time the species has been sighted in Britain. Birdwatchers are thrilled; climate scientists less so.
UK news | Tommy Robinson was detained at Heathrow on Saturday. The far-right activist, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was held under counter-terrorism laws after riots in Southampton.
Today | Keir Starmer is expected to “outline” his plan to ban access to “high risk” social media apps for under-16s. Libby covered what that might look like last week.
Tuesday | Chief of the defence staff Richard Knighton will appear in front of the Lords’ international relations and defence committee at 11am to discuss the beleaguered strategic defense review. One worth watching.
Thursday | It’s make or break in Makerfield for Andy Burnham, as he looks to win the byelection … and then the keys to Number 10? There are also two byelections in Scotland, one of which the Guardian has called “pivotal” for the future of energy in the country.
Continue reading...  | A friend of mine and his girlfriend wanted to buy my two spare pints a while back. She paid for hers but he said he’d pay me when he could. No big deal. They rode them twice and they sat in his closet. Well I asked for it back and have been doing what I can to rehab it. It was full of dried mud so I did a full teardown and clean of everything. Revived the battery from its hibernation (do not ask lol.) and got it to take a charge and balance thankfully. I then decided to give it a full repaint as it was covered in scratches and dings. I’d debated what path I’d take with styling. Should I make it an 80s stoke board? Maybe a McFly special? I had decided to go to my local hobby shop as they were closing down and saw a model kit that was one of the last in the store. The Gulf Racing Ford GT40 #1075 or “Number 6” which competed in the 1968 24 Hours of Le Mans race. BINGO! I grabbed the kit. Grabbed the paint. Raced home and got to work. I painted the rail covers, fender, front bumper, and axle bolt heads after they were tightened in separately. Got some new grip tape which I found to be super unique. Put on a new Hoosier treaded tire and did some custom letter painting to that and I added the decals from the car kit. Now it looks awesome, runs great, and is back in loving hands. Beyond stoked wouldn’t even begin to describe how I feel riding again. I took a break and sold my boards because I was too scared I’d get hurt and have to withdraw from nursing school. Now I’m done school and back on the saddle!! As a fan of old automotive stuff I directed my friend (who also took most of these pictures for me) with making an advert photo for it in the same styling as Porsche used to. I’m terrible with photoshop and Lightroom hence why I asked him to help me! I hope yall like it! Maybe I’ll see some of you around Philly? [link] [comments] |
As the world waited for rational outcomes from irrational players, the people being bombed were forced to adjust to the fact of terror as part of daily life
“Humans take a lot of killing,” wrote Frank McCourt in Angela’s Ashes. As bleak a phrase as it is, McCourt was talking about resilience, how much poverty and abuse a person can withstand and still survive. But the other side of human capacity for pain is how much can be forced upon us and normalised. It is bewildering how war – shocking and intolerable at first – quickly becomes a matter of fact. Few conflicts have demonstrated that more vividly than the war on Iran. For months it was a matter of low-grade strikes, hot and cold rhetoric, and near-conclusions to the hostilities that never came. Sharp political crisis manifested as grinding hardship and upheaval for the people.
We have a peace deal now, for that be thankful, but think what preceded it. Over the past week alone, Donald Trump had ordered strikes on Iran, and expressed a desire to take Kharg Island, which handles 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports. He then prematurely declared that the US had ended the war on Iran in a “great settlement”. The markets did their customary flicker in response to the announcement of a deal, but the rest of us, not invested in oil futures, could have been forgiven for not registering a reaction to imminent peace – he had made the same promise almost 40 times. In press conferences, social media posts and interviews over the past few months, Trump had said relax, it’s almost over. Just how not over it was can be traced by the strikes and counter-strikes across the region, the closure of the strait of Hormuz, general global economic upheaval and specific Middle East destabilisation.
Continue reading...Yasin Ayari shines bright as Graham Potter’s Sweden put on a five-star showing to crush Tunisia
This evening’s match is taking place at the impressive Estadio BBVA, known for the duration of the World Cup as Monterrey Stadium. The 53,000 capacity arena is nicknamed the Steel Giant, and was opened in 2015.
It is famed for its view of Cerro de la Silla, a nearby mountain with a highest peak of almost 6,000 feet. The steep stands and proximity of seating to the pitch will help the atmosphere.
Continue reading...The emerging agreement ends a costly war but leaves Iran’s leadership intact and its nuclear future still subject to negotiation.
The Golden Knights had taken a two-games-to-one lead in the Stanley Cup Finals, but Carolina came roaring back, winning three straight to take home their first championship since the 2005-2006 season.
US president left last meeting early, but world leaders aim to end Ukraine war and push for resolution in Gaza and Iran
Emmanuel Macron, the host of the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, has framed an agenda to make it as palatable as possible to his guest of honour, but the French president has no idea if Donald Trump, a haphazard summit attender, will last the full three days – or disrupt the proceedings every hour he stays.
The US president quit the last G7 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, early to work on the Iran conflict, and this year, plus ça change, Iran may also draw presidential attention. For good measure, he insulted this summit’s host before leaving Canada last year, describing Macron as “publicity seeking” and adding: “Purposefully or not, Emmanuel Macron always gets it wrong.”
Continue reading...The European Commission has unveiled its plans for digital sovereignty. Its proposals betray a disappointing lack of vision
Beti Hohler is a Slovenian national who lives in the Netherlands. Like tens of millions of other Europeans, she uses Apple’s app store and has an Amazon account. When she travels for work or leisure, she may want to book a place on Airbnb or Booking, using a credit card issued by Visa or Mastercard, perhaps through PayPal.
But when the Trump administration sanctioned her last year for her work as a judge at the international criminal court (ICC), her ability to use any of these services vanished overnight. Her credit cards, her accounts with US companies – all gone. The sanctions against Hohler and some of her colleagues mean they live in “constant uncertainty”, she said.
Max von Thun is the director of Open Markets Institute Europe, an anti-monopoly thinktank
Continue reading...Cases reported in 83 countries, with at least 10,600 students and staff killed, injured, abducted or arrested, GCPEA says
Attacks on education globally have surged by 40% with more than 8,556 recorded incidents and 10,600 students and staff killed, injured, abducted, arrested or otherwise harmed in 2024 and 2025, according to new research.
Attacks were reported in 83 countries, with the highest incidences recorded in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Palestine and Ukraine.
Continue reading...Washington will come to regret its stalemate with Beijing.
The real lessons of Orban’s defeat.
Why Should Delaware Care?
In recent years, the unhoused community in Wilmington has grown in size. In response, Mayor John Carney introduced a plan to convert an Eastside park into the only city-sanctioned encampment. Last month, pushback to city mandates at the encampment sparked protests and criticism against Carney’s oversight of the park. Now, officials have decided to close down the encampment.
Wilmington is set to close a city-sanctioned homeless encampment at Christina Park today.
The closure will end an eight-month experiment that city officials say helped connect dozens of unhoused residents with housing and support services. But questions remain about what will happen to the residents still living at the park afterward.
City officials emphasized that overnight camping in public parks generally is unlawful. While they made an exception for Christina Park over the past eight months, they city’s goal is to have residents of the encampment out of the Eastside park by sunset.
On Thursday, Mayor John Carney held a press conference to discuss the closure of Christina Park, as well as next steps for the city’s homeless policies.
“Despite the end of overnight camping in the city, our commitment to the work is ongoing,” he said.
Carney and other city officials said they were shutting down the encampment because they always intended it to be temporary, and because neighbors had urged officials to return the park to its previous state.
According to a recent city notice provided to the encampment residents, portions of Christina Park will close to the general public on June 15. The entire park will be closed June 16-25 for a clean up.
Carney’s remarks Thursday came as the mayor faced mounting criticism from city council members, housing advocates and park residents who have argued the city is moving too quickly to close the encampment before long-term solutions become available.
Earlier this month, the Wilmington City Council passed a resolution urging Carney to “immediately halt any forced removal” plans at Christina Park “until a comprehensive, humane, and adequately funded transition plan is fully operational.”
The Carney administration also drew criticism in past months for its oversight of the encampment, with housing advocates and unhoused individuals claiming the city had not provided promised services and had imposed burdensome rules.
Carney’s announcement of the closure, made in early May, came as a surprise to many advocates, park residents and even city council members, largely because it followed the city’s decision to spend nearly $60,000 to install large pallets and new tents for unhoused residents at the park.
Asked during Thursday’s press conference why he put the pallets in with only weeks left before announcing the camp’s closure, Carney responded, “we thought it was the right thing to do.”
Pressed whether he is concerned people will begin camping in other areas of Wilmington, Carney said city officials will “cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“We do need support from the (Delaware) Attorney General in terms of if there’s a need for a prosecution. I don’t intend or want to have to prosecute folks for this, but they’re violating the law, if they’re camping in a park after dark,” he said.
Still, Carney said the city will try to avoid arresting people sleeping in public spaces after the Christina Park closure.
Daniel Walker, Carney’s deputy chief of staff, said the city established the tent site to provide a consolidated place where unhoused people can go for resources, and to decrease the number of people sleeping on our streets across the city.
Coordinating those services, Carney admitted, “took longer than expected.”
Some advocates say the city’s latest update leaves unanswered questions about how Monday’s closure will unfold.
Shyanne Miller, an advocate who has worked with residents at the park, questioned why any portion of Christina Park would be closed to the public on the day residents are expected to move out, positing that residents, advocates or members of the press could unknowingly violate those rules.
“It’s not clear what’s going to happen to people … or where people are allowed to be in the park,” she said.
Carney first announced his plan to use Christina Park as a temporary encampment for the city’s unhoused back in October. In January, the city contracted with the nonprofit Friendship House to manage the encampment and connect residents with services.
Since January, Walker said 85 people have accessed various services at Christina Park.
Of those, 49 people have been placed into stable housing, treatment or rehabilitation programs, emergency housing, independent housing or with friends and family.
He expected three additional people to be placed into the housing by the end of last week, bringing the total to 52.
The placements include 25 people at the Hope Center, where the Delaware State Housing Authority is covering stays for up to six months.
Another 10 people have entered treatment or rehabilitation centers, where the length of stay varies by program. Four people have moved into long-term independent housing, meaning they are living in their own unit or with a roommate and paying rent, the city said.
Two others have been placed in independent housing programs with case management, while eight have been placed with supportive friends or family.
Two people at the park were arrested, Walker said.
That leaves 31 people remaining at Christina Park as of the city’s latest count. Twelve have accepted case management services, the remaining 19 individuals “have not accepted or chosen to engage with us,” Walker said.
“We will continue to offer them assistance and follow up even beyond June 15,” he said.
Officials at the Wilmington Housing Authority also say they will link people leaving the park with housing options at the nonprofits, YMCA and Sojourners’ Place, and with private landlords willing to rent rooms.
Ray Fitzgerald, executive director of Wilmington Housing Authority, also said his agency has limited hotel vouchers and plans to provide case management, clinical support, job training and employment opportunities.
Residents at the park will also be able to store their personal belongings for 90 days in a Wilmington Housing Authority-owned warehouse on Fourth Street in the city.
Miller, the housing advocate, expressed concerns about the city’s storage plans, questioning how someone who gets admitted to a program for longer than 90 days would be able to retrieve their belongings afterward.
Carney’s sanctioning of the park encampment in October was a part of an interim housing plan that followed recommendations from a city Homelessness Task Force — a public body Carney established early last year to develop policies for the unhoused population.
Beyond the encampment, the city also partnered with the Wilmington Housing Authority and the Ministry of Caring to open a dining hall and day center for the homeless. The center sits about a block from Christina Park.
Carney said the city has secured $1 million from the state’s capital budget for the dining hall, along with half of the funding for the day center. The city’s goal is to complete the facility by the end of this year, Fitzgerald said.
City officials are also in ongoing discussions with Springboard Delaware about potentially bringing a tiny home village to Wilmington, but are struggling to find a location. Residents of the Eastside and Southbridge have expressed their opposition to placing such a village in their neighborhoods.
The Carney administration said the City Council must select a location for the tiny-home village before July 1. If the city misses the deadline, the project could lose $1.6 million in federal COVID-era dollars dedicated for the village.
Carney noted that finding ongoing funding for the operations of the tiny village also remains an unresolved question.
The post Carney defends imminent Christina Park closure, outlines next steps appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
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Israel says it has struck Beirut’s south suburbs, with explosions heard in the city. The Israeli military claimed the attacks on the Lebanese capital were in response to Hezbollah firing into Israeli territory.
The military were reportedly targeting Hezbollah targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the group’s stronghold known as Dahiyeh, according to a joint statement by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Israel Katz.
Continue reading...Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for June 15, No. 630.
Trump says the oil will flow but state media reports out of Tehran suggest it could be under ‘Iranian arrangements’ ; UFC paying White House fighters in Trump crypto. Key US politics stories from Sunday 14 June at a glance
The Iranian deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, confirmed in the early hours of Monday an agreement for an “immediate end” to the US-Iranian war, and said Lebanon was included in a peace deal due to be signed on Friday. Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, announced the agreement on Sunday afternoon, saying both sides would be declaring “the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts”.
Regional officials said Qatari mediators had travelled to Tehran on Sunday to finalise terms of a memorandum of understanding (MOU). Uncertainty swirled, though, including around whether Israel would end its attacks aimed at Hezbollah in Lebanon, while Iranian hardliners registered their opposition to what they see as capitulation to the US. Lindsay Graham, a Republican senator, said he was pleased to hear about the MOU but added: “I am somewhat concerned that Iran’s view of the agreement seems different than what the American negotiating team is claiming.”
Continue reading...Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for June 15.
"Asian stocks rallied Monday while oil prices tumbled," reports CNBC, "after the U.S. and Iran agreed to a peace deal aimed at ending nearly four months of conflict..." The strongest reaction was seen in energy markets. U.S. crude oil futures for July delivery were down 4.77% to $80.83 per barrel by 8:27 p.m. ET. Brent futures, the international benchmark, for August delivery traded about 4% lower to $83.77 per barrel. Asian equities surged. South Korea's Kospi jumped 5.1%, Japan's Nikkei 225 climbed 3.6%, and the broader Topix advanced 2.6%... The U.S. dollar index weakened 0.32% to 99.483, while the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell 5 basis points to 4.423%, suggesting that investors were dialing back inflation concerns on easing energy prices. "The most immediate implication is a repricing of the inflation risk premium that markets have been carrying since the Strait closed," said Billy Leung, investment strategist at Global X ETFs... Besides safe-haven Treasurys, gold also rose. "Gold is the interesting outlier here," Leung said. "In a clean risk-on trade, gold should be selling off as the geopolitical premium unwinds, but it is holding bid around $4,300, which tells you the market is not fully trusting the deal yet." Spot gold prices were up almost 2% at $4,302.19 per ounce. That skepticism reflects lingering uncertainty around the agreement, which remains unsigned and subject to implementation risks. [Josh Gilbert, lead Asia Pacific analyst at trading platform eToro] cautioned that "the deal isn't actually signed until June 19th, the details are still thin, and this conflict has shown more than once that headlines can turn on a dime." Analysts at Commonwealth Bank of Australia also stressed that the oil outlook hinges on how quickly shipping and production can normalize. Vivek Dhar, head of commodities and sustainability research at CBA, expects Brent to fall to around $80 a barrel by year-end, assuming the Strait remains open and exports recover. However, he warned that damage to refining infrastructure, the presence of sea mines and uncertainty over tanker traffic could slow the return to normal operations. Even so, he said markets are likely to take comfort from the prospect that oil flows need only recover to around 60%-70% of pre-war levels to restore expectations of a global supply surplus. For investors, the biggest implication will likely be what cheaper energy means for inflation and central banks. Lower oil prices ease pressure on households and businesses while reducing the risk of a broader inflation resurgence just as major central banks enter a busy week of policy meetings. UPDATE: "A US official is rejecting Iran's assertion that it will receive billions of dollars in frozen funds before a planned 60-day negotiating period begins following Friday's signing of an agreement," reports CNN: The pushback came after Iran's deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said the next phase of talks would depend on Washington first fulfilling several obligations, including releasing Iranian funds frozen abroad. The differing accounts underscore a significant gap between how the United States and Iran are describing what must happen before the next round of negotiations can move forward.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Refloat no longer has just LED Module. instead there is LED Mode, LED Pin and LED Pin Configuration. Either way I can’t get it to consistently work (show the tiffany blue for footpad activation)
"As the use of artificial intelligence spreads across companies worldwide, it is relieving workers of tedious old chores but creating new ones," reports the Los Angeles Times. "Most people don't realize the amount of time that they're spending working on the tools to get the time savings that they're professing," said Paul Leonardi, Duca Family professor of technology management at UC Santa Barbara." Leonardi is one of the co-authors of the new study published by the Work AI Institute, whose contributors include academics from Stanford University and UC Berkeley. The institute is sponsored by AI company Glean... The research surveyed 6,000 digital workers across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia between December and January. The report found that we are in a phase of significant personal productivity gains, but few companies are translating these gains into revenue and business growth. While 75% of individuals reported a boost in productivity, only 13% of the organizations say they have seen significant business gains as a result of AI adoption, the survey found... The reason the boost in productivity sometimes leads to waste, Leonardi said, is the time people spend correcting the bot's work and gathering the right files, documentation, and tacit knowledge required for it to produce high-quality output. "It's pretty striking the amount of time and effort people are spending," Leonardi said. Most employees now spend over six hours a week of their workday babysitting their work chatbots, the survey said. There is a "thick, mostly invisible layer of human labor holding the whole thing together," the report said. The survey found that for every hour a worker spends getting useful output from AI, they spend roughly another hour making it usable. Of the total time workers spend interacting with AI each week, 37% goes to botsitting, 36% to actually using the tool to produce work. Part of the reason so much time disappears into botsitting is how often the tools fall short: Workers report that more than a third of AI sessions fail outright, requiring a full restart or substantial rework. Paradoxically, as more workers hand over bigger parts of their jobs to AI, they are offloading personal judgment and responsibilities to the bots. The survey found 41% of workers say they sometimes deliver AI-generated work they couldn't explain if asked... "I think what's happening with a lot of these Gen AI tools right now is we're essentially expecting individual contributors to act as managers," Leonardi said. "They're just managing these AI tools, AI agents, and we're expecting that they'll be able to produce way more, but we're not taking into account all of the work that actually goes into managing." This problem isn't likely to go away.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Great work! Looking forward to testing.
I'm looking at buying my first Onewheel and I keep getting stuck as the add ons. I know I want a fender and don't care about the hyper charger. What are the true essentials and what should I buy from other vendors? I'm hoping to stick closer to 2k, but the accessory bundles and questionable shipping insurance keep putting it closer to 2500 😂
The establishment of the fund comes less than two weeks after a judge ruled the Kennedy Center's board acted unlawfully in adding the president's name to the performing arts center.
Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for June 15, No. 834.
Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for June 15, No. 1,822.
Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for June 15, No. 1,100.
The U.S. and Iran are expected to meet for a signing ceremony on Friday, June 19, in Switzerland, Pakistan's prime minister said.
Pakistan's prime minister said Sunday the U.S. and Iran had reached a deal that includes "the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon."
Sen. Mitch McConnell was admitted to the hospital Sunday morning, a spokesperson for the Republican confirmed to CBS News.
Microsoft dropped "massive" updates for six stock Windows apps, reports the "Microsoft enthusiast" site Neowin. Here's some of their more interesting highlights for Clock, Media Player, Calculator, Voice Recorder, Photos, and Paint: The Photos app (version 2026.11060.2004.0): AI watermarking — "AI-generated or edited images can now carry a visible Copilot watermark. You choose Never, Always, or Ask Every Time in Settings, with a confirmation when saving. The watermarking is off by default in settings." Calculator (version 11.2605.9.0): More accurate square-root results. "Fixed rare cases where a calculation that should equal zero (like sqrt(2.25) — 1.5) returned a tiny leftover value instead...." Reliable launch after upgrading. "Fixed an issue where upgrading from much older versions could leave outdated settings that stopped the app from opening..." The Clock app (version 11.2605.9.0): "Timers keep counting after they hit zero — When a timer runs out, it now keeps counting up (for example, -00:27:31) so you can see how far past the time you've gone..." "Correct sun and moon icons during midnight sun — Fixed an icon that wrongly showed a moon during all-day daylight in polar regions... " "No more double announcements — Screen readers no longer read the timer value twice." Media Player (version 11.2605.14.0). "Playlists need a name — You can no longer accidentally save a playlist with a blank name."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Awareness of disorders such as hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is low among British healthcare professionals
People in the UK with hypermobility conditions are waiting up to 21 years to be diagnosed while suffering from symptoms ranging from chronic pain to partially dislocated joints, research suggests.
The study of more than 2,000 people, which was led by the University of Edinburgh and described as the largest of its kind in the UK, indicates awareness of hypermobility spectrum disorders (HSD) and hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS) is low among British healthcare professionals.
Continue reading...Geochronologists say Antrim coastline’s basalt columns developed over 5.5m years – 8m less than thought
For centuries, the tale has been passed from generation to generation: how the Irish giant Finn McCool built the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland to fight Benandonner, his Scottish rival, by hurling chunks of the Antrim coastline into the sea.
Now, scientists have revealed it was intense volcanic activity during a “major globally impacting volcanic event” – and not a legendary battle between two destructive giants – that led to the formation of the coastline’s 40,000 distinctive interlocking basalt columns about 60m years ago.
Continue reading...Engineers and computer scientists are developing AI-powered robots that look and act human. Boston Dynamics invited 60 Minutes to watch its humanoid, Atlas, learn how to work at a Hyundai factory.
For many parents of children killed in school shootings, bedrooms left behind are a devastating reminder of what was taken. Several parents share an emotional look inside these empty rooms.
At age 18, Barcelona sensation Lamine Yamal is regarded as one of the world's best soccer players, just a few years after bursting onto the pro scene. He reflects on his roots and his rise to the top.
Gracie Muehlberger, a 15-year-old student killed in the 2019 Saugus High School shooting, wrote a journal entry that inspired a mantra for her surviving parents Bryan and Cindy Muehlberger.
As Spain's soccer prodigy steps into the global spotlight, he stays rooted in his multi-dimensional heritage.
Those in favour forced to defend themselves against claims the terms amount to capitulation
Iranian hardliners have mounted a rearguard rejection of a deal with the US as as they say it does not guarantee sanctions relief, compensation or control of the strait of Hormuz.
“The fact that they say we won and America has retreated is a blatant lie,” said the Iranian MP Kamran Ghazanfari. Meysam Nili, the managing director of Rajanews and brother-in-law of the hardline former president Ebrahim Raisi, called the deal on the table a catastrophic capitulation. He urged Iranians not to sit quietly.
Continue reading...The electro-pop singer attracted millions of fans across the world with hits such as "Life Goes On” and “Miss You.”
Demonstrations took off in Washington and across US as Trump throws first private, for-profit sporting event ever held on White House grounds
Dozens of people stood across the entrance gates to the Ellipse, the park south of the White House, on Sunday afternoon, holding protest signs and chanting as the president prepared to host seven mixed martial arts fights on the lawn.
Thousands of fight fans streamed past the protesters into the sprawling public viewing area that the Trump administration and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which is hosting the fights, erected steps from the White House. The cage fights, marketed as a celebration of the country’s “fighting spirit” ahead of its 250th anniversary, are being held on Donald Trump’s 80th birthday.
Continue reading...Sources say hardline measures will also prevent young users from being able to talk to strangers on gaming apps
Keir Starmer is to ban under-16s from major social media apps such as TikTok, Instagram and X in sweeping restrictions described as “Australia plus”, the Guardian understands.
In a major policy shift far tougher than previously briefed, the prime minister will announce that teenagers will be banned from all the main social platforms. Online products that are not covered by the ban – such as gaming apps – will face new restrictions such as having the option to chat to strangers removed.
Continue reading...In 1994 I got my first computer: an Intel i486 DX2-66 with 4 MB RAM and a 512MB harddisk. The software was IBMs OS/2 and Microsofts Windows 3.11. In the next four years I was upgrading this machine every few months with more RAM (up to 16MB), a CD-ROM-drive and a soundblaster card. So I learned upgrading this machine, installing new software and finally learned how to program new software using BASIC. But I never got in touch with the boot-process or the details of MS-DOS.
In 2026, 32 years later, I learned from some screenshots of the DDX3216, that Behringer used a real 386 processor within this machine. Immediately, some of my neurons fired in my head and I pondered if I could boot software and even a full operating system on this device. My goal was to learn how an x86-system is booting, how DOS takes over and what is necessary to get into the shell.
↫ Christian Nöding
So this introduction is a bit cryptic if you’re not aware of what a DDX3216 is – I sure had no idea. The Behringer DDX3216 is a digital mixing console for use in music studios, and I think it’s about 25 years old or so. Apparently it’s built around a 386, and as Nöding details in this article, that means it can be made to run DOS. It also happens to have a small black and white LCD, so there’s a place to route output to, as well. Furthermore, once you open it up, you’ll find things like a BIOS chip, PCMCIA slot, a floppy controller, serial/parallel port controller, and more.
Sure sounds like a PC to me.
After talking to companies and individuals who might have a BIOS compatible with the AMD 386 SoC used in the device bore no fruit, Nöding decided to develop his own BIOS, which involves getting all the devices, interfaces, and even the display to work properly as well. The next step was getting DOS to work, and after MS-DOS 6.22 refused to work, FreeDOS did the trick and booted just fine.
There’s still a ton more possible things that can be done here, but this is already quite amazing.
UK's Members of Parliament (MP) were "looking for proof that smartphones and social media are rotting children's brains," writes The Register — but they got "a less satisfying answer from neuroscientists on Wednesday: nobody can really prove it." Appearing before the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee this week, three researchers spent much of the session explaining that concern and evidence are not quite the same thing. Asked what evidence exists on the impact of digital devices on infants and young children, Professor Denis Mareschal, director of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck, replied: "There is very little, if any, causal research in the early years. Almost everything is correlational." MPs kept coming back to the question — and the experts kept coming back to the same answer. When questioned about social media's impact on adolescents, Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore of the University of Cambridge was equally cautious. "What evidence do we have of the impact of digital devices or social media on the adolescent brain?" she asked. "Almost nothing. There are a few small studies, but they haven't been replicated, and they're purely correlational...." MPs also wanted to know whether neuroscience could settle one of the liveliest arguments in the debate: how old a child should be before they're allowed onto social media. "What neuroscience can't do is pinpoint a precise age," Blakemore said. "The individual differences in brain development are vast...." If there was a takeaway from the hearing, it was that concern about digital childhood is running well ahead of the evidence needed to settle the argument.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Labour grandee was MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook from 1964 until his retirement from the Commons in 1997
Roy Hattersley, the former Labour deputy leader and author, has died at the age of 93.
Keir Starmer described Hattersley as a “giant of the labour movement”.
Continue reading...Vacationing at Ocean Lakes Family Campground in Myrtle Beach. Forgot my Pint X charger. Board is dead. Happy to pay, borrow, or buy a charger locally.
Rio de Janeiro's Military Fire Department said one of the helicopters crashed in the parking lot of a car dealership, where several electric vehicles were parked, igniting a fire.
Vice-president says he tries not to make decisions until he ‘absolutely must’ but has ‘no doubt’ Trump will support him
JD Vance said that he will discuss a 2028 US presidential run with his wife after the 2026 midterms.
The US vice-president gave insight into his ongoing decision on whether to run during an interview with CBS Sunday Morning where he spoke on his new memoir, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, which details his conversion to Catholicism.
Continue reading...Steven Spielberg grants that his 1977 UFO film Close Encounters was "speculative," writes the Associated Press, but "Disclosure Day, he insists, is the real deal." "It's my first film that will be considered science fiction that I do not consider to be science fiction," Spielberg said in a recent interview. "It's much more reflective of the world as it is evolving and discoveries that are being made as we speak." Spielberg, at 79, is trying to revive and reconsider the alien wonder that's long lingered in his mind, from "E.T." to "War of the Worlds." "Disclosure Day," Spielberg's first summer movie in a decade, is already being hailed as one of his best in years. But this time, Spielberg is testing whether he can conjure some of his trademark movie magic less with imagination than with conviction. "I've been a believer since I made 'Close Encounters' 50 years ago," Spielberg says. "But I would always say: Until I've seen a UAP or a UFO with my own eyes, I'm not going to categorically state that life from out there has come here. But I've changed that," he adds. "I'm now willing to change my mind because of the circumstantial evidence which is overwhelming..." Spielberg, having long followed reports of alleged alien encounters, was inspired by the 2023 House Subcommittee on National Security hearing on UAPs: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. Among the witnesses was whistleblower and former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch, who testified that the government concealed a program investigating UAPs. The Pentagon then denied it... Those 2023 testimonies and others so fueled Spielberg that he produced a 50-page treatment on what would become "Disclosure Day." During the writing process with Koepp, he texted him more notes, he says, "than I've ever sent to anyone in my life." "There was a period in there where I believe he re-read the script every single day for a year," Koepp says. "We'd be in different time zones and I would wake up to 30 or 35 texts from his most current reading of the script. When the leader of the project has that level of commitment, it tends to bring along everyone. You up your game." The article calls it "a grand bookend for one of the most cosmically-minded moviemakers of our time." But the man who filmed some of the world's first summer blockbusters also shared his thoughts on the future of movies. "Even though the numbers are still not pre-COVID level numbers for any films being released now, it's more robust than it has been for many years. The audience gives me belief that people still want to congregate in a dark space in the company of strangers to share an experience of a film made by storytellers. And that gives me faith to continue making films." Rolling Stone wrote that "There's a lot to love in Disclosure Day." Though they also offer this pithy summary of its plot. "Remember when Steven Spielberg digitally replaced the guns in the hands of government agents for the 20th anniversary of E.T., then expressed regret about the decision? Imagine that he not only restored the weapons but crafted an entire two-and-a-half-hour feature around that one sequence as a mea culpa. That's Disclosure Day." The filmmaker may be staging a pulpy campaign with this sci-fi throwback, but he sincerely seems to believe the truth is out there — and will set us free... [W]hile the quality of his output can vary wildly when you look at the big picture of his career, there's still a baseline of love — for filmmaking, for storytelling through images, for giving people an experience that pushes emotional buttons and taps adrenal glands — that gives his work a sense of vitality and displays the sensibility of an artist at work... There's also a weird full-circle feel to it, and not just because he's returning to the fertile ground of Close Encounters and his other science fiction spectacles. You can see traces of everything from Duel to Minority Report show up, to the point where this almost doubles as a career retrospective in miniature... Yes, Spielberg does believe that we are not the only game running in the cosmos. But he also believes that our better angels have not left the building, and that movies still have the power to communally blow minds and open hearts. The Associated Press calls it "a grand bookend for one of the most cosmically-minded moviemakers of our time" and "a distant answer to the final notes of Close Encounters."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Gov. Brian Kemp has called lawmakers back to Atlanta to redraw congressional districts for 2028 and address Georgia's ballot-counting system before summer elections.
Starmer ‘can’t sack him or let him resign’, says ally of Dan Jarvis after predecessor’s resignation
The new defence secretary is to revisit a controversial plan for funding the armed forces and may return to demand more cash from the Treasury, allies have said.
Multiple government sources said Dan Jarvis would look to “reprioritise” aspects of the defence investment plan (Dip), which was delayed until July after the resignation of John Healey following a disagreement over its funding.
Continue reading...The Missouri State Highway Patrol said the fatal crash occurred near the Butler Memorial Airport, about 60 miles south of Kansas City.
Atlas, a humanoid robot made by robotics company Boston Dynamics, was upgraded from a version 60 Minutes saw in 2021 with joints that can fully rotate and hands that can grip a variety of objects.
In 2025, Spanish soccer star Lamine Yamal sat down with 60 Minutes correspondent Jon Wertheim to talk about his love for soccer, the World Cup, and the pressure of playing on the world stage.
Is there anyone know where I could purchase a new battery for my OW XR, in the UK?
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified before the Senate Armed Service Committee earlier this year that replenishing the stockpile could take "months and years."
On this "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" broadcast, Defense Secretary and Sen. Mark Warner join Margaret Brennan.
The following is the transcript of the interview with Gary Cohn, IBM vice chairman and director of the National Economic Council during President Trump's first term, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on June 14, 2026.
Trump also says in ‘friendly and frank’ phone call that US is nearing peace deal with Iran, according to Putin adviser
Donald Trump told Vladimir Putin that ending Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine was critical and that he was prepared to help, reported Russia’s TASS news agency.
During a phone call on Sunday, Trump also informed the Russian president that the US was nearing a peace deal with Iran as the US-Israel war against the country continues, according to Yuri Ushakov, a Putin adviser. The call between Trump and Putin, which lasted about an hour, was described as “friendly and frank” by Ushakov.
Continue reading...The following is the transcript of the interview with Sen. Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on June 14, 2026.
The Senate has been at an impasse over the president's controversial pick to serve as acting intelligence chief that resulted in the expiration of a key spy authority.
Alternative singer and internet personality among six who died when two helicopters collided over Rio de Janeiro
The American musician Oliver Tree has died in a helicopter crash in Brazil at the age of 32, according to reports.
Two helicopters collided over Rio de Janeiro on Sunday morning and crashed in the city’s western zone, killing all six people onboard, including Tree, several Brazilian media outlets reported.
Continue reading...The following is the transcript of the interview with Sen. Mark Warner, Demcorat of Virginia, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on June 14, 2026.
Crash reportedly occurred shortly after departure from Butler Memorial airport on Sunday morning
Twelve people were killed in a plane crash near Butler, Missouri, on Sunday.
According to Bates county emergency management, a private plane that had departed Butler Memorial airport shortly before 11.30am turned back before crashing near Business 49 Highway, Fox 4 reported.
Continue reading...Trump will be a mere spectator at the UFC fights at his 80th birthday bash. Roosevelt took a more hands-on approach
Donald Trump is throwing himself a huge 80th birthday party on Sunday with a UFC fight on the White House South Lawn, but he’ll be a mere spectator. About 120 years ago, another brash New Yorker turned president took a much more hands-on approach to sparring at the White House, when Theodore Roosevelt lost sight in his left eye during a 1905 boxing match there.
Roosevelt, the 26th American president, made the revelation in 1917, eight years after leaving the White House.
Continue reading..."A year after spending over $14 billion to bring in Alexandr Wang and a group of his top Scale AI engineers to revamp its artificial intelligence efforts, Meta is at least back on the map in AI," reports CNBC, "though it's still far behind OpenAI, Anthropic and Google in the market." Wang's big accomplishment was the delivery of the Muse Spark AI model in April, marking Meta's first jump into proprietary foundation models and away from a strict adherence to open source, or open weight as it's more commonly called in AI... "Meta needs to provide more proof points of both adoption and commercialization," said Ralph Schackart, an analyst at William Blair who recommends buying the stock. "Investors are looking for Meta to monetize a new AI-first product, beyond the substantial positive impact AI is having on enhancing the advertising models." Wall Street, at least so far, is unimpressed. Meta's stock is down 18% over the past 12 months, the worst performer in the megacap group, along with Microsoft, which has its own challenges in AI. That's even after Meta reported 33% revenue growth in the first quarter, the fastest rate of expansion for any period since 2021. For Meta, the problem started with what some industry experts called, in hindsight at least, a strategic blunder. The company jumped into AI with its Llama family of models, offering an open-source approach that allowed developers to freely tinker, while the other big model makers charged for access. In April of last year, Meta's release of Llama 4 fell flat, failing to captivate developers and leading Zuckerberg to reconsider his company's approach to AI development... Since the release of Muse Spark, Meta has unveiled new AI and business-related subscription plans as part of an effort to expand its business beyond online ads. Historically, it hasn't worked. Meta still counts on ads for 98% of revenue. Schackart said he wants to see "tangible evidence of a growing list of new, AI-first products created by Muse Spark, even if monetization lags." He said that's "what investors are looking for." No matter how good Wang's model may be, Zuckerberg has a high hill to climb with developers coming off the Llama debacle. "I think the AI community largely ignores Meta at this point," said Rob May, CEO of the startup Neurometric, which works in the realm of token engineering.... Krish Subramanian, the CEO of consulting firm KOI AI and former product head at IBM Consulting, said developers are more excited about Google's AI models than what Meta is offering. The appeal of Llama was that it specifically targeted developers wanting open-weight alternative models, while with Muse Spark, Meta has made little effort in that direction, he said. "The lack of developer trust will come back to hit them if they don't focus on third-party developers," Subramanian said, noting that it took years for Microsoft to regain trust from open-source coders during the early days of Azure. "To just focus on a walled-garden kind of an ecosystem and ad revenue as the main source of income, they probably will never become the big player," he said. A Meta spokesperson pointed to Wang's recent comments about the company's continued support for the open-source ecosystem, and said Meta still plans to offer outside developers access to Muse Spark's underlying technology via an API, as it previously announced. "We're already testing with some early partners, and look forward to releasing it this month," the spokesperson said. "That Zuckerberg's metaverse and virtual reality ambitions have generated over $80 billion in total losses since late 2020 makes the AI pitch a tougher sell," the article points out, citing this observation from Howard Yu, business professor at Switzerland's International Institute for Management Development. "He's running out of the space for his credibility to last," Yu said. "I think the virtual reality foray may have burned up a lot of his goodwill in front of investors."
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The affected formula was sold at Target and at Nara.com, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
Federal judge says ex-ranger, who sued US government over free speech, must follow process in Civil Service Reform Act
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a former Yosemite national park ranger who was fired after flying a giant transgender pride flag from a rock wall that looms over the California park’s main thoroughfare.
US district judge Jennifer Thurston found on Friday that Shannon “SJ” Joslin, who identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, must follow the process set out by the Civil Service Reform Act. Since Joslin was still a probationary employee at the time of their firing last year, that means they must file a complaint with the office of special counsel, which they have done.
Continue reading...US senator is getting ‘excellent care’ after being hospitalized on Sunday morning, spokesperson says
Mitch McConnell, a US senator from Kentucky, was admitted to the hospital on Sunday morning, a spokesperson said in a statement.
“Senator McConnell was admitted to the hospital this morning. He is receiving excellent care,” the statement read.
Continue reading...The bar may have been busy for the football but it was nothing compared with the crowd that surged in as team ended 53-year wait for the NBA title
At John Doe’s bar on 28th and 5th in Manhattan, the crowd was already heaving energetically by early evening, as a multitude of TV screens beamed Vinícius Júnior’s equaliser for Brazil, responding to Ismael Saibari’s opener for Morocco. With competing nations’ flags as bunting and inflatable footballs – the correct, round kind – hanging from the roof, there was no lack of World Cup visibility. Football shirts abounded, with Brazilians here and the odd Moroccan shirt there, as well as a Manchester United and Casemiro fan somewhat aghast at the mobility of his hero.
Yet there could be no doubting the main event in town. Despite the fact that New York’s mayor Zohran Mamdani was at MetLife Stadium for the football – a subdued groan met his appearance on the TV screen, followed by loud, defiant Democrat cheers – this was a mere curtain-raiser for the real show. The New York Knicks were bidding to end a 53-year wait to win the NBA title and were playing the San Antonio Spurs in Texas.
Continue reading...President Trump told Russia's Putin that the war in Ukraine needed to end. Ukraine's Zelenskyy said he and Mr. Trump would speak more at the upcoming G7 summit.
About 1,000 people demonstrated for and against show in synagogue promoting sale of property in Israel
About 1,000 people protested for and against a show promoting the sale of property in Israel on Sunday, with police making 14 arrests.
Those opposed to the event, which was held in a north-west London synagogue, claimed it was also selling property in land illegally occupied by Israel and was part of an expansionist plan to drive out Palestinians. Organisers denied this was the case.
Continue reading...Met seizes far-right activist’s phones after he disembarks flight at Heathrow under counter-terrorism provisions
British police say they stopped the far-right activist Tommy Robinson and seized his phones as he returned from a trip to Russia.
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, met Elon Musk’s father in Moscow during his trip.
Continue reading...Far-right plan would have obliged the Swiss government to limit the population, currently 9.1 million, to 10 million by 2050
Voters in Switzerland have rejected an unprecedented far-right proposal to cap the country’s population at 10 million in a divisive referendum dubbed “the Swiss Brexit”.
Some 54.79% of voters were against the proposal by the Swiss People’s party (SVP) and 45.21% were in favour. Turnout was 58.86%.
Continue reading...Phoronix reports: The AMD R600 Gallium3D driver saw 59 commits [last] Sunday to Mesa 26.2. Making this code restructuring and code cleaning all the more notable is that the improvements to this old AMD Radeon graphics driver was done in part by GitHub Copilot. Gert Wollny has been among the few open-source developers left working on the AMD R600g driver that covers from the Radeon HD 2000 series through Radeon HD 6000 series graphics cards... [T]he old open-source GPU driver support is being assisted by AI long after the upstream vendor has stopped working on this driver — the Radeon HD 2000 "R600" series launched in 2007.
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Shelton fights back to win third title of season
Grass specialist Fritz was defending champion
American top seed Ben Shelton beat countryman and defending champion Taylor Fritz 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 to win the Stuttgart Open ATP title on Sunday.
Grass court specialist Fritz had never previously lost a final on the surface. Shelton broke the second seed once in the opening set and once in the third to claim victory in 1 hour 48 minutes.
Continue reading...Thousand of arrests last summer led to mass protests and some deaths – across the city, communities bear the scars
Most people in Brian Gavidia’s life haven’t seemed to notice that a year has passed since armed federal immigration agents descended on their city.
In East Los Angeles, in the neighborhood where he was born and has lived his whole life, the scene this week appeared more or less normal. A family in formalwear settled into the big round table at the torta ahogada restaurant for a post-graduation celebration. The vendors selling fruit or flowers or perfumes were once again lining the streets.
Continue reading...President Trump endorsed Rep. Mike Collins in the Republican Senate runoff in Georgia, wading into the race days ahead of the contest that will decide who takes on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.
The following is the transcript of the interview with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on June 14, 2026.
Two friends found Kathryn Woessner, 68, in wooded area almost entirely submerged in mud puddle
A woman has been rescued from a mud pit in Minnesota after becoming trapped for several days.
On 6 June, two friends, Adam Sandbeck and Mike Gravalin, were riding their all-terrain vehicles through a wooded area near Backus and Hackensack in northern Minnesota when they discovered Kathryn Woessner, 68, almost entirely submerged in a mud puddle.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer says operation involving National Crime Agency has delivered ‘yet another blow’ to Russia and Putin
Keir Starmer said he directed British troops to seize a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in the Channel in the early hours of Sunday, the first time the UK has led a naval capture since the start of the war in Ukraine.
The prime minister released a video on TikTok early on Sunday showing heavily armed Royal Marine commandos boarding the oil-laden Smyrtos tanker, which had been sailing south of the Isle of Wight en route from Russia to India.
Continue reading...  | I’m looking to VESC my +XR. Was thinking about doing this for my build I’m just unsure if I want to go this route or stick to an easier more drop in build. Has anyone built this or similar that could tell me how difficult it would be? I’m also interested in switching out the hub as well but I was kind of interested in the sidewinder motor which isn’t currently in stock. Thanks! [link] [comments] |
Celebrations filled the streets, subways and bars as police reported some riots, damaged properties and violence
Marvita Davis, 70, was a teenager in Harlem the last time the New York Knicks won a championship, in 1973.
“I was like, Oh, I like this game. I can get into this game,” recalled Davis, who went on to play basketball at Northeastern University.
Continue reading...Government wants to back parents against tech companies though some feel the process has been rushed
Keir Starmer is expected to announce sweeping “Australia-plus” restrictions on under-16s accessing harmful social media apps, a move the government has framed as taking the side of parents against the big technology companies.
A consultation on online safety closed on 26 May, giving ministers just weeks to come up with policies after receiving more than 116,000 responses. Industry sources and child safety advocates have described the process as “rushed” and driven by a political timeline. It is not clear when the ban could come into force.
Continue reading...America's Energy Department "wants to build a single national platform for doing science with AI," reports Communications of the ACM: It is called the Genesis Mission, and the idea is to connect the country's 17 national laboratories, their supercomputers, scientific datasets, and a growing layer of AI models and agents into one system researchers can access. The DOE has taken to calling it 'a national operating system for science.' That means treating compute, data, and AI models the way the country treats power lines and highways, as shared national plumbing everyone else builds on top of. If it works, Genesis will change how scientific work gets organized, checked, and scaled, with AI helping run the whole pipeline from hypothesis to simulation to experiment and back. The pitch is that this is better understood as infrastructure policy than as another research program. Genesis is now moving from announcement into execution. President Trump signed the executive order launching it in November 2025. This past February, the DOE published 26 science and technology challenges for the program, and in March it opened a $294-million call for research teams in fields like nuclear energy, quantum information science, semiconductors, and biotechnology. The program is also beginning to reach beyond U.S. borders. In June 2026, Japan moved to become Genesis's first international partner. The two governments plan to invest a combined $1 billion over five years, with Japan contributing $500 million toward joint work in quantum technology, nuclear fusion, and biotechnology. The stated goal is staying ahead of China in the fields where AI is advancing fastest. The open question is whether a federated platform this big can actually work, or whether it ends up as one more expensive coordination exercise.
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In the realm of wildlife gremlin simulators like Untitled Goose Game, Bad Magpie marries mischievous carnage with an emotional undercurrent.
Exclusive: devolving tax is part of plans to give local areas more power in areas including justice, health and education
Ministers are considering handing over billions of pounds raised by business rates to regional mayors as part of one of the biggest shake-ups of the English tax system in recent years.
Steve Reed, the local government secretary, said the government was working on plans to devolve the tax, which has been the subject of recent protests by pubs and other hospitality businesses.
Continue reading...For a half century, New York was the center of the universe but the joke of the NBA. In these glamour-filled finals, the franchise finally got its moment
The New York Knicks had been here before. As Jalen Brunson and his band of not-so-merry men stood at the top of this year’s NBA finals, they confronted not just the San Antonio Spurs, their foe on the court, but the very idea of what the Knicks themselves – as a team, as a franchise, as a symbol of New York City – could be. The team’s run to last year’s Eastern Conference finals was thrilling but had the aspect of an underdog romp, and ultimately ended in defeat. Was this the limit of what New York’s fans, Rabelaisian in their rages and saintly in their endless capacity for patience, could expect from their team? Brunson was dogged and clever but perhaps not quite elite, a Stakhanovite toiler in a league built for transcendent talents. Karl-Anthony Towns was elite but perhaps too soft, too sensitive, too “zesty” to carry a team to the NBA’s pinnacle. The questions hanging over the leading pair extended to a team forged in their image. The lineup was good; was it great?
Coach Mike Brown, in his first year with the franchise, had promise but no small amount of baggage, having landed at the Knicks after being dismissed by the Sacramento Kings following a horror start to the 2024/25 season. And then, of course, there was the weight of history: no title since 1973 and a litany of near-misses and false dawns in the intervening decades. New York had watched through the 1980s and 1990s as first Los Angeles, then Chicago (under the guidance of its own son, Phil Jackson, who won the 1973 championship as a Knick) propelled the NBA to global prominence, a narrative in which the Knicks filled the role of a dutiful punching bag. Hakeem Olajuwon’s block on John Starks to kill their hopes in 1994, the tragic heroism of Patrick Ewing, death by Tim Duncan in ’99, and all the fizzled promise of Carmelo and Stoudemire and Linsanity: the memories had faded but the scars lingered. The franchise was destined, it seemed, to remain forever on the fringes, a mournful witness to others’ joy. Could they do it? Surely they couldn’t: the curse of the Knicks had driven the fans, the team, the city itself to despair. Neurosis, not success, was hardwired into New York’s psychology. The center of the universe and the joke of the NBA: the city was Larry Fink off the court, and Larry David on it.
Continue reading...Platner’s long road ahead shows how Democrats may have fumbled the bag in Maine
The Democratic establishment’s early bet on Janet Mills, as its best hope to pick up a coveted Senate seat in Maine, now looks like a clear miscalculation – one that has left the party boxed into a far riskier general election fight than it ever anticipated. By rallying behind the septuagenarian governor, and sidelining Graham Platner for months, party leaders helped create the very predicament they face.
Platner’s primary victory on Tuesday now means the closely-watched race will be a test of fortitude for Democrats in the long road to November. One where either outcome has wide-ranging implications for the party.
Continue reading...Apple must pay iPhone owners to settle a lawsuit over delayed and missing AI features.
The monument excites reverence for the Declaration of Independence. Of course it is threatening to a president who doesn’t share its egalitarian vision
The Lincoln Memorial has always been special. Its siting is perfect, facing the Capitol, across the length of the Mall, as if speaking truth to power. The symmetry of its proportions adds to its moral grandeur. It feels balanced and open to all, like Lincoln’s vision of democracy.
That was consciously on the mind of the architect, Henry Bacon. It is not a towering monolith; instead, it invites the visitor in. There are some steps to climb, but not too many; 87 in all, chosen specifically because of the “four score and seven” in the Gettysburg Address, the number separating the year of Lincoln’s speech (1863) from 1776, the year of the Declaration of Independence.
Ted Widmer is the author of Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington, and a new book, to be published 23 June, The Living Declaration: A Biography of America’s Founding Text
Continue reading..."Blizzard Entertainment is continuing its crusade against private World of Warcraft servers," reports the gaming news site Aftermath: The company filed a new lawsuit on Friday in a California court against the makers of Project Ascension, alleging copyright infringement, Digital Millennium Copyright Act violations, and other claims. Blizzard Entertainment claims that Project Ascension is a "lucrative way to exploit and profit from the popularity of the WoW game experience," according to the complaint, obtained by Aftermath. Blizzard Entertainment's lawyers say in the complaint that Project Ascension purports to have "over a million players." Lawyers write that the developers have "distributed (and are continuing to distribute) millions of pirated copies of Blizzard's copyrighted WoW game software." They also allege that Project Ascension's servers are hosted on Russian "bulletproof" servers with Aeza Group, a company that was sanctioned in 2025 "for its role in supporting cybercriminal activity targeting victims in the United States and around the world," per a U.S. Department of Treasury press release... Project Ascension lets players combine pieces of World of Warcraft's different classes to build unique characters. It's free-to-play, but players can purchase in-game currency, Donation Points, to buy things in-game, such as cosmetics and experience boosts. Blizzard Entertainment's lawyers assert that Project Ascension has made "millions of dollars from the sale of Donation Points...." Blizzard Entertainment successfully sued a popular World of Warcraft server called Turtle Wow last year. The project had been running since 2018, taking donations from players for the free-to-play server. Both sides announced in April 2026 that they'd reached a settlement after Blizzard Entertainment was awarded a permanent injunction to shut down Turtle WoW. The details of the settlement were not made public. Turtle WoW was shut down for good shortly after May 15; players gathered online to mourn the end of the server.
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The number of people living in Switzerland has soared by nearly one-quarter over the last generation.
Some fighters will receive bonuses in ‘stablecoins’ issued by Trump family business World Liberty Financial
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) announced on Friday that it will pay bonuses to fighters in a form of cryptocurrency issued by the Trump family business World Liberty Financial at the heavily publicized White House mixed martial arts event on Sunday.
The development connects the Trump family’s financial interests to the high-profile UFC competition being promoted on government property. The competition on the south White House lawn is scheduled for 14 June, Donald Trump’s birthday.
Continue reading...Vice President JD Vance tells "CBS Sunday Morning" that he and his wife, Usha, will make a decision whether to enter the 2028 presidential race following the 2026 midterm elections.
Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha, are expecting their fourth child. They talk about family; his book, "Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith"; and his future.
A year ago it was the hot topic, but business owners have seen there’s a limit to the president’s royal decrees
In two weeks, I’m speaking to a group of companies in the packaging industry about issues affecting their businesses this year. I’m going to discuss the economy, navigating higher costs, leveraging new tax legislation, AI and what companies are doing to find and retain workers in a volatile job market.
You know what I won’t be talking about? Tariffs.
Continue reading...Coweta county could become third in state history to stage referendum, letting residents challenge a policy or decision
A post-church downpour didn’t deter hundreds of people from showing up at Morgan’s Market on a recent Sunday afternoon to sign a petition aimed at giving people in rural Coweta county, Georgia, the chance to vote on a datacenter known as Project Sail and prohibit other datacenters and cryptocurrency mining operations from moving forward.
It was one of about a dozen petition-signing events held in the area in a push that launched several weeks ago. As of Friday, organizers said they had collected about 6,500 signatures; the goal is about 14,000. Located less than an hour south-west of Atlanta, Coweta county has about 160,000 residents. Two-thirds of the county voted for Trump.
Continue reading...The US president has deported far more Cuban nationals during his second term than the entirety of his first
There was a time not so long ago when US immigration officials would have rolled out the red carpet for Cuban immigrants like May Díaz.
The 36-year-old native of the city of Camaguey joined thousands of other Cubans in spontaneous nationwide demonstrations against the Communist regime on 11 July 2021. Like many other protesters, Díaz was beaten up by truncheon-wielding police officers who were deployed to crush the protests, and three months later she fled the island and landed in the Mexican resort city of Cancún.
Continue reading...Now 72, the former child star of such classic TV series as "The Twilight Zone" and "Lost in Space" avoided the dangers that other young actors faced while pursuing a Hollywood career, as an Emmy-nominated songwriter, touring musician and recording artist.
Israel’s campaign to raze huge swaths of southern Lebanon may destroy not only people’s homes, but also their ability to even show they owned the properties, according to locals and officials from the Lebanese government — potentially leaving as many as a quarter million Lebanese unable to prove that they have property or homes at all.
Aerial imagery from Bint Jbeil, the seat of a municipality by the same name, shows what residents describe as burn marks at sites where official records were kept: civil registration files, land deeds, the paper infrastructure of a city’s legal existence.
With the notary gone, civil administration buildings bulldozed, and widespread destruction of homes that contained important personal documents, residents of the 36 villages of the Bint Jbeil district fear Israel’s total war has meant the destruction of all their records could permanently untether them from the homes they left behind when they fled under Israel’s evacuation orders.
That could make reconstruction after the war a nightmare. Bint Jbeil is Lebanon’s most southwestern district and the site of an Israeli campaign to evacuate entire populations before flattening their villages.
“The Ministry of Interior has not yet been able to obtain the civil registry records for Bint Jbeil district.”
Some Lebanese even see it as an intentional tactic, part of Israel’s plan to empty out southern Lebanon and establish a buffer zone south of the Litani River Israeli leaders hope will put northern Israel out of the reach of Hezbollah’s rockets.
A mukhtar, or local official, confirmed to The Intercept that civil registry records had been digitized up to 2020 only, which offers limited reassurance. Much, however, remains unaccounted for. There are the last six years of records along with countless others that were not officially registered thanks to Lebanon’s notoriously chaotic bureaucracies and lax enforcement of registration rules, which are at times flouted to avoid paying taxes.
At the center of the crisis is Bint Jbeil’s Grand Serail, the old administrative building that houses land deeds for thousands of families across more than 20 villages in the district. Since Israeli forces moved in, Lebanese authorities have not been able to reach it, despite making efforts through the International Committee of the Red Cross with requests to the so-called Mechanism Committee that administers the Israeli-Lebanese ceasefire agreement.
“The Ministry of Interior has not yet been able to obtain the civil registry records for Bint Jbeil district, because the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) has not received approval from the Mechanism Committee, which includes Israel, to enter the area, despite submitting a request to do so, in order to retrieve the records and transfer them to the Interior Ministry in Beirut,” a ministry spokesperson told The Intercept.
In a statement to an Intercept journalist in New York, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces declined to comment on the ICRC request and said the Lebanese group Hezbollah installs military assets in civilian areas.
“IDF directives permit the execution of clearing operations of structures used for military purposes, or when there is an essential operational necessity that justifies the full or partial demolition of a structure, in accordance with international law,” the statement said.
Destruction of civilian infrastructure in war is permissible by the laws of armed conflict only under narrow conditions, including that there be a military purpose and that the destruction be incidental to that military purpose.
Israel has flattened entire border towns in Lebanon. Experts have said the actions could constitute war crimes. Israel’s defense minister has previously said, “All houses in villages near the Lebanese border will be destroyed.”
Lebanese Finance Minister Yassine Jaber has been monitoring the Grand Serail by satellite.
“The walls are still standing mostly,” he told The Intercept, “but satellites don’t have keys to doors. We don’t know what happened inside. Were the records destroyed? Were they confiscated? The truth is still behind the front lines.”
For four weeks, Jaber ran what amounted to a crisis operations room: calls to Lebanese army command, coordination with military intelligence, repeated attempts to reach the Mechanism Committee — the multilateral body, including Israel, that monitors the its mid-April ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah — and appeals to UNIFIL, a United Nations force in Lebanon.
Their goal was to establish a corridor for a single journey to Bint Jbeil to recover the records.
“We tried everything,” Jaber said. “But Bint Jbeil today is a forbidden zone.”
“We tried everything. But Bint Jbeil today is a forbidden zone.”
Even the International Committee of the Red Cross has been unable to reach the records.
“The ICRC supported the Ministry of Interior in the evacuation of some civil registries in southern Lebanon at the beginning of the escalation,” said Sally Aoun, a spokesperson for ICRC Lebanon. “It was not possible to support the evacuation in Bint Jbeil because of ongoing hostilities.”
Jaber has had some successes in other areas where recovering records proved a challenge. When fighting reached Marjayoun, in Lebanon’s south, a team of civil servants went in under bombardment to get the civil records. The same thing happened in the Hasbaya distrcit.
Records from the southern city of Tyre are now held further up the coast in Sidon. The ministry also managed to evacuate files from Meiss El Jabal, Tibnine, Jbaa, Jouaya, and Nabatieh to Beirut. The Ministry of Interior in Beirut designated one day each week for each of the district registries to process civil documentation requests from displaced southerners.
Bint Jbeil remains the missing piece.
Lebanon does have a partial digital backup. The Finance Ministry holds electronic records for most registered properties in the south — a safety net for deeds that were formally logged. Thousands of transactions, however, were never registered.
Take the case of Ali Khreizat, known by the honorific Abu Hassan, who was displaced from his home in the village of Aitaroun in Bint Jbeil district. When the village faced Israeli bombardment, Abu Hassan left — but he left behind, in a drawer in the corner, a worn leather bag holding the bill of sale for the land he had lived on for five years.
Abu Hassan has made peace with the destruction of his house, but his far more profound worry is that he will never be able to prove he ever owned the property.
“Who protects the buyer’s right if the paper contract has disappeared?”
“The house I built stone by stone is dust now,” he said. “And the paper that says it was mine has gone to God.”
Even five years after moving in, his bill of sale never reached the land registry. Like many in Lebanon, Abu Hassan felt no particular rush to make bureaucratic deadlines — with the legendary inefficiencies of the Lebanese state offering little encouragement to do so. Now, he has heard from locals still in the area that even the notary’s office was destroyed, leaving diminishing hopes that a copy of his bill of sale exists anywhere.
With little enforcement of registration rules — whether the failure to do so is born of a lackadaisical ethos around bureaucratic paperwork or another reason, like wanting to dodge taxes — the problem of unregistered homes could leave people with no way to show they ever bought properties.
“This will create a major legal problem in proving ownership,” Jaber said. “Who owns what? Who protects the buyer’s right if the paper contract has disappeared?”
When Jaber took office in February 2025, he said, he found a registry system unfit for our modern, online era. He is now overseeing a full overhaul to digitize documents, a project he estimates will take six months to complete.
“A digital vault,” he said, “that no shell can reach and no fire can erase.”
The damage to land records in Bint Jbeil may run deeper than any individual document.
A key concern is the fate of Bint Jbeil’s land survey division. The technical unit holds the measurement records tying property lines to fixed geographic reference points, some dating to the French Mandate. Those points are connected, through a chain of historic surveys, to a reference coordinate in Homs, Syria, which has served as an anchor for Lebanon’s national cadastral map since the 1920s.
If those physical survey markers have been destroyed, said Riyad Al-Asaad, a civil engineer from the south, the question becomes: Who holds the GPS data that defines the boundaries? Lebanon or Israel?
The risk, Al-Asaad said, is that properties could be redrawn using Israeli measurements, a new geographic reality imposed on top of the old one.
Retired Lebanese Gen. Yaarab Sakhir sees this as part of a deliberate pattern — pointing to the Dahiya Doctrine, an Israeli military strategy named for the Beirut suburb where it was first implemented. The strategy calls for disproportionate attacks and targeting civilian infrastructure to create a high cost for Israel’s enemies, thereby creating a strong deterrent.
“Israel, when it applies the Dahiya Doctrine, as it did in Gaza, dividing it into a 55/45 split between an Israeli corridor and a Palestinian zone — it is doing the same thing now south of the Litani,” he said. “First, displacement and depopulation. Second, repeated strikes. Third, when areas fall militarily — Bint Jbeil first — they mine, demolish, bulldoze, and erase every feature to make these areas uninhabitable and prevent residents from returning.”
Official buildings, Sakhir said, become specific Israeli targets under this program.
“Israel focuses on civil registry offices and government serails,” he said. “The archive in Bint Jbeil’s serail covers not just the city but all the villages in the district.”
In its statement to an Intercept journalist in New York, the Israeli military denied targeting civilian infrastructure as such.
“The IDF,” the spokesperson said, “does not operate against the institutions of the State of Lebanon, the Lebanese Armed Forces, or Lebanese civilians, and rejects allegations of intentional harm to population registries, civil documents, land registry records, or administrative institutions, or any intent to disconnect residents from their land or harm their property rights.”
The Interior Ministry’s internal figures name 190,000 people registered on the 2025 voter rolls for Bint Jbeil district. Add the generation of young people and children not yet on those rolls, and the number approaches a quarter million — all of them, in varying degrees, affected by the disappearance of their district’s official records.
Mohamed Sarhan, the mukhtar, or local leader, of Kfarkela, a village north of Bint Jbeil district, told The Intercept that residents and civil servants from the area reported that Israeli forces confiscated land registry records belonging to Bint Jbeil district. The fate of the civil registration records remains unclear. No one can say with certainty whether they were burned in the bombardment, taken, or simply lost in the chaos.
Dalia Boussi left Bint Jbeil under the sound of shelling. Like everyone else who fled last fall, she grabbed what she could. Boussi, a local video producer, is not in a panic; she brought her documents with her. She worries, however, about those who left without papers and about what the state must do when people return.
“There is complete destruction in the city center, as we can see in satellite images. When we return, we’ll have to redraw the borders of properties from scratch and determine what public land is and what’s private before reconstruction can begin,” Boussi said. “It’s important that the state and the relevant ministries show flexibility to ease things for citizens. Within each town and city, a crisis cell should be established specifically to follow up on property files and civil registration records, and to ensure every person has their official papers.”
She paused, then added: “Whatever happens, no one is going to lose their identity and no one is going to shave years off their age.” It was a lighthearted joke that belies an underlying reality: The people of Bint Jbeil still exist. The records may be gone, but the local residents know who they are and know what was theirs.
As Abu Hassan, the Aitaroun resident whose bill of sale was likely destroyed with his home, said, “Tomorrow’s battle won’t only be reconstruction. It will be a battle to prove we exist, with an archive that has been looted or set on fire.”
The post Civil Records for Hundreds of Thousands of Lebanese Could Be Wiped Out By Israel’s Total War appeared first on The Intercept.
Fans thronged the streets to celebrate as the New York Knicks won their first NBA championship since 1973. Crowds were dancing into the night after the nail-biting 94-90 finish to game 5 of the finals against San Antonio Spurs.
As the celebrations ran late into the night, hundreds of people also swarmed a convoy of about 15 shuttle buses in Times Square used to transport soccer fans from the first World Cup game in the New York City area. At least one bus was set on fire. It was not immediately clear whether anyone was injured in the incident
To mark America's 250th, a time capsule will be buried in Philadelphia on July 4, not to be opened until America's quincentennial. What objects made the cut to be preserved for another 250 years?
In the U.S. the percentage of obese adults is about ten times what it is in Japan. What differentiates the Japanese diet, and how are schools making it their mission to give Japanese children a taste of a healthy life?
Commentary: Apple TV's Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed is a fun and freaky series bolstered by smart writing, unpredictable twists and a standout performance by Tatiana Maslany.
Shirley Firth is hoping those responsible for Lindsay de Feliz’s death in 2019 will finally be convicted
A Cambridgeshire mother in her 90s is hoping to finally see justice for her murdered daughter when a retrial into her death is due to open in the Dominican Republic this week.
The body of Lindsay de Feliz, 64, a successful author, was found in a shallow grave, close to her home in the north-west of the Dominican Republic, in December 2019.
Continue reading...The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts
This week’s question: Is ‘ripen at home’ fruit the supermarkets’ idea of a joke?
I’ve been struggling to get my head around the idea that a passkey, which can be a pin on your phone, or facial recognition, can be safer than using a complicated password and two-factor authentication.
I get that having something unique to your device, not stored on a company’s server, is unphishable and less hackable by cybercrims, but what if your phone is nicked and someone guesses the password? And what if you lose your phone?
Continue reading...The recent exodus of people – voluntary and not – from the US threatens to worsen America’s authoritarian slippage
The recent frenzy of attempts to redraw electoral districts is ultimately about voice and silence in US democracy. When districts are cut to maximize one ideological perspective, the representation of large concentrations of Americans with opposing views can be diluted or erased. In many of the new Republican-drawn state maps, it will be as if such citizens have departed entirely.
Since Donald Trump enacted a series of policies that undermine institutional checks and balances, new population data suggests that, at the same time, many such citizens have departed quite literally.
Justin Gest is a professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. He has authored seven books on the politics of immigration, democracy, and demographic change, including his forthcoming work, Democratic Drain: Global Migration and the Struggle for Democracy
Continue reading...From gold to water, California’s wealth was built on extraction. The AI boom is reviving an old question: who pays the price?
I was a fourth-grader in the public schools of California when I first learned about the Gold Rush. I remember our teacher, Mrs Dyer, passing down the story in the manner of lore.
On the morning of 24 January 1848, James Marshall, a New Jersey boy come west, stumbled upon four shiny nuggets alongside the American River. He tried to keep his discovery a secret, but the shout of “eureka” from the dirt streets of San Francisco rang out across the shore. It unleashed a force that could not be contained.
Continue reading...Get ready for the longest day of the year, when one Alaska location experiences a full day of uninterrupted sunshine.
Keir Starmer ready to overrule Ed Miliband after warnings manufacturers would be penalised and jobs put at risk
The UK government is poised to water down its 2030 targets for electric vehicle sales after intensive lobbying by the car industry and unions.
The government is preparing to consult on less ambitious targets for the transition to fully battery-powered electric cars over the rest of the decade after carmakers and unions warned that they would penalise manufacturers and put jobs at risk.
Continue reading...Commentary: A great ESPN 30 for 30 documentary will jog your memory. It's called June 17th, 1994.
Researchers also discover that the ancient vines of Chianti, famed for its red wines, produced white fruit
DNA extracted from 2,000-year-old grape seeds found in ancient wells in Tuscany has enabled scientists to map the most extensive genetic history of grapevines recovered from a single site.
The findings revealed that vineyards of the Roman era formed part of the empire’s sophisticated agricultural network that might have influenced the development of modern winemaking.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer said British armed forces intercepted a Russian shadow fleet vessel in the early hours of Sunday morning
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has thanked the UK for intercepting a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in the English Channel, describing it as an “important step”.
“It was Russia’s hubris, fuelled by high oil and gas revenues, that paved the way for this war, and every decision by partners that deprives Russia of money also limits the war itself” he wrote in a post on X, in which he personally thanked the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and “all Britons”.
Continue reading...Medications that target depression, anxiety and poor sleep could help treat pain without opioids’ addictive properties
A range of other medications could serve as alternatives to powerful opioids for pain relief in emergency departments, according to a new study.
The review paper examined non-opioid medications available in the emergency department at San Francisco general hospital and examined existing medical literature to figure out which ones might provide pain relief.
Continue reading...Rochford LGBTQ+ community say Reform council’s ban on flying pride flags or holding events states they’re not welcome
Before Reform gained control of Essex county council in the May elections, Chris Taylor and members of the Rochford LGBTQ+ community already felt they were witnessing a growing tide of political rhetoric around identity.
But they were still shocked when the county’s new leadership moved to ban Pride events in 74 libraries, scaling back events of “any particular groups or themes”, a decision they said was “straight out of Trumpland”.
Continue reading...Study of mothers in Seattle underscores ‘widespread, systemic problem’ of chemical contamination, experts say
Breast milk samples from mothers in Seattle contain alarming levels of dangerous hormone-disrupting chemicals, including BPA, BPS, melamine, cyanuric acid, and triclosan, new peer-reviewed research has found.
The chemicals present a serious risk to infants because they likely interfere with hormones that are critical to newborns’ proper development, and have been found to be harmful at very low levels of exposure. About 92% of 50 samples were contaminated with at least one of the anti-microbials or plasticizers for which researchers checked.
Continue reading...Pixar's filmmakers discuss the challenges of bringing cutting-edge tech to a 30-year-old franchise -- and the importance of holding back.
TrueType is a widely used vector font standard for rendering text in web pages, PDFs, operating systems, and applications. Familiar fonts like Helvetica, Garamond, and Monaco are all built on TrueType outlines. The format specifies a hinting interpreter intended to help outlines rasterize faithfully on low-resolution displays. Modern high-resolution displays enable beautiful typography from outlines alone, but TrueType fonts that need hinting to render legibly remain in use and we continue to support them.
Font parsers process data from untrusted sources, making the TrueType hinting interpreter a security-critical attack surface. To make the format more resilient on Apple platforms, we rewrote its hinting interpreter from C to memory-safe Swift for the Fall 2025 releases. In addition to memory safety, we also improved performance: on average, our Swift interpreter runs 13% faster than the C interpreter it replaced.
↫ Scott Perry
This article provides a deep dive into how, exactly they did that.
The price of bitcoin dropped 13% down to $64,394 just in June — but there's more bad news, reports CNBC." "Bitcoin has lost nearly half its value since reaching a record high above $123,000 in July 2025." While previous bitcoin selloffs were often followed by large rebounds in price, the latest decline may prompt some investors to revisit why they own bitcoin in the first place, [says Daniel Sotiroff, associate director of ETF and Passive Strategies Research at Morningstar]. Here's what he and other experts have to say about the case for holding crypto, and how much exposure is appropriate for the average investor... Not all financial professionals agree bitcoin belongs in a portfolio. Bitcoin differs from stocks, bonds and real estate because it doesn't generate earnings, interest payments or rental income that investors can use to estimate its value, says Robert Johnson, a finance professor at Creighton University. Instead, its price is largely determined solely by investor demand. "You cannot invest in Bitcoin, you can only speculate," he says. Sotiroff agrees that bitcoin is difficult to value using traditional financial metrics. "The best analogy I've heard is that it's more like a collectible, because it's basically worth what other people are going to pay for it," he says. Sotiroff told CNBC the recent selloff was a reminder that bitcoin's gains can be accompanied by equally dramatic declines — one reason many financial planners recommend limiting exposure to a small portion of a broader portfolio. "You just really can't make a call on what direction it's going to go," says Sotiroff.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
‘Coastal uplift’ exposes coral and kills marine life, as residents say shorelines extended by up to 200 metres
A powerful earthquake that killed at least 61 people in the Philippines this week raised the seabed by as much as 2 metres (6.6ft), exposing coral and harming marine life, the country’s environment department has said.
At least 40 people are still missing after the 7.8-magnitude quake off southern Mindanao island on Monday, according to updated tolls from the disaster agency.
Continue reading...Activists are challenging colonial-era law and demanding ‘free, legal, unfettered, forever rights’ to use beaches
Campaigners in Jamaica are heading to court next week to try to prevent the government from cutting off access to more of their beaches.
They argue that ceding their shorelines to big hotel chains enriches private investors and benefits tourists and outsiders while depriving Jamaicans who depend on the sea for their livelihoods, leisure and health.
Continue reading...Activists argue business model is ‘plantation tourism’ designed to benefit elite and disadvantage most Jamaicans
Devon Taylor remembers when the Mammee Bay shoreline in St Ann, Jamaica, was filled with children frolicking in the ocean after school, fishers haggling with locals over the price of their daily catch and craft vendors carving souvenirs under almond trees.
“I grew up on Mammee Bay,” Taylor says. He recalls fetching seawater in bottles for his grandmother when she was no longer able to go to the beach, learning to swim in the shallows, and watching generations of fishers cast their nets. “That beach raised us. It fed us.”
Continue reading...Our favourite music, clothes and books used to be markers of individuality – but the algorithm has made us all sheep. Meet the style rebels fighting back
What are you into? What floats your boat? What music, films, clothes, art, books – anything, really – do you actually like? Do you find these questions more difficult to answer than you would have done 10 years ago? How about 20? You do? You’re not alone.
It has become impossible to ignore: personal taste has been seriously debased – if not completely destroyed – by technological advancement. We know the internet has radically altered the way we form our opinions and beliefs. Now we’re waking up to another sobering truth: it has wrecked our capacity to form our own preferences.
Continue reading...Questions about the efficacy of door-knocking feel valid. But I see it as a weapon against autocracy – and a spiritual workout
In the fall of 2024, I spotted a middle-aged couple standing on their front lawn in Bucks county, Pennsylvania. I waved and gingerly approached. The woman, whose name appeared in my canvassing app, told me she had never voted in an election before, had never seen politics as relevant to her life. And her husband, she said, was a lifelong Republican. But after the return of Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee, it felt like it was time to take a stand. They were both going to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot in November.
On the other side of the street, directly facing their house, were two of the biggest Trump 2024 flags I had ever seen, along with a life-size cutout of Trump on a third lawn.
Continue reading...For the first time ever, agentic AI internet activity has overtaken human-generated traffic, marking a historic shift online.
For the first time in 53 years, the New York Knicks won the NBA. Jalen Brunson scored 45 points, including 13 straight for New York in the fourth quarter, and the Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday night.
The Knicks won the series 4-1, rallying from double-digit deficits in all four of those victories
Continue reading...Against Paraguay, the Monaco striker provided the ruthless finishing the USMNT have often missed in recent years
Even after they conceded an early goal on Friday, Paraguay kept affording the United States ample room up the channel. As the ball reached Malik Tillman and Weston McKennie in midfield, their disoriented opponents never quite seemed to know how to station themselves to stem the tide. The US’s off-ball movement further complicated those efforts, dizzying Paraguay’s defense before it could establish an ideal structure.
“I just tried to run in behind,” McKennie said after the US had completed their 4-1 victory. “I think I realized early on that they were struggling to follow my deep runs. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. I keep trying to do it until they figure something out. I was able to find more space than usual, and it was fun. I really enjoyed to get on the ball as much as I did.”
Continue reading...Strange things are afoot at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, giving rise to an obvious question: how did we get here?
Rising from the South Lawn of the White House is a 92ft-tall skeletal structure known as “the Claw”. Beneath it sits an octagonal cage surrounded by sponsor logos, temporary grandstands and thousands of seats for a mixed martial arts card on Sunday night to celebrate Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and the Ultimate Fighting Championship brand.
The event has prompted comparisons to Idiocracy, Mike Judge’s satire of a future US where politics, entertainment and corporate branding become indistinguishable. Others have gone further, dismissing it as a “kleptocratic spectacle”.
Continue reading...The system of ocean current that moves heat in the Atlantic Ocean plays a key role in regulating climate. Today’s monitoring of it may be discontinued
Imagine we detect a large asteroid heading straight for Earth. We are able to intervene and prevent disaster, but instead we cut the funding needed to track it. A few million dollars, it was argued, was too expensive to have a chance to save society.
While this scenario isn’t real, the metaphor is alarmingly accurate. In Europe, we spend €1bn to monitor space for asteroids, even if the actual risk of a civilisation-ending asteroid strike is close to zero.
Continue reading...Commentary: Sure, you'll be able to run iOS 27 on an iPhone 11, but does that actually matter?
Pokemon Go Fest gave me and my far-flung family members a great excuse to play a game together that we'd all been enjoying separately. We had a lot of company.
Election of new Hungarian government in April has paved way for EU member states to agree to open talks
Ukraine and Moldova will take a decisive step towards joining the EU on Monday, as they embark on the first phase of membership negotiations.
The start of substantive negotiations, launched by senior EU officials and ministers from both countries in Luxembourg on Monday, will be a highly symbolic moment for the two countries that were both part of the former Soviet Union. It comes after Russia has intensified its bombardment of Ukrainian towns and cities, while sustaining huge losses for little territorial gain.
Continue reading...As Israel’s longest period of sustained armed conflict drags on, the country’s diminished peace movement finds itself struggling to be heard on the sidelines.
Following decades of challenges, Philadelphia embraces its role as a World Cup super host and model of affordability, accessibility and convenience.
So I have a standard pint and an affinity for platform boots and bell bottoms The boots haven't been a problem but My bell bottoms keep getting eaten by the wheel I was wondering if a crop fender would help solve this problem or if I should just go with a standard fender it's always my front right foot and it looks like a crop fender would keep them ends of the bell bottoms out but I don't know for sure anyone else have this problem
Exclusive: Recovery efforts remain slow and passing of time makes it more likely they will be skeletonised
The International Committee of the Red Cross has said the risk that the thousands of Palestinians buried beneath Gaza’s rubble may never be identified is increasing by the day, as recovery efforts remain slow and many victims have yet to be retrieved, the Guardian can reveal.
“There is no doubt that these bodies could soon become difficult to identify,” said Pat Griffiths, the ICRC spokesperson in Jerusalem. “The longer it takes for human remains to be recovered, the more difficult it can be to identify them. The longer the deceased lie beneath the rubble, the more likely they will be in advanced stages of decomposition – even skeletonised – when eventually recovered.”
Continue reading...  | Have 73 miles on pint s then got ADV2 all 3 of my falls were at under 2 mph. Fingers crossed on not nosediving. [link] [comments] |
Simon Ritter joined Sun Microsystems in 1996 and spent time working in both Java development and consultancy. He's now written an opinion piece for InfoWorld warning that "Between 2029 and 2032, every currently supported long-term support (LTS) version of Java will reach end-of-support within a single three-year window." That's Java 17 in 2029, Java 8 in 2030, Java 21 in 2031, and Java 11 in 2032... On paper, this looks like a manageable upgrade cycle. In practice, it creates a collision of timelines that most enterprises have failed to forecast. Organizations attempting to modernize incrementally — moving application by application, version by version — are operating on a model that the calendar has already rendered obsolete... [W]hen every major Java version expires in the same compressed window, sequential planning collapses. By the time this becomes obvious, organizations will be forced into reactive mode, making rushed decisions under extreme pressure. For organizations planning traditional stepwise upgrades — Java 8 to Java 11 to Java 17 to Java 21 — this convergence elevates a routine maintenance task into a structural crisis. Enterprises with large Java estates will be forced to upgrade multiple applications across multiple versions simultaneously to maintain security compliance and business continuity. "Parallel modernization requires parallel capacity — something most organizations haven't budgeted for," he points out. "This explains why traditional approaches struggle to scale."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Euphoric fans flooded midtown Manhattan on Saturday night to celebrate the New York Knicks’ first championship in 53 years
Continue reading...Site takes no action over hate posts against UK politicians including Kemi Badenoch, Shabana Mahmood and Zia Yusuf
X has refused to take down dozens of social media posts reported as “hate, abuse or harassment” in which prominent UK politicians, including Kemi Badenoch, have been racially abused.
In May, researchers from the social inclusion thinktank British Future reported 30 posts from this year in which the Conservative party leader was called the N-word. In each case the researchers used the platform’s “hate, abuse or harassment” reporting option. X refused to act in the majority of cases, despite repeated requests.
Continue reading...  | 7th Day of ownership [link] [comments] |
Increase in road deaths amid rise of e-bikes prompts Houten to test willingness of freedom-loving cyclists to slow down
As road deaths increase and cycle lanes overflow with e-bikes, the Netherlands is considering a cycling speed limit of 12mph (20km/h).
The government has started a two-week trial in Houten, near Utrecht, to gauge whether freedom-loving Dutch cyclists are willing to slow down – and whether they have any idea how fast they are going in the first place.
Continue reading...After falling for a scam call, ‘The Tech Chap’ host Tom Honeyands realised he’d given away vital details in social media posts
When Tom Honeyands realised he had been defrauded out of £70,000 he was furious and embarrassed – and left wondering if he had given away too many details on his social media videos.
Honeyands was on a work trip to Tokyo when he got a call from someone claiming to be from Lloyds bank. The caller asked if he had made a recent transaction in Singapore and when he said no, the scammer said his account had been compromised and that security details needed to be reset.
Continue reading...The New York Knicks captured their first NBA championship since 1973 with a 94-90 win over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday night.
 | There's probably a really obvious reason that I just haven't thought of but why aren't we designing bumpers and boxes with this sort of wedge? ignore tire proportions they're freehand [link] [comments] |
Forecasters were wrong about an immediate recession but right that we would be worse off outside the EU
As the 10th anniversary of the Brexit vote approaches, the verdict on Britain’s economic performance is clear: voting to leave has resulted in severe costs for households and businesses.
The immediate recession predicted in the Treasury forecasts ordered by George Osborne – dubbed “project fear” by the Leave campaign – did not happen. The impact from the Covid pandemic, wars in Ukraine and Iran, and Donald Trump’s trade battles also cloud the picture.
Continue reading...The Sunday Times reports: A criminal investigation has begun after a police officer allegedly used AI to create evidential material in a "number of cases". Derbyshire Constabulary said an officer was being investigated over an allegation of suspected perverting the course of justice. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) confirmed it was engaging with defence lawyers and the courts over potentially affected cases... It is the first known allegation of AI misuse by police in a criminal case in the UK, but it follows an incident last year in which West Midlands police relied on AI-generated material that fabricated a match involving Maccabi Tel Aviv. The material was used in intelligence supporting a proposed ban on away fans at the club's match against Aston Villa.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Footwear and soccer balls were among the items taken, the BBC reported, but the theft did not include anything "game-critical."
A pilot survived after a fighter jet crashed into a mountain Saturday afternoon in Yakima County, Washington, sparking a wildfire, officials said.
Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for June 14.
Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle No. 629 for Sunday, June 14.
Mexican authorities are investigating how a corpse ended up outside a stadium in the border city of Tijuana, where Iran's national team has been training for the World Cup.
A few weeks ago on a bike ride "inspiration struck" for Dave Eggers, reports SFGate... Without a pen and paper handy, he was stuck texting the idea to himself. The problem? Eggers doesn't own a smartphone. "It takes 20 minutes to write a sentence," Eggers said... It's a funny predicament for Eggers, given that he's arguably the city's biggest proponent of the written word... Now age 56, Eggers' latest book is called "Contrapposto"... On writing days, Eggers bikes to his sailboat docked near the Golden Gate Bridge. He writes using a hefty 1998 Mac that has never been connected to the internet. On the boat, he keeps "banker's hours," working 9 to 5 without any meetings or interruptions except for the occasional wildlife visit. "You're there with the cormorants and the occasional porpoise and sea lions and seals, and when you want to take a break, you walk around and you're in the thick of it, one of the most beautiful spots on Earth," he said. "Especially coming from the Midwest, it never gets old." Given Eggers' decidedly low-tech existence, it's not surprising that the current state of San Francisco gives him pause, but there's a streak of hope that underlies his concerns. He abhors the growing surveillance technology that's gripping the city, refusing to get into Ubers that use recording devices, but he feels a well-written ballot measure about Flock cameras could potentially save our dwindling privacy. ChatGPT's effects on the art of writing are demoralizing, but he welcomes that teachers are re-embracing pencil and paper, with cursive making a big comeback. The wave of artificial intelligence ads blanketing bus stops imploring companies to stop hiring humans are so over the top, they'd sound cliché if he were to include them in one of his dystopian tech industry novels like "The Circle" or "The Every," but tech philanthropy has helped many of his projects flourish. Case in point, Art + Water, a new art space scheduled to open next year on Pier 29 funded largely by art world donations... Co-founded with the artist JD Beltran, the space is slated to operate as an old-school apprenticeship system, hosting 10 artists in residence mentoring 20 students, all free of charge... The ultimate goal is to break down the financial barriers that keep students from pursuing art. Thanks to Slashdot reader destinyland for sharing the article.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Approximately 700 soccer fans gathered at the Bob Carpenter Center for a World Cup watch party Friday night, organized by the Delaware Tourism Office. The event started with an outdoor festival that included music, food trucks and games. Then, excited…
Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for June 14, No. 1,821.
Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for June 14, No. 1,099.
Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for June 14, No. 833.
Earlier this week, a federal judge invalidated the White House's $100,000 H-1B fee policy in response to a lawsuit brought by 20 states.
⚽️ World Cup kick-off 6pm EST, 11pm BST, 8am Sun AEST
⚽️ Player guide | Bracketology | Golden Boot | Email Jeff
We also have Leander Schaerlaeckens in the box at “New York/New Jersey Stadium” today!
For three hours now, the masses in yellow have been streaming into the MetLife – sorry, that’s what it’s called – outnumbering the red of Morocco by 10-to-1 or so. A huge Brazilian diaspora lives in the tri-state area. Moroccans I’ve spoken to have come from Marrakech, of course, but as far afield as Dubai, the UK and (in surprising numbers) Montreal.
Continue reading...Knicks visit Spurs for Game 5 with 3-1 series lead
New York can clinch first title since 1973 with win
The Knicks may be one win from a championship, but they have already conquered another corner of American culture: fashion. From Taylor Swift’s viral “Stevie Knicks” shirt to Timothée Chalamet’s courtside fits, Knicks fandom has become as much a style statement as a sporting allegiance. If you’re wondering how a 53-year title drought turned into the hottest look of the summer, we’ve got two reads for you.
As the series shifts back to San Antonio for Saturday’s Game 5, the mood around the Knicks remains euphoric after Wednesday’s astonishing comeback from 29 points down. But the aftermath of that victory has produced almost as many headlines as the game itself.
Continue reading...More than 700 Special Olympics athletes from around the state came to Newark on June 12 and 13 to compete in the 55th Summer Games.
Fire at medical supplier Medline in Tracy, city of more than 100,000 residents, is affecting the air quality
California firefighters continued to battle a blaze on Saturday that had engulfed a roughly 1m sq ft warehouse, causing officials to warn residents over unhealthy air quality.
The fire has been raging at the medical supplier Medline Industries’ warehouse in Tracy, a city of more than 100,000 residents located about 55 miles (90km) east of San Francisco. Officials expect to be battling the fire for a few more days.
Continue reading...Heavy rain, lightning and strong winds tore through Moneta, about 124 miles south-west of Richmond
A large tent collapsed during a Virginia church’s 20th anniversary celebration on Friday evening, killing one person and injuring nearly two dozen others, officials said.
Heavy rain, lightning and strong winds tore through Moneta, a small community about 124 miles (200km) south-west of Richmond, as the EastLake community church was holding an outdoor service, Shelley Basinger, a spokesperson for Bedford county, said in a statement. The group was in the process of leaving the event tent when it collapsed, according to Abbey Johnston, acting chief of Bedford county fire and rescue.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer says commercial and government agreements will create tens of thousands of jobs
The UK and Japan are set to agree £18bn worth of investment, creating tens of thousands of jobs.
Prime minister Keir Starmer will welcome his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi to Downing Street on Sunday ahead of the G7 summit next week.
Continue reading...The Wall Street Journal reports: The Trump administration's decision to halt all foreign use of Anthropic's most capable AI models was prompted by conversations between Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy and U.S. officials including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, people familiar with the matter said. Researchers at Amazon had used a series of prompts to get Anthropic's Fable 5 model to provide them with information that could be used to aid cyberattacks and was supposed to be off limits, Jassy told the officials, according to people familiar with the matter. Tech industry executives have been in regular touch with the administration about the power of cutting-edge AI tools. Shortly afterward, White House officials held a meeting to discuss how to respond and security researchers began testing Amazon's claims. The officials asked Anthropic to fix the vulnerabilities or take down the model, according to administration officials. The officials decided that the most direct way to address that risk was by preventing foreign governments, companies and individuals from accessing the tool, the people said. President Trump later signed off on the action despite reservations about it hindering innovation, a senior White House official said. The administration had long felt that Anthropic, one of the leaders in America's AI race, couldn't be trusted to manage the security risks its new model presented. Friday's call between some administration officials and Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei reinforced that feeling, the people said... Anthropic has said that the vulnerabilities like those flagged by Amazon are relatively basic. The company has said that other publicly available models are capable of discovering them and that they don't represent a full so-called jailbreak, a point of view shared by some security researchers familiar with Amazon's research. The article points out that Amazon is "a big investor in Anthropic, supply Anthropic with chips for data centers.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
New safety measures had little effect so far, study finds, with Starmer expected to announce under-16s ban
Nearly half of girls and a third of all teenagers saw suicide, self-harm and eating disorder content on social media in a week, a study shows.
The Molly Rose Foundation (MRF) research found that 47% of girls aged 13 to 17 encountered high-risk content during a seven-day period.
Continue reading...Ford is recalling more than 250,000 vehicles that were incorrectly repaired under a previous recall meant to fix a problem that caused the engine to stall while driving, according to the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration.
Convenience store employee Eileen Fox, 56, said suspect ‘banged into metal stand’ but no one was injured in incident
• Waitrose employee sacked after stopping shoplifter from taking Easter eggs
A convenience store worker was sacked after trying to tackle a woman who she suspected was shoplifting bacon.
Eileen Fox said the suspected thief was “well known” in Bootle, Merseyside, and claimed she had been stealing from the shop for years.
Continue reading...Police stop comes after far-right activist rose to further prominence on social media amid racial tensions in Britain
Tommy Robinson was detained by police on Saturday at Heathrow airport under counter-terrorism laws, after a week in which he rose to further prominence on social media.
It was understood the far-right activist, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was stopped and had his phones seized under section 3 of the Counter-Terrorism Border Security Act 2019.
Continue reading...Lawmakers have long sounded the alarm about the risks of letting Section 702 expire. But there's debate over what a lapse in the law actually means.
Boualem Khoukhi scored a late goal to snatch his nation’s first ever World Cu point
One of those Swiss veterans, Ricardo Rodriguez, has quite a back story. From 2018. He has 138 caps for his country and now plays for Betis.
The expected formations, are Qatar 4-3-3 and Switzerland 4-2-3-1.
Continue reading...Last-minute offer to be put to members is understood to include an average 6.6% pay uplift
Resident doctors in England have called off strike action after the government made a new offer which will be put to members.
They were set to stage a four-day walkout from 7am on Monday – the 16th round of strike action since 2023.
Continue reading...Slashdot reader BrianFagioli writes: Shutterstock has unveiled what it calls a "human-led, AI-powered" creative platform that combines its massive library of [human] contributor-created content with AI image and video generation, AI editing, conversational search, prompt enhancement, and automated model selection tools. The company says the goal is to help creators move from idea to finished work faster [in a single application] while maintaining commercial licensing protections and contributor royalty payments... While Shutterstock repeatedly emphasizes human creativity, much of the platform's future appears centered on AI-generated and AI-modified content. An article at Nerds.xyz suggests Shutterstock's AI tools let users "transform existing content into something new," while noting Shutterstock's repeated references to human creativity "almost feel defensive." But it points out other companies including Adobe and Canva "and countless startups are all racing to integrate AI into creative workflows."
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Hey everyone,
I'm a long-time rider with an XRC that recently suffered a controller module failure. The board is out of warranty, and at this point I'd rather move away from Future Motion repairs and use this as an opportunity to VESC the board instead.
The problem is that I'm not sure where to start.
For those who have converted an XRC, what kind of budget should I realistically expect? Also, what controller, battery setup, motor configuration, or build guides would you recommend for someone making the jump for the first time?
Any advice, lessons learned, or parts recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
"Battery breakthroughs will lessen AI's demand on the electricity grid," argues The Washington Post's editoral board, arguing that GM's latest moves "offer a fresh reminder that resource constraints can be solved by innovation." Or As Fortune put it, "America's electric grid is buckling under extreme weather, aging infrastructure, and an AI build-out that is quietly rewriting U.S. power demand — and General Motors wants to turn that crisis into a business." They describe GM's plan as offering itself "as a distributed utility in disguise... stitching together hundreds of thousands of battery-powered cars, new grid-scale storage, and a unified charging platform into what amounts to a virtual fleet of power plants." The bet puts GM on a collision course with Ford's newly branded Ford Energy unit as both Detroit rivals race to repurpose underused EV capacity for a more urgent problem: keeping the lights on in the AI era. GM's case rests on three planks. The first is its existing fleet. GM says more than 250,000 of its EVs on U.S. roads can already charge bidirectionally — pulling electricity from the grid and sending it back. "Every evening, a quiet transformation occurs across the American landscape," GM Energy vice president Wade Sheffer writes in an open letter to utilities and regulators, describing the EVs sitting in driveways as "a massive opportunity to aggregate energy storage capacity." A firmware update is rolling out to customers with GM Energy's vehicle-to-home hardware, converting those systems into full vehicle-to-grid assets with no new hardware and turning home backup systems into grid resources when utilities need them. GM is piloting the idea in Michigan with DTE Energy at 30 employee homes, and has sketched a 2030 vision with Pacific Gas & Electric in which more than 52,000 GM EVs help balance the grid out of a projected 130,000 vehicles in the area. GM is also "seeking partnerships with utility companies nationwide to assist in offering such vehicle-to-grid services for customers," reports CNBC, noting it's one of two moves "meant to address concerns about rising energy costs amid an artificial intelligence boom." Forbes reports that GM's second goal "is to leapfrog the dominant battery cell tech used for energy storage packs right now" — right past the LFP (lithium-iron phosphate) stage, "which is dominated by China." Sodium batteries are cheaper to use than LFP because they don't need an additional cooling system. They also have a 20-year usable life and are made from materials that can be sourced from within the U.S., the company said at a briefing in San Francisco on Tuesday. "Sodium-ion actually is the better chemistry for that application. And when I say sodium-ion is better, I mean GM's version of sodium-ion," Kurt Kelty, GM's battery chief and a long-time Tesla battery executive, told Forbes. He said GM is seeing great results from its prototypes, even at scorching temperatures of 55 Celsius (131 Fahrenheit). "Sodium-ion-powered energy storage systems have the potential to operate without active cooling and with much less system complexity," Kurt Kelty, GM's vice president of battery and sustainability, said Tuesday in a blog post. "In large energy storage systems, that matters." Not having to cool the battery cells could lead to lower upfront costs as well as operating costs, the automaker said. TechCrunch reports on GM's big new partnership with energy-storage startup Peak Energy to develop GM's sodium-ion battery chemistry for grid-scale deployments: GM wouldn't share with TechCrunch how much money it is investing in this energy-storage effort. But we do know the company has committed $900 million to commercialize new battery chemistries, an investment that includes a new battery-development center. .. The first GM cells are expected to enter trial production at the company's Battery Cell Development Center in 2028. "Our next-generation sodium-ion cell development will drive energy density higher," promises GM's blog post, arguing they're extending the company's battery expertise and technical infrastructure "into the electrical grid itself. If we get this right, we will not just build better batteries. We will help create a more resilient, more affordable and more flexible energy future... Every improvement we make strengthens the development stack that supports both EVs and energy storage." "The message: GM isn't just selling cars into a stressed grid; it's supplying the batteries to stabilize it," argues Fortune. And GM also announced they're augmenting their apps with an "Energy Pass" offering "seamless access to Tesla Supercharger, IONNA, Electrify America, and soon, ChargePoint and EVgo networks." Their goal is to simplify the charging experience with an app "that covers nearly 70% of all DC fast chargers in the United States, plus many Level 2 chargers, all through one app."
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Two fires in 12 years wiped out all but a handful of the mature native pines in Victoria’s Wyperfeld national park, a key breeding ground for endangered pink cockatoos
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At the entrance to Wyperfeld national park, in north-west Victoria, more than a dozen pink cockatoos are sprinkled across a hedge row of pine trees like Christmas decorations. These are Aleppo pines, not the native conifers that the birds rely on for nesting habitat and as a primary source of food.
Still, the feathered ornaments appear quite content, nestled in among the spruce and ripping into pine cones with their dexterous claws and beaks, making gentle cracking sounds that punctuate the soft roar of Mallee winds.
Continue reading...Ukraine's General Staff said that its forces had hit an oil preparation and pumping station overnight in Russia's Volgograd region.
This month saw the release of Vim Classic 8.3, the first stable version of a new long-term support fork of Vim maintained without generative AI tools. Linuxiac reports: The release is based on Vim 8.2.0148 and includes selected bug fixes and patches backported from later upstream Vim releases. Vim Classic was first announced by [SourceHut's CEO/founder] Drew DeVault in March 2026 after he objected to LLM-assisted development in Vim and Neovim. In his announcement, DeVault said he no longer wanted to use software developed with LLM assistance and introduced Vim Classic as a fork for users who want to continue using Vim without that involvement... Vim Classic follows Vim's charityware model and continues to direct users toward Bram Moolenaar's long-running support for children in Uganda. The release is distributed as a signed source tarball from SourceHut, while future important announcements are expected through the project's mailing list. "Vim is important to me..." DeVault wrote in March. (DeVault even tattooed "hjkl" on his right arm.) "[A]lmost every word I have ever committed to posterity, through this blog, in my code, all of the docs I've written, emails I've sent, and more, almost all of it has passed through Vim." But DeVault wrote that he also cares about AI's impact on air pollution, fresh water supplies, global supply chains, and the working conditions of miners in African companies: And at a moment when the climate demands immediate action to reduce our footprint on this planet, the AI boom is driving data centers to consume a full 1.5% of the world's total energy production in order to eliminate jobs and replace them with a robot that lies... All this to enrich the few, centralize power, reduce competition, and underwrite an enormous bubble that, once it bursts, will ruin the lives of millions of the world's poor and marginalized classes. I don't think it's cute that someone vibe coded "battleship" in VimScript. I think it's more important that we stop collectively pretending that we don't understand how awful all of this is. I don't want to use software which has slop in it. I do what I can to avoid it, and sadly even Vim now comes under scrutiny in that effort as both Vim and NeoVim are relying on LLMs to develop the software... To keep my conscience clear, and continue to enjoy the relationship I have with this amazing piece of software, I have forked Vim... Since forking from this base, I have backported a handful of patches, most of which address CVEs discovered after this release, but others which address minor bug fixes. I also penned a handful of original patches which bring the codebase from this time up to snuff for building it on newer toolchains... I invite you to use Vim Classic, if you feel the same way as me, and to maintain it with me, contributing the patches you need to support your own use cases.
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An agreement would extend the ceasefire and pave the way for a longer truce, leaders said, though an Iranian official denied a deal will be signed Sunday.
NBA star James Harden was booked into jail and released on bond less than 2 hours later.
Man, 18, and boy, 17, detained on suspicion of causing serious injury by dangerous driving in Southend-on-Sea
Two people have been arrested on suspicion of causing serious injury by dangerous driving after an incident involving a loading vehicle which has left a teenage girl in a critical condition in hospital.
Police attended the Chalkwell Park area of Southend-on-Sea, Essex, at about 12.30am on Saturday after receiving a report of an incident involving a “small articulated loading vehicle”.
Continue reading...Hi! Im new to onewheeling and have had my GT for about a week, im getting used to riding but still feel a bit wobbly in high speeds or on uneven ground. Is there any settings in the app i should change to get the GT to behave smooth when riding on the streets? Ive been using the apex or highline preset but im wondering if there are some changes you guys would do to the GT out of the box.
Thankful for all tips and tricks
I’ve got a pint, tire pump for the car won’t fit the tire. Any adapters out there to top it up?
More than 1,500 user-contributed packages in the Arch Linux User Repository "AUR" were infected with malware, reports Phoronix: The last message in the thread over this security incident is noting that Arch Linux developers have deleted all the malicious commits they are aware of. Cited was this list that puts the number of malware-affected packages at 1,579... Even at 1,579 packages listed, that final updated noted, it's a "list containing many (but not all) of the affected packages". Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader couchslug for sharing the report.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The officers in mascot costumes used a metal sledgehammer to break down a door to enter with colleagues.
James Boyard is the cabinet director of Haiti's Defense Ministry and also serves as inspector general of Haiti's police.
US president says in online post he reserves ‘ultimate alternative’ if Tehran refuses to sign agreement
Donald Trump said on Saturday that the US is set to sign a new agreement with Iran the following day, claiming that the deal would prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, as well as reopen the strait of Hormuz to international shipping.
In a Truth Social post, Trump said that Iran “no longer want a Nuclear Weapon, nor will they have one, either through purchase, development, or any other form of procurement”.
Continue reading...11-time All-Star released on $100 bond
Police spotted handgun in player’s Mercedes
Cleveland Cavaliers guard James Harden was released from a Houston jail after he was arrested early on Saturday morning on a misdemeanor gun violation.
Harden was driving through downtown Houston with four others when he was stopped by police just before 4am. When Harden drove up behind another vehicle, an officer spotted a handgun in the cup holder of his Mercedes, according to court records.
Continue reading..."A coalition of state attorneys general has opened an investigation into OpenAI," reports the Wall Street Journal, citing "people familiar with the matter." OpenAI was served Friday with a subpoena seeking documents related to a broad range of its activities and impact on users, including advertising, user engagement and retention, handling of consumer data and health data, activities related to minors and seniors, deep learning models, model sycophancy and company policies, some of the people said. The subpoena, viewed by The Wall Street Journal, was sent by New York's attorney general.... Earlier this month, Florida became the first state to file a lawsuit against OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman. The lawsuit claims OpenAI and Altman knowingly released an unsafe product and ignored warnings that it could harm users. Florida's Attorney General, James Uthmeier, opened a criminal investigation into OpenAI in April over the role its chatbot played in a mass shooting that killed two people at Florida State University last year. The suspect allegedly turned to ChatGPT as a confidant and sounding board to plan the attack, and the chatbot dispensed advice for his questions... State attorneys general have been scrutinizing OpenAI's competitors in the AI industry as well. In December, a coalition of 42 state attorneys general led by Pennsylvania's Dave Sunday sent a letter to companies including OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic, Google and xAI. In the letter, the Attorneys General demanded safeguards to protect vulnerable users from harmful interactions with chatbots, warning that "developers may be held accountable for the outputs of their GenAI products" for "encouraging an individual to commit a criminal act." "We take the concerns raised by state attorneys general seriously," OpenAI told the Journal in a statement, "and intend to engage constructively with their offices." The article also acknowledges that The Wall Street Journal's parent company "has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI."
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Police make several arrests as rival demonstrators take to streets of Brighton, Liverpool, Sheffield and Glasgow
Far-right marches took place across the UK on Saturday after violent unrest in Belfast and Southampton in recent days.
Several people were arrested on Saturday afternoon as far-right groups clashed with anti-racist and anti-fascist demonstrators in Brighton, Liverpool, Sheffield and Glasgow.
Continue reading...Four-ton Paige, brought in as surprise for attenders, made gushing debut after governor finished keynote speech
An African elephant weighing roughly 4 tons that was brought to the Texas Republican party’s annual convention to excite attenders ended up drawing widespread attention for the wrong reasons after she urinated on the convention floor and became the focus of animal welfare concerns.
Inside the George R Brown convention center in Houston on Friday, attenders had been told to prepare for a “larger-than-life surprise” after governor Greg Abbott finished his keynote speech. Organizers also displayed a message asking people to keep the aisles clear.
Continue reading...
Four UK-based Palestine solidarity activists were sentenced as terrorists on Friday for damaging military drones and other equipment at an Elbit Systems U.K. factory in 2024. Elbit, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, has provided the vast majority of drones used in the Israeli military’s genocidal bombardment of Gaza, among other horrors.
The terrorism sentences, handed down by Justice Jeremy Johnson, set a frightening precedent. This is the first time in Britain that anyone has faced terrorism enhancements at sentencing without actually being convicted of terrorist offenses. It is also the first time that “criminal damage” convictions have been classified as terrorism. It is not, of course, the first time that the so-called Palestine exception has entailed the setting of vile legal precedents.
As a point of comparison: The convicted activists, who are affiliated with the Palestine Action network, will spend significantly more time in prison than the majority of people arrested and convicted for participating in brutal white supremacist riots across the U.K. in 2024, 2025, and again in recent weeks in Belfast, Northern Ireland — riots in which migrant shelters have been set on fire and Black and brown people have been beaten in the streets.
The four Elbit protesters, part of the so-called Filton 25 arrested in relation to the Elbit factory incident, have already been in detention for over two years. They now face five more years in prison for criminal damage with a “terrorist connection.” One defendant was sentenced to a further three years for striking a police officer during the incident. By contrast, a 30-year-old man who kicked and punched Black man in the face amid an anti-immigrant race riot in Manchester in 2024 was sentenced to three years in jail; while labeled a “violent racist” by the presiding judge, he was not labeled a terrorist, nor were any of his fellow pogromists.
“This is the first case, and therefore the test case, for trying to convict activists as terrorists using a manipulated court process.”
The Palestine Action activists were all previously cleared of heftier charges of aggravated burglary and violent disorder. Now labeled terrorists, however, they will be subject to at least 15 years of terrorist notification requirements, including informing the police of personal and financial details and travel plans.
The defendants were not convicted of terrorist offenses — the jury convicted them on charges of criminal damage. It was explicitly hidden from the jurors that, in finding the protesters guilty of specific criminal acts, they also opened them to hefty terror enhancements by the judge at sentencing. Justice Johnson had also set strict restrictions on the trial: The defendants were not permitted to tell the jury that their actions were motivated by a desire to save Palestinian lives and prevent greater crimes of mass slaughter; they could not mention the genocide in Gaza or Elbit’s role in it.
“Criminal damage has never been treated as terrorism within the UK justice system before, and it is completely disproportionate to do so because the offence occurred at a protest,” Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty International U.K.’s chief executive, said in a statement.
“A terrorism sentence carries restrictions that stay with a person for the rest of their life. We should all be worried about what this means for other individuals taking direct action in protest at a genocide or any other issue,” Moscogiuri said. She called the sentencing a “new new low in the ongoing crackdown against protest across the UK.”
“This is the first case, and therefore the test case, for trying to convict activists as terrorists, using a manipulated court process,” Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori told Novara Media.
Palestine Action, a loose-knit network of Palestine-solidarity direct-action advocates and activists, has faced extraordinary authoritarian crackdowns in the U.K., including a government proscription under the Terrorism Act that renders any support for the group a criminal offense.
For simply holding signs at rallies and sit-ins that bear slogans like “I support Palestine Action,” nearly 3,000 people have been arrested. A British High Court ruled the government’s proscription of the group unlawful in February, but the ban remains in place as the government appeals the decision. Over 100 people, many of them elderly retirees, were arrested on Friday outside the sentencing hearing while holding signs in support of Palestine Action.
“Convicting activists for one charge, then sentencing them as terrorists, is more outrageous than the proscription of Palestine Action. Everyone needs to mobilize against it,” said Ammori.
As ever, the “terror” label here tells us more about the ideological priorities of the authorities that apply it than it does about the nature or moral standing of any acts deemed “terrorism.”
The treatment of violent anti-immigrant racists in the U.K. provides a telling point of comparison. After all, the very same Justice Johnson who sentenced the Palestine Action defendants as terrorists and foreclosed their potential for a fair trial moved last year to release the U.K.’s leading far-right provocateur, Tommy Robinson, early from prison. Robinson had been convicted for contempt of court after continuously violating injunctions on spreading false allegations against a Syrian refugee. A High Court had rejected his appeal for early release, which Johnson nonetheless granted. Robinson has gone on to aggressively and continuously stoke more anti-immigrant, racist violence like the recent pogroms in Belfast.
“If sentenced with a ‘terrorist connection’, the Filton 4 will not be afforded the same opportunity as Robinson, a repeat criminal, for early release,” noted jury conscience advocacy group Defend Our Juries.
To explain his “terrorism connection” sentencing of the pro-Palestine activists, the judge said, “I am sure that each defendant’s offence of criminal damage involved serious damage to property, was designed to intimidate the U.K. government and a section of the public and was for the purpose of advancing a political or ideological cause.”
There’s a certain irony here, in that the actions taken to disable Elbit equipment were specifically not acts of political persuasion. They were not petitions, or rallies, or economic pressure campaigns. The very point of direct action is that it aims to interfere with a given site of production and circulation of materials; a broken quadcopter drone can’t rain fire down on the bodies of Palestinian civilians, can’t flay the flesh of Palestinian toddlers (as quadcopter fire has been shown to do).
It’s a grim irony indeed that activists feel called to take direct action precisely when efforts to pressure our governments to end support for genocide fail and are themselves treated as potentially criminal acts.
If “terrorism,” per Johnson, refers to criminal acts with the aim of ideological, political persuasion, we might consider this: Following escalations in Britain’s white riots against immigrants, the government has moved to further harden its border regime and shutter many asylum hotels that had become focal points for racist protests. By the lights of the British government, this does not constitute yielding to white supremacist terror, though. The label “terrorism” is reserved for other targets.
The post They Weren’t Convicted of Terrorism, But These Palestine Activists Got Sentenced as Terrorists Anyway appeared first on The Intercept.
Frederic Priestley, 34, falsely advertised property he did not own for rent on Facebook, obtaining payments and deposits
A man has been jailed after defrauding more than 30 people out of more than £77,000 in a rental scam, police said.
Frederic Priestley, 34, from Southwark, London, falsely advertised a property for rent on Facebook between April and September last year.
Continue reading...It's the 10-year anniversary of Britain's "Brexit" vote withdrawing from the European Union. But a new UK poll "shows that a new Brexit referendum would reverse the vote that led to Britain's departure," reports Bloomberg: Fifty-two percent of Britons think the UK should rejoin the EU, according to an Ipsos survey of 1,137 British adults conducted between May 14 and May 20. That's the inverse of the mood in June 2016 when a comparable share of the electorate backed Brexit... Younger voters overwhelmingly favor reversing Brexit, whereas half of those ages 55 and above oppose returning to the bloc. "The number of people who say Brexit is going worse than they had predicted has almost doubled in the past five years," reports The Independent, " from 27% in 2021 to 48% today — more than those saying it was going as well as or better than expected." [T]here is more backing for a second referendum, with 48 per cent now saying they would support one, against 27 per cent who would oppose it. Even a fifth of Reform UK voters and a quarter of those who voted Leave in 2016 would back a second vote, the study found. Tufts University discussed the last 10 years with the European Studies chair at their international relations graduate school: Q: Have their fears of negative financial effects been realized? A: The figures are quite revealing: The British GDP has been reduced by 6-8%, business investment has been reduced by 12%, and trade volume has been reduced by 15%, compared to what it could have been if the U.K. had remained in the EU... Q: What do you think happens next? A: The United Kingdom made a choice and they might have the opportunity, at some point, to revise this choice. I hope that when they have to decide again, they will be much more informed.
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ALICIA PEMBROKE
Copy Editor
When it was announced that Zara Larsson would be the university’s spring concert artist this year, my mind went right back to when “Never Forget You” was on the radio in 2015. I can still almost picture it — sitting in my mom’s backseat, the wind whipping my hair, the chorus blasting through the car. Back then, I had no idea who was behind the voice. Now, she’s impossible to forget.
Between 2016 and 2018, Larsson dominated the charts. Hits like “Lush Life,” “Ain’t My Fault” and “Symphony” were on the radio, in your playlists and all over Musical.ly, the original short-form video platform that evolved into TikTok. Despite this success, the Swedish singer hadn’t quite established her presence in the American pop music scene.
That changed in the summer of 2024, when a viral meme created an unexpected opportunity.
A TikTok dolphin meme alongside “Symphony,” paired with ironic captions, suddenly pushed her back into the spotlight. Instead of ignoring it as many artists might, Larsson leaned into the memeification. It wasn’t just a meme anymore — it became part of her brand.
And just like that, people weren’t only discovering “Symphony” — they were rediscovering the new Zara Larsson.
From there, everything became brighter, louder and way more intentional. Her performances leaned into the Y2K-inspired, Lisa Frank-esque, beachy aesthetic — the glitter, color and playful confidence that’s impossible not to get hyped for.
In late 2025, Larsson was opening for Tate McRae on the “Miss Possessive Tour,” giving her the ability to display her evolving stage presence. This is also where she introduced a fan-favorite moment during “Lush Life,” turning it into a moment of audience participation, where she selects a lucky audience member to join her on stage.
With the choreography popularized by a fan’s viral TikTok, Larsson and the audience member share the stage to perform the final chorus together. In a final touch, Larsson spray paints a t-shirt onstage as a personal memento.
Even though I may not be sharing the stage with Larsson, I can’t help but dance along with her like I’m on stage too, with 15,000 people and an icon watching me.
Then came her summer single “Midnight Sun” in June 2025, followed by the album of the same name in September. She fully embraced her Malibu Barbie, with shimmering ocean tones, floral-inspired accessories and over-the-top styling. And honestly, like many, I was obsessed.
Another unmistakable aspect of her rebrand is her fantastical makeup, done by makeup artist Sophia Sinot. The ethereal, hyper-feminine glamour blends bold colors, rhinestones and modern aesthetics. This aesthetic has become just as central to the “Midnight Sun” era as the music itself.
But beyond the visuals, the music has reached another level. With the release of “Midnight Sun,” Larsson builds on the momentum of her previous hits while leaning into her new era.
My favorite tracks are “Pretty Ugly,” “Eurosummer” and “Hot & Sexy.” Whether I’m walking across campus or running late to class, “Midnight Sun” is the kind of album that makes any day feel sun-soaked.
“Pretty Ugly” is the perfect song to turn on when you’re getting ready for a good time. I think the lyrics “Have you ever seen a / pretty girl get ugly like this?” could awaken me from a coma. It’s like I have no choice but to get hype when it starts. “Eurosummer” is the song I go to when I want to romanticize my life. Suddenly, the streets of Newark, Delaware, feel like the beaches of Aruba when that song is playing.
It feels almost full-circle to go from hearing “Never Forget You” in my mom’s backseat to seeing Larsson step into a new, sparkling, self-made era. As I enter a new era myself, there’s something special about an artist who has somehow been a part of both.
More than 100 UK lawmakers urge government to cancel London event, warning it is linked to land ‘stolen from Palestinians’
More than 100 UK lawmakers have called for the cancellation of an Israeli real estate event scheduled to take place in London on Sunday, which had appeared to advertise the sale of land in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
In a letter sent to the foreign secretary on Friday, 101 parliamentarians and members of the House of Lords, warned the event was “firmly embedded in Israel’s project of colonial expansion by facilitating the sale of land that has been stolen from Palestinians” and called on the government to take “all necessary steps” to stop the event from going ahead in the capital.
Continue reading...Chris Farrell was given benefit for six months despite his repeated requests for payments to stop
A former unpaid carer has urged welfare officials to “get their act together” after they continued to pay him carer’s benefit for six months after the death of his husband, potentially landing him with debts of more than £1,300.
Chris Farrell, 65, who claimed carer’s allowance for four years while providing full-time care for his late husband repeatedly tried to get the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to stop paying him the £86.45 a week benefit.
A carer who has accumulated more than £2,000 of unwanted carer’s allowance since their mother went into a care home 10 months ago. They said they had contacted the DWP to cancel the benefit five times, by phone and online form, to no avail.
A carer who found it impossible to get the DWP to stop carer’s allowance payments despite reporting over a year ago she had taken on a new work contract and was no longer eligible for the benefit. She had been overpaid more than £2,650.
A man trying to manage work and care for his father, who claimed carer’s allowance for several months after being made redundant, has been unable to stop the benefit despite telling officials repeatedly he no longer needed it after finding a new job.
Continue reading...These apps will make it easier to squeeze in a workout during your busy schedule.
I’m pretty new to the OW community and recently started looking for gender options for my board but the only one I could find that would fit it is the hybrid fender for 100$ that requires the deletes for another 50$. 150$ for a fender seems outrageous and I was wondering if there are any good third-party options out there that’ll fit on the XR Classic frame.
Former congresswoman nevertheless says she hopes the fighting event will be ‘great’ and wishes president well
Marjorie Taylor Greene has criticized Donald Trump’s plan to hold a UFC fight on the White House lawn, as the president prepares to host seven fights on Sunday.
The former rightwing Republican congresswoman, a once fierce defender of Trump who turned on him towards the end of her time in office, told NewsNation the location is inappropriate for the mixed martial arts event.
Continue reading...Bill Ritter, anchor on WABC since 2001, said he’s stepping down but will continue to report on the disease
A longtime New York City television news anchor has announced his sudden retirement from the airwaves after revealing that he has the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
Bill Ritter, a veteran of ABC New York station WABC, has presented the main evening news in New York since 2001 and become a familiar face to millions of its residents.
Continue reading...In the dead of night, behind a screen, the president’s name was purged from the facade of the Washington building
Donald Trump’s name has been removed from the facade of the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, hours after a judge rejected an emergency appeal to block the removal of the president’s name.
Work began in the early hours of Saturday, shortly after the performing arts venue missed a federal judge’s two-week deadline to excise the words “The Donald J Trump and” from its exterior by Friday at 11.59pm local time.
Continue reading...UPDATE: Amazon CEO's Talks With U.S. Officials Triggered Crackdown on Anthropic Models. "Anthropic said on Friday it will 'abruptly disable' its most advanced AI models for all users," reports Reuters, "after the U.S. government ordered it to suspend access to the models for foreign nationals, citing national security concerns. The company received the export control directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all foreign nationals, without being given specific details of its national security concern, Anthropic said in a statement." Anthropic's blog post writes that the directive applies to foreign nationals "whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance." "Access to all other Anthropic models will not be affected." We received the directive from the government today at 5:21pm (ET)... Our understanding is that the government believes it has become aware of a method of bypassing, or "jailbreaking" Fable 5... We have not even received a disclosure of a concerning non-universal potential jailbreak that led to a harmful result. The potential jailbreaks that have been disclosed to us are either entirely benign responses or are minor findings that provide no Mythos-specific uplift. To date, the government has only given us verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak, which essentially consists of asking the model to read a specific codebase and fix any software flaws. Our understanding is that one potential jailbreak was shared with the government. We have reviewed a report that we believe is the basis of the government's directive and validated that the level of capability displayed there is widely available from other models (including OpenAI's GPT-5.5), and is used every day by the defenders who keep systems safe... We are complying with the government's legal directive and are removing access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all users. However, we disagree that the finding of a narrow potential jailbreak should be cause for recalling a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people. If this standard was applied across the industry, we believe it would essentially halt all new model deployments for all frontier model providers. As we have stated publicly, we believe the government should have the ability to block unsafe deployments, as part of a statutory process that is transparent, fair, clear, and grounded in technical facts. This action does not adhere to those principles. We apologize for this disruption to our customers. We believe this is a misunderstanding and are working to restore access as soon as possible. Reuters notes that Amazon's cloud unit AWS "said late on Friday that Anthropic has asked it to revoke access to the models for 'all users in all regions.'" Dean Ball, a former White House official who contributed to the AI Action Plan the administration issued in the summer of 2025, said in a post on X that the order suggests all "non-Americans" would be restricted from using Anthropic's latest models, including those based in the U.S. "This means you should expect to have to prove your citizenship to use Anthropic models," Ball said. Several key Anthropic personnel, including co-founder Chris Olah, AI researcher Andrej Karpathy and philosopher Amanda Askell, were born outside the United States.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
 | I have a regular pint that is saying 99% charge but when you turn it on the battery bar flashes orange and I get a “personal space” error on the app. Can anyone help figure out what is wrong and how to fix it? Does this just mean my footpad sensor is bad? [link] [comments] |
All the action from Los Angeles Stadium where the final opening ceremony preceded the USMNT’s resounding victory over Paraguay in Group D
Continue reading...Noob here. Ended up liking this way more than expected. Was supposed to be a get around work wheel. Noticing the xr is just a bit underwhelming for me. Really wanted to go with vesc not worried about installing. The tuning , calibration, and all the settings is what makes me nervous. Guess maybe I should just grab a GT or something for when I’m feeling extreme? I really wanted to get into customization and different batteries, motors and what not what do I do?
 | Some beautiful trails in my neck of the woods... My favorite pastime is to explore with my board. [link] [comments] |
Last week’s TPC26 event brought together many of the world’s preeminent experts in using AI for science and engineering. The conference demonstrated that we have come quite far in just a few years. But it also showed us limits to the use of the technology as it currently exists, as well as possible ways the community can move forward as AI inevitably improves.
After listening to all the plenaries from TPC26 and several of the breakouts and birds of a feather (BOF) sessions, a few trends emerged that are worth noting. Let’s take them one at a time, starting with agentic AI.
Rick Stevens recounted his experience working with AI agents during his keynote address at TPC26. The Argonne National Laboratory associate laboratory director for Computing, Environment and Life Sciences instructed two agents, named Ollie and Kukla, to read about 100 scientific papers and come up with a way–complete with identifying the necessary tools and datasets– to replicate their findings. On a 10 point scale, Stevens rated the agents at 7.5 for coverage and 8 for agreement.
Image courtesy Rick Stevens, ANL
As BigDATAwire Editor Ali Azhar noted in his story, performance of Steven’s agents varied significantly depending on the type of research. Mathematical papers, theoretical derivations, and studies built around open source software and accessible datasets generally produced the strongest results. But the agents struggled when proprietary software and inaccessible datasets were involved, as well as with poorly documented methods or physical experiments.
Stevens postulated an idea for a hackathon that involved using hundreds of AI agents working in parallel to replicate 1,000 papers, or what he called a “graduate school for agents.” The resource demands would be considerable: an estimated 200,000 GPU hours, millions of CPU hours, and lots of storage.
As the number of agents increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to manage and organize them. As Stevens related, he ran into some friction while working with just Ollie and Kukla.
“You’re sitting here, essentially texting two agents, and you’re trying to get them to coordinate on a simple task. It’s not so easy,” Stevens said. “They either want to both do it, or they both want to defer it. Or they want one agent to be in charge, but they don’t want to be the agent that’s not in charge. It’s like little kids, and how to get agents to split up work and then keep it coordinated over time, I think is a fundamental research problem.”
As the number of agents ramps up into the hundreds and thousands, keeping the agents organized gets even harder. “I think we don’t have a good way to think about that,” Stevens said “When you’re in this kind of unstructured space and you have multiple agents and you’re trying to get them to coordinate on a task, it’s actually quite difficult.”
During his presentation in the “AI Agents as Scientific Collaborators” BOF, Matt Baughman, an associate computational scientist in the AI4Science group at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), discussed how he gives his agents skills, or documented patterns they can refer to run code, fill out templates or accomplish tasks.
Skills are an important way to direct agents (Image courtesy Matt Baughman, PPPL)
Skills give the agent direction, while also giving it the freedom to troubleshoot or interpret the results. The skills concept was spearheaded by Anthropic, and can be coded in most foundation models using a Skills.md file, Baughman said. The Genesis Mission currently has a GitLab skills repository loaded with about 70 skills that scientists at DOE labs can share.
Another common thread of discussion at TPC26 was whether to choose bigger AI models that do well across a wide range of problems or smaller models that are trained or tuned to do specific things. Similarly, when deploying multiple agents, do you want a large swarm of agents running in parallel, or a smaller and more rigid hierarchy of specialized agents?
Matt Baughman presented two possible paths to scale up agentic workloads. On the one hand, you could carefully build LangGraph orchestrations of agents, which delivers the traceability that is often needed, but at the expense of scale.
“If you have to write an agent definition for each individual agent, you very quickly cannot get to really more than a dozen agents,” he said. On the other hand, by allowing agents to call other agents, you could create a large swarm of agents that could theoretically scale to whatever size the scientist wanted.
“Is it better to have, maybe 10 or 20 very large, very capable models or maybe hundreds in these big agentic swarms, of much smaller, lower latency models that maybe have higher interactivity because they can produce hundreds of tokens a second versus dozens,” Baughman said. “It’s a very open problem.”
Another recurring topic of discussion at TPC26 was whether researchers should utilize the big foundation models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google, or go with open-weight models like Apertus, OLMo, Marin, DeepSeek, Kimi, or Qwen.
OLMo scores well among open-weight models (Image courtesy Noah Smith, Ai2)
While the foundation models from deliver the highest accuracy, they’re far from open. As Noah Smith of the University of Washington pointed out in his TPC26 plenary talk, the closed nature of frontier models poses a real problem for scientists concerned about reproducibility.
“The open weight models are definitively less capable,” PNNL’s Baughman said. “The U.S.-based open weight models are particularly less capable…Unfortunately we have decided that open source, open weights models are not a priority in the U.S.”
While Chinese open-weight models like DeepSeek, Kimi, and Qwen deliver better results than many American open-weight models (although Noah Smith of the University of Washington showed that OLMo 3 can match Qwen 3), DOE facilities can’t utilize them due to political and security reasons.
Several TPC26 presenters discussed agentic frameworks they’re developing at DOE labs and universities. These agentic frameworks often integrate with existing open-weight and foundation models to accomplish specific tasks, such as working with existing modeling and simulation codes.
Argonne’s Stevens listened intently to some of these presentations, clearly impressed by the level and pace of work. He offered his thoughts on how the future might play out.
“It seems to me that, in the future, it can’t be the case that we end up building dedicated agentic frameworks for every tool,” Stevens said. “That future doesn’t seem to make sense because it creates too many things that we have to actually maintain. And what we’re seeing in general is the bitter lesson, the general stuff eats special purpose stuff. So general purpose frontier LLMs will eat other software.”
For instance, even for a complex workload like computational fluid dynamics (CFD), you could instruct an LLM to read the last 50 papers on the topic, develop skills based on them, and then use MCP to call the necessary CFD modeling codes, and the model would be developed in perhaps an hour for a billion tokens, Stevens said.
Anthropic’s model scored best with an agentic framework integrating LLMs with the OpenFOAM CFD solver (Image courtesy Shaewu Pan, Renesselaer University)
“I think the challenge for us is to figure out what can we build that actually will not be subsumed as the big models just eat everything,” Stevens continued. “I think that’s the challenge. It’s great what you’re doing, because it’s demonstrating where that boundary is. But I think the longer-term challenge is, what won’t be eaten by the big models. Because the big models will eat as much as possible.
“We have to be thinking ahead,” Stevens continued. “Imagine in the future that these big models will have read every code that’s ever been written that they can get their hands on, and they will be pretty facile at generating replicas of it on demand and modifying replicas and understanding that they’d have to do a validation suite and so forth. And so that seems not at all unreasonable.”
Many of the labs and NSF-funded universities are spinning up AI inference services, which gives DOE employees access to several dozen open-weight models. Some universities instead of just paying for their workers to use foundation model coding agents, such as Anthropic’s Claude.
“If it’s a $50 a month subscription, just use the cloud service,” said Dan Stanzione, the executive director of TACC. “I think we’ll use the cloud service for a lot of these things where it’s a big enough problem to be commercially viable, and the latency allows. At the same time, I think it’s almost undoubtedly true that we’re going to have some specialized scientific models, specialized scientific agents that work for a very small subset of people and a very small subset of things that there’s not a commercially viable market.”
At some point–perhaps after the hotly anticipated IPOs of Anthropic and OpenAI–TACC may have to spin up an on-prem coding agent, Stanzione said. That’s because he understands they are operating at a loss now, but that they won’t continue to operate that way once they become public.
“Right now, [we have] workflows that consume an awful lot of tokens, potentially a lot more than traditional simulation would do,” he said. “We’re not really seeing the full cost of those. We’re seeing the cost minus the venture capitalists losing a few billion dollars a month on it at the moment. So at some point, our token cost is going to go up to real. And if it’s $30,000 per employee or $40,000 per employee, we’re going to make different decisions about how we use tokens and how good those models really have to be.”
The post Exploring the Current Boundaries of AI for Science at TPC26 appeared first on HPCwire.
A Pennsylvania man is behind bars, charged with assaulting a woman at a Newark business earlier this year.
A shoplifting investigation led to a drug bust in Newark.
I’m looking to bring my pint x camping with me this weekend, but I’m a little worried about storing it in my car over night as temps could get down to around 40 degrees. I have always stored my board indoors, so I’m not sure how one night of cold will affect the battery. Should I be concerned?
 | Got a Pint S in February of last year and have officially rode it for 5k miles 😁 Still have tread on my stock tire somehow. Never changed or upgraded anything that came on it out of the box. This thing is my baby and I love it so much. Wish there was a leaderboard for just Pint S but I understand it's only an upgraded Pint S so I just gotta deal with competing with 4 year old boards 😅 Happy 5k, Dana Carvey! Edit: 75 upvotes for my lil board? Wow ya'll. Thanks for celebrating this with me! It was a pretty big personal milestone and I don't have anyone to ride with so I wanted to share it with ya'll🥰 [link] [comments] |
Can Argentina’s Javier Milei evolve from disruptor to political leader? Expert comment LToremark
Two and a half years after Milei came to power and shook up Argentina’s political system, the novelty might be wearing off.
Since becoming Argentina’s president in December 2023, Javier Milei has defied political gravity. A self-described anarcho-capitalist with no prior executive experience, he came to power promising to upend decades of interventionist policies and slash public spending with his famous chainsaw. In doing so, he defeated the Peronist movement, long synonymous with Argentina’s political system but weakened by economic crisis and political dysfunction during Alberto Fernández’s presidency.
The surprises did not stop there. Milei enacted one of the most ambitious fiscal adjustments in modern history, eliminating the fiscal deficit and restoring a budget surplus. He passed significant reforms and brought down triple-digit inflation despite controlling only a small minority in Congress. His success in the 2025 midterm elections strengthened his legislative position and paved the way for further reforms, including a major overhaul of labour regulations. In the process, he became an international celebrity and a reference point for the global libertarian right.
Yet 2026 has served as a reminder that this is still Argentina – where there are no blank checks. Milei’s approval ratings are down and signs of political fatigue are beginning to emerge, as many Argentinians continue to struggle despite improving macroeconomic indicators. Meanwhile, increasingly public disputes within the government are raising questions about Milei’s ability to manage his coalition and fuelling speculation about alternative candidates on the right.
And Peronism may not be over either. Former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, whose political career appeared to be over after being convicted on corruption charges and placed under house arrest, is once again polling competitively – although she is unable to run for office. Despite Milei’s novelty, neither Peronism nor Argentina’s talent for political surprises have disappeared.
It would be hard even for Milei’s critics to deny his economic achievements. Inflation has come down from 211 per cent when he took office in December 2023 to just over 30 per cent last month. Although still among the highest rates in the world, it no longer dominates political debate in a society accustomed to much higher levels of inflation. The economy is expected to grow by 3.5 per cent this year, boosted by exports of shale oil and gas from the Vaca Muerta reserves, mining and agriculture. Argentina’s central bank has successfully defended the value of the peso, which remains broadly stable, and has begun to rebuild foreign currency reserves, one of the country’s most persistent economic vulnerabilities. Finally, despite his close political affinity with US President Donald Trump, Milei has moved to liberalize foreign trade, slashing export taxes and supporting the Mercosur-European Union free trade agreement.
But in September 2025, following his party’s defeat in the Buenos Aires provincial elections, market turbulence raised serious doubts about the sustainability of Milei’s programme prompting a direct intervention from the US Treasury to restore confidence. This served as a reminder that Argentina remains highly exposed to shifts in investor confidence and external financing conditions. While those fears have subsided somewhat, the country is still struggling to lower its sovereign risk premium and re-enter international debt markets, one of the government’s most important medium-term objectives.
But stabilization and prosperity are not the same thing. Rightly or wrongly, many Argentinians feel they are not seeing the benefits of the economic turnaround. Real wages remain low, consumption has recovered unevenly and much of the recent growth has been concentrated in a handful of highly competitive export sectors like agriculture, mining, and oil and gas. Less competitive parts of the economy, including manufacturing, are struggling, while much of the new employment being created is either informal or concentrated in low-paying activities such as delivery services. The government is betting that lower inflation, deregulation and fiscal discipline will eventually unlock a broader wave of investment. Whether Argentinians are willing to wait for those promises to materialize is another matter.
The end of his honeymoon period has also exposed Milei’s limitations as a political leader. While highly effective at setting direction, he has shown less interest in the day-to-day management of government outside the economy. Milei is fiercely loyal to his small circle of trusted advisors but seems unable to resolve the widening dispute between his sister and closest confidant Karina and his chief political strategist Santiago Caputo, fuelling perceptions of government infighting. He has also stood by his chief of staff, Manuel Adorni, despite a steady stream of corruption allegations that have dented Milei’s claim to have uprooted the political caste. Adorni’s recent admission that he underreported his taxes has only increased pressure on the president from opposition and government allies alike.
Meanwhile, Peronism is once again viewed by many as a viable alternative, despite remaining divided and burdened by memories of its disastrous final years in office. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s influence over the movement remains considerable. The leading contender to inherit her mantle is Buenos Aires governor Axel Kicillof although their relationship is strained. Kicillof is closely associated with the interventionist economic model that Milei was elected to dismantle and would be a formidable candidate if Argentinians decide that Milei’s experiment needs to be reversed. Less so if voters conclude that the model broadly works but requires moderation.
President Donald Trump waded into the contentious “right to repair” your own auto debate, but he recounted a wildly inaccurate anecdote to bolster his support for consumers.
According to Trump, in remarks on June 4, “They gave a man seven years in jail, actually, because he fixed his own car.”
The following day, at a roundtable on agriculture in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, the president again referenced the case.
“I mean, they actually have, the Democrats, a restriction that if you get caught fixing your tractor, they bring you to jail,” Trump said. “You know that? Do you know that I pardoned a man last week who was sentenced to seven years in jail because he got caught fixing his car or his truck? I said — I like to always say, ‘What did he do?’ ‘Sir, he was fixing his truck.’ I said, ‘How long is he getting?’ ‘Seven years.’ I said, ‘Say it again.’ It’s the first time I’ve ever heard — like two weeks ago. I gave him a pardon because he had to go to jail because he was fixing his tractor or his truck. Can you believe it?”
The White House did not respond to our request for backup, but Trump appears to be referring to his Nov. 7 pardon of Troy Lake, a Wyoming diesel mechanic who served seven months of a one-year sentence — not seven years — after pleading guilty to violating the Clean Air Act by disabling emissions monitoring systems on hundreds of heavy-duty commercial trucks. (No other pardon in Trump’s second term fits the description.)
According to a Dec. 9, 2024, news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado, Lake and his company, Elite Diesel Service Inc., instructed company employees “to disable the computerized on-board diagnostic (OBD) systems on at least 344 heavy-duty commercial trucks. OBDs are required under the Clean Air Act to monitor emissions control hardware on vehicles to ensure that they are functioning properly.”
There were also eight co-conspirators, the release stated, who “hired Elite and Lake to manipulate the OBDs so that the OBDs would not detect the malfunctions.” Those co-conspirators, who cooperated with the investigators, were fined more than $500,000 in total.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Lake violated the Clean Air Act’s prohibition against tampering with monitoring devices.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, emissions control devices “are critical to maintaining air quality, and when these controls are disabled, the increase in excess tailpipe pollution is significant. A study of the effects of tampering with these 344 trucks showed that the conspirators in this case collectively caused an illegal increase in pollutants of at least 1,300 tons of excess nitrogen oxides, 30 tons of excess non-methane hydrocarbons, 600 tons of excess carbon monoxide, and 30 tons of excess particulate matter.”
“For years, the defendants led a large-scale conspiracy designed to violate the Clean Air Act by defeating emissions control equipment on hundreds of heavy-duty commercial trucks,” Special Agent in Charge Lance Ehrig of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division in Colorado said at the time. “The actions by the defendants and their co-conspirators directly resulted in a significant increase in excess pollution, which diminished air quality and further placed vulnerable populations at risk of developing adverse health conditions.”
Lake maintained he was merely trying to spare small businesses from expensive and unnecessary repair bills.
“I didn’t want to be Robin Hood. I just felt that it was wrong for what the government was doing to American people that wanted to work,” Lake told Fox News on Oct. 27.
“All of us true Americans aren’t opposed against clean air. We want clean air,” Lake told Wyoming’s Oil City News in November. “But my problem with the deal was I just started seeing more and more — especially owner-operators or small companies — going out of business or struggling to keep this stuff running. It cost them $20,000 to fix it and I was charging them $2,500 or $2,800 to delete it and never have that problem again.”
Lake’s case caught the attention of Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, who petitioned the president in October for a pardon, casting Lake’s conviction as an example of the Biden administration’s “overreach into the daily lives of hardworking Americans in communities across the west.”
That same month, Lummis introduced the Diesel Truck Liberation Act, which would prohibit the federal government from “requiring manufacturers to install or maintain emissions control devices or onboard diagnostic systems” and remove “EPA authority to enforce Clean Air Act requirements related to vehicle emissions controls.” It would also bar the civil or criminal prosecution of those who violate “federal law for tampering or improving emissions equipment.” The bill has not made it out of committee.
On Jan. 21, the Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resource Division announced via X that it would no longer criminally prosecute cases such as Lake’s.
“Today, [the Justice Department] is exercising its enforcement discretion to no longer pursue criminal charges under the Clean Air Act based on allegations of tampering with onboard diagnostic devices in motor vehicles,” the post said. “DOJ is committed to sound enforcement principles, efficient use of government resources, and avoiding overcriminalization of federal environmental law.”
The post noted, however, that DOJ would “still pursue civil enforcement for these violations when appropriate.”
The same day as that DOJ announcement, the government dropped its case against Tracy Coiteux, a Washington woman who had appealed a 2024 conviction for tampering with diesel trucks’ emissions monitoring systems.
On Feb. 12 — two weeks before Lake was Lummis’ guest at the State of the Union Address — Trump also pardoned Lake’s company, Elite Diesel Services Inc., which was sentenced to five years of probation at the same time Lake was sentenced. Trump’s pardon forgives $50,000 worth of fines levied against the company.
No matter what one thinks about Lake’s case, he was not sentenced to “seven years in jail … because he fixed his own car,” as Trump framed it.
Moreover, the case is only tangentially related to the so-called “right to repair” debate to which Trump tied it.
“We had the auto industry in yesterday,” Trump said in remarks on June 4 about a meeting he had that included the heads of Ford, General Motors and Penske Corporation. “They don’t want people to fix their car. I said, that’s strange, I’ve never heard of that. They have a thing to — nobody’s allowed to fix their car. They gave a man seven years in jail, actually, because he fixed his own car.
“Can you believe it?” Trump asked. “They want a bill that prohibits people from fixing. So if you’re mechanically inclined — you know, I grew up. I went to school with some guys; they were, in some cases, horrible students, but they could fix an engine blindfolded. … But they were great. And so there’s a move on to stop people from fixing their car. I didn’t understand it.”
The following day in Wisconsin, Trump asked local farmers at a roundtable, “Do you like it, the right to repair?
“It was a little strange,” Trump said. “I mean, some of you are better mechanics than the people at John Deere. … Let’s say you have a tractor, it’s broken and you know exactly how to fix it. You wouldn’t be too happy about being mandated to bring the tractor back to John Deere or wherever you got it, right? You’d like to fix it.
“I mean, they actually have, the Democrats, a restriction that if you get caught fixing your tractor, they bring you to jail. You know that? Do you know that I pardoned a man last week who was sentenced to seven years in jail because he got caught fixing his car or his truck?”
Again, Lake was not prosecuted for simply “fixing his car or his truck.”
The issue of “right to repair” is contentious and also more complicated than Trump’s description suggests.
As the National Conference of State Legislatures explains, “Right to repair legislation is directed at the ability of consumers to repair their own products instead of going back to the original manufacturer for service.”
“In the context of the aftermarket, it refers to consumers’ ability to select who repairs and/or maintains their motor vehicles,” the Congressional Research Service said in a 2024 report on the subject.
While, broadly, car buyers have the right to fix their own autos, or to take them to a repair shop of their choice (rather than to the dealer), a political debate has arisen over the “telematics” inside cars, “the wireless transmission of data to and from vehicles and data centers hosted by the vehicle manufacturers,” the CRS report said.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing most of the major auto manufacturers, argued in 2023 that public access to telematics would “create privacy and cybersecurity risks.”
As Todd Spangler, Washington correspondent for the Detroit Free Press, wrote on June 8, “The conflict comes down to who has the proprietary right to all that know-how, intellectual property and access: the manufacturer, whose business model may rely on it, or the owner, who buys it.”
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The post Trump’s Inaccurate Anecdote on ‘Right to Repair’ Cars appeared first on FactCheck.org.
Why has Albania’s Kushner controversy attracted such international attention? Expert comment jon.wallace
Protests about plans for a luxury resort expose issues confronting all developing countries - over natural resources and sovereignty in an age of a triple planetary crisis.
Last week, the streets of Tirana were filled with protesters brandishing inflatable flamingos. They had gathered in opposition to plans by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to develop a luxury resort on Albania’s largely unspoiled Sazan Island and the Zvërnec coastline near Vlora. The area is home to flamingos, more than 200 migratory bird species, Mediterranean monk seals and nesting sea turtles. The demonstrations lasted several days and spread internationally, with rallies reported in London and other European capitals.
It may seem unusual that plans for a resort in a relatively remote part of Albania generated such protest and international attention. To some extent, the involvement of Kushner is to blame – as Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama claimed when defending the project.
But the protests, held under the slogan ‘Albania is not for sale’, speak to a broader question: how much of a country’s environment and natural heritage should be sacrificed in the name of economic growth?
This question acquires new urgency in an era defined by the accelerating triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. Decisions about coastlines, forests and freshwater systems are no longer merely matters of domestic planning. They are increasingly tests of how governments reconcile development imperatives with ecological limits that are becoming harder to ignore.
Thus, what might once have been treated as a routine foreign investment project has become a flashpoint for debates about sovereignty, environmental protection and geopolitical alignment.
For Rama’s government, the attraction of such a project, which is also backed by Qatari as well as local investors, is evident. Albania has spent decades attempting to attract the kind of foreign direct investment that wealthier European states often take for granted.
Controversial amendments to Albania’s law on protected areas in 2024 opened the door to tourism development, enabling further expansion of a sector that has already more than tripled in size over the past decade. Large-scale tourism developments promise employment, infrastructure upgrades, fiscal revenue and international visibility. In a competitive global environment, they also signal that a country is ‘open for business’.
In this sense, the proposed development represents precisely the kind of transformative investment that many governments in the Global South and parts of Europe’s periphery compete to secure.
Similar projects include large-scale coastal tourism projects in Egypt’s Red Sea region and major resort and infrastructure developments along Montenegro’s Adriatic coast. Both have been promoted as bringing jobs, foreign exchange and regional growth. In the case of Montenegro, EU accession is also a key aim.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama in conversation at Chatham House in 2023.
Yet the very characteristics that make Albania attractive to investors are the same ones that underpin domestic and international opposition.
The country’s relatively undeveloped coastline, rich biodiversity and ecological heterogeneity are not simply aesthetic assets. They are functional ecosystems that support fisheries, protect against coastal erosion, store carbon, and underpin climate resilience in a region already experiencing rising temperatures, water stress and extreme weather events.
In other words, what is at stake is not simply land use, but the integrity of critical ecological systems.
Across the Mediterranean and beyond, ecosystems are under mounting pressure from habitat fragmentation, marine degradation, pollution and climate-induced stress. Rising sea temperatures are altering marine biodiversity. Coastal erosion is accelerating due to both natural and human pressures. At the same time, demand for land, water and infrastructure continues to grow, driven by tourism, urbanization and global capital flows.
The underlying question is no longer whether nature has economic value, but whether it can be converted into short-term financial gain without undermining the long-term ecological foundations on which that value depends.
Yet Albania’s dilemma cannot be understood through economics or environmental policy alone.
The country occupies a strategically complex position. As a NATO member and a candidate for EU accession, it is embedded in Western security structures but outside the EU’s economic and regulatory framework. It is seeking deeper integration with Europe, while trying to maintain strong ties with the United States.
This dual orientation embeds environmental governance within geopolitical dynamics, as access to investment, trade relationships and international credibility is increasingly shaped by how states manage – or not – climate risks, protect biodiversity and regulate the use of natural resources.
At the same time, it complicates domestic debates about environmental governance and sovereignty over natural assets. The ‘flamingo revolution’ is a clear illustration; protesters have questioned the environmental implications of the development. But they are also unhappy about the transparency of the decision-making process, and the extent to which foreign investors influence Albania’s natural heritage.
The dispute over a stretch of Albania’s coastline is therefore ultimately not about a single development project. It is about the evolution of the country’s development model under conditions of ecological constraint and geopolitical competition. It is also about who gets to decide how strategic natural assets are used, and in whose interest development is pursued.
Economic growth, environmental protection and strategic alignment are all legitimate national objectives. The difficulty arises when pursuing one appears to undermine the others. This is the governing dilemma of the triple planetary crisis: environmental degradation is not a side effect of development, but a constraint on its long-term viability.
The protesters are asking whether some places should remain beyond the reach of developers. The government is asking how a country can prosper if it turns away potentially transformative investment. Neither question is unreasonable.
The challenge for Albania – and for many countries in similar positions – is that the answers now lie at the intersection of economics, ecology and geopolitics, where trade-offs are unavoidable and increasingly irreversible.
Health reporter Nick Stonesifer joined “Beyond the Headlines” to talk about a historic moment in Delaware healthcare – the announcement of who will be running the state’s first medical school.
Nick discusses how he goes beyond the press releases and the press conferences to detail the contours of a major policy announcement, and he gets into the big unanswered questions behind the medical school project. He also details how he builds relationships – online and in-person – with industry leaders and “the person on the street” to develop thorough perspectives in his health care coverage.
The podcast was hosted by Director of Community Engagement David Stradley.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Nick, you have been living down in the Lewes area for almost a year now. You also have a dog. So I want to start the podcast like this: Let’s say you are hanging out at your favorite oceanside dog park and you strike up a conversation with another dog owner who is complaining about downstate healthcare, and he hasn’t heard all about the medical school saga. How would you catch that person up on what is going on?
I would probably say that things are bad. Things are not going to get better for a little while, but people are trying to fix it.
In regard to the medical school, they are trying to attract more people who will come and learn how to do medicine in Delaware, but time will tell how effective that is.
You would also tell that guy that Philadelphia’s Thomas Jefferson University has been selected to run Delaware’s medical school.
I might say that. Sure.
You actually broke the news that Jefferson had signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the State of Delaware even before the request for a proposal had been made public to run this school.
Given all that, how would you rank your surprise meter that Jefferson ended up winning the proposal process?
Not high at all. It was pretty obvious, especially when I got there I recognized people from the Jefferson team and didn’t really see anybody from the main other bidders like PCOM [the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine].
And when you say “you got there,” you’re talking about the press conference where they announced…
Who was winning. Yes, when they announced who the medical school was on Tuesday – I guess it’ll be last Tuesday by the time this comes out – it was pretty obvious. You could see it coming if you were paying attention to the faces in the crowd. So I was not really that surprised.
And frankly, the [non-binding] agreement, while the state says it has no impact or bearing on the bidding process, you’ve got to go through a lot of work to put together an agreement like that. There was a lot of talk and questions about how this was going to be done, and they already had something in place.
So you were not necessarily surprised that Thomas Jefferson University was selected to run the medical school. What about your surprise that ChristianaCare was not going to be initially involved in this process?
Yeah, that was definitely the big news nugget of the day.
Outside of the fact that there’s a new medical school coming to Delaware, one of Delaware’s principal power players in healthcare was going to be sitting on the sidelines – at least in the intermediary – is a big deal because they had attached their name to a separate bid, through the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.
They had put all their eggs into that basket, and it didn’t really go their way. I was surprised to see that they didn’t – I don’t know, maybe 20/20 is hindsight – but [they] didn’t really read the writing on the wall.
A lot is unclear about how Jefferson had structured its agreements with the healthcare systems and if, frankly, ChristianaCare wasn’t pleased with those agreements and tried its luck with PCOM.
One thing that was clear from the announcements is that Jefferson University will not really be running this as a stand-alone operation. The word that everybody kept using – and it showed up in your reporting – to describe this medical school is a “consortium” with over a dozen education and healthcare institutions collaborating on bringing this school to life.
Is a medical school by consortium a typical approach in the field?
I’m no expert on this, but I can tell you what I’ve seen in my own day-to-day life.
A big state school like University of Delaware, if it were a bigger school and was a bigger program like a Penn State, for example – Penn State has its own hospital systems, it has its own healthcare systems, and has its own built-in medical infrastructure to sustain what is needed to run a medical school. Delaware doesn’t really have that.
We have privately-owned hospitals up and down the state. You don’t have anything with Del State [University], you don’t have anything with University of Delaware. So when an outside entity like Thomas Jefferson comes in and it’s saying, “Hey, we’re going to build a branch campus here,” financially within the bounds of this federal grant that we’re using to fund the medical school, it makes more sense to essentially take advantage of the already existing infrastructure to get it done because they can’t build a new hospital.
That would just not be the play.
So the consortium approach is perhaps a more logical approach for Delaware since there isn’t an educational institute that already had a hospital set up with it.
The funds that came from this Rural Health Transformation program from the federal government – you actually couldn’t build a new stand-alone institution through that grant, correct?
There’s some wiggle room for renovations and some capital expenses that can be done through the grant, but they’re pretty muted.
So unless a huge outside philanthropic grant came in with hundreds of millions of dollars and said, “Hey, build a hospital,” that was never going to happen.
The University of Delaware is where this school will be based, but this is not a University of Delaware medical school.
No, they’re trying very hard to make sure that it is not perceived as such.
Jefferson’s going to be running the programs. [UD] essentially, my read of it right now, is going to be a landlord for Jefferson to host these classes. But once [the students are] done with those classes, they’re going to scatter across the state into hospitals like Bayhealth, Beebe, Trinity, a lot of these primary care clinics.
Whether or not the school moves downstate, if at one point they build a campus and move their campus downstate, is unclear right now. I don’t know if it would move to Del State at any point in the future or anything like that.
Because in theory, these are “rural” health transformation dollars, so they shouldn’t necessarily be based in Delaware’s urban, populous county.
Yes. That’s one way to look at it.
When a major announcement like this happens, I have to imagine that an easy temptation is just to report out the top talking points given at a press conference. In your reporting, how do you try to pierce through the hubbub of the announcement and get something to your audience that is multilayered and nuanced?
Yeah, you definitely are really working to cut through every word they’re saying. You can listen to them on the microphone and hear what they have to say and just let your recorder run and turn your mind off. But usually it’s our job to really dig in deep to what they’re saying in the moment, which takes a lot of mental energy but is beneficial to our coverage in the long term.
You’re looking at power structures to really figure out who’s in, who’s out, and what that really means for whatever initiative. So it’s a lot. And just talking to people and asking questions outside of whatever official statements are being given.
Doing your homework before you get there definitely helps,
This was outside this press conference, correct?
Yes.
So you weren’t necessarily working the room, but you were still working the crowd?
When you go to these events and when you’re a beat reporter, you see a lot of the same faces. Frankly, it’s just in your best interest to go up, say hello to people, ask some questions on or off the record about what’s going on.
You know, you’re “running for mayor” all the time. It works to your benefit to talk to people.
You talk about one of the things you’re assessing when you’re at an event like that is the power structure, the power dynamic. A good example of that is you said earlier that your biggest surprise about all this was that ChristianaCare was not involved in this winning application.
I’m guessing that was not part of the official press conference comments. I’m guessing no one said, “You may notice that ChristianaCare is not involved in this, and let us tell you why.”
No, I mean to the trained ear they had listed out everyone who was going to be in this consortium. And one glaring absence was ChristianaCare.
So I asked about that and things got a little odd. The answer seemed a little prepared that they were welcome at any time to join. They wouldn’t really answer whether or not they had been invited or declined, but we later found out that they had put all their money into the PCOM bid, and it really didn’t go their way.
So you were the lovely reporter who brought that to everyone’s attention at the press conference?
Um, yes. At least that’s the way I remember it, so yes.
I’m sure all the people up at the dais were like, “That Stonesifer, why did he have to bring this up?”
I hope not. I’m not such a bad guy.
I’m guessing there weren’t any representatives from ChristianaCare at this press conference, but you got comments for your article. Was it easy to get ChristianaCare willing to talk about this or not?
They had come out with PCOM, jointly, in defiance of the state’s decision to pick Jefferson. They did the fair sport thing – we respect the state’s decision, but we respectfully disagree as well. We thought we were the better bid.
You know, sometimes when people are frustrated, they’re more likely to come out and discuss what they’re feeling in that moment because they weren’t really there at the time to experience this big coming together.
If you’re chronically online, like me, that meme of Squidward looking out the window at SpongeBob and Patrick running outside – for all the Gen Zs listening – that’s probably how ChristianaCare and PCOM were feeling at that moment.
Being chronically online takes me to the next question I want to ask you about. As we record this, you’re actually finishing up an article that is basically an unanswered questions piece about the medical school. It should be published by the time people listen to this podcast.
One of your sourcing steps for that article was to open up a thread on Reddit – which if anybody doesn’t know is a community message board on the web – and in that message board post you basically said, “Hey, if you have any questions or comments about the medical school, drop them here and I’ll do what I can to report back.”
Why take that step? I’m sure you already had unanswered questions yourself about the medical school. Why reach out to the public in this way?
I think it’s a good journalism exercise when you’re deeply involved in stuff for so long. Some of the very simple questions about where is this going to be, why is it here, what’s this about free education I’m hearing? You know, that gets lost in the weeds for us when we’re really looking at these high-level policy questions.
It’s really about service at the end of the day. This information is supposed to be useful to someone. And that’s what you’re trying to get at.
And frankly, the questions were good questions. Like, I don’t think at any point I’m above the audience that we’re trying to serve. They had great questions that were worth digging deeper into. And you learn something new from other people, too.
There are long back-and-forths in that thread, if you read it. It was definitely helpful to just parse through that, even if some of it is argumentative. A lot of it might be other people helping each other out. We’re trying to facilitate that conversation about the medical school.
I enjoyed looking back over the thread because it’s not like you just put out the question and then people responded. You were engaging. You went back and forth. You were providing information. What do you enjoy about that back and forth, and how is it useful to you as you’re prepping an article?
I mean, I’m not afraid to say I don’t know everything. I’m not a supercomputer, you know? So that is helpful for me when I see questions I don’t know the answer to. I tell somebody, “Hey, I don’t know this. Here’s what I do know that might help you.” And they might have a retort that’s like, “Here’s where to start.”
It’s just conversational in that way. So, it’s definitely good for people who may have had questions about this. If you’re a news consumer and you see a bunch of stories about the medical school – not a lot of people have access to reporters. Reporters are frankly very busy and don’t have too much time to make themselves accessible. So whenever and wherever we can be of service, that’s really the goal.
I thought it was cool because I’m the director of community engagement. Part of my job is to get the reporters out in the community and engaging with the public. We do that in a lot of in-person ways with listening sessions in libraries or pop-up newsrooms in coffee shops.
But I thought this was a cool place where you just took the initiative yourself and basically set up your own digital pop-up newsroom there and allowed the public to engage, to get information from you, but also open up your own blind spots and go, “Oh, that is a question that I don’t know the answer to.”
It’s mutually beneficial. Everybody benefits, and that’s the goal.
So of those unanswered questions that you were being grilled about on Reddit and that made it into your article, which are the ones that you are most interested in getting to the bottom of in your next reporting steps?
I really just want to see signed agreements. I want to see budgets. I want to see commitments made by healthcare and education institutions. But those aren’t really publicly available right now, so that requires some digging on my end.
A good question that, frankly, I hadn’t really thought of until Reddit was what happens to the already existing medical program known as DIMER (Delaware Institute of Medical Education and Research), which places Delawareans into Jefferson or PCOM classes once a year, or annually they hold reserve seats for Delawareans.
People are wondering if it would become obsolete, now that we have a huge funnel of medical students coming into Delaware. What’s 30 seats meant to do?
We are parsing through the differences [between] the two programs. One is really meant to give Delawareans specifically a chance to go to medical school, and the other one the goal is to bring people here. That’s what state officials are saying, at least.
On the opposite side of the spectrum from that Reddit chain, which was engaging with a more normal public, you also played a major part in organizing Spotlight Delaware’s recent Health Care Summit that happened in late April before Jefferson University was announced as running this medical school.
The future of the medical school was really a through line in many of the conversations at that summit. The audience for that summit was very much industry leaders rather than these everyday folk that you were engaging with on Reddit. How does organizing something like the Health Care Summit aid your reporting on the medical school?
These are the people making decisions about what’s going to happen with the medical school. These are physicians who are on the front line of the specialty shortage. So there’s definitely a lot to learn and a lot of high-level stuff that we are going to try and distill down and really make it palatable, really show the impacts of these shortages in Delaware.
So it definitely helps out. It’s definitely good to be in a room with a bunch of people that know what’s going on and make connections.
Reporting is hard work. You put in the time at the press conferences, the time editing your articles, the time making contacts. But there’s got to be some pleasure there for reporters as well. What’s been enjoyable to you about reporting on the medical school?
I think it’s a very historic time. This is the first medical school and really getting to be on the front lines of that reporting has been pretty exciting. This house is going to be built at the foundation, so to speak, and whatever we learn about at the start of these agreements…
You know, when people are asking 30 years down the line, “Why is this this way? What the heck happened?” We want to get to that before 30 years down the line if we find there are these huge glaring problems with what this medical school was supposed to do. If there were these huge structural problems at the start, we can shed light on those.
At Spotlight Delaware, we try to make really clear what the impact of public policy decisions is on the lives of Delawareans. So let’s end on this and just ask you, how would a medical school tangibly impact the life of a Delawarean?
Yeah. I think in the short term, it’s not going to.
It’s definitely not right away going to make a huge impact. But either way, you know, there’s going to be this first class of 40 students. That’s going to be 40 students that are spread across the state learning medicine in doctors’ offices, doing their clinical rotations and stuff like that – really just adding bodies to what is going on.
And then there’s the other camp that is like, this is a long way out. We’re training a few specific types of doctors, and as Delaware gets older, its healthcare needs get more specific. Specialty care is really where we’re seeing some of the largest gaps and this medical school, at least right now, won’t address those immediately.
It will benefit, but, you know, 20 years down the line. If there are people who trained here, they did their residency here and they stayed here, that’s a lot of physicians that are here. There might be a lot of specialty people who maybe went to do their medical degree here, but then went and did their training somewhere else and came back.
So who knows? I think in an ideal world, the state is hoping that people will see how lovely Delaware is and stay here forever. But that’s really to be seen. That’s to be determined.
The grand vision for the normal populace is because of this medical school, there’ll be more medical professionals in Delaware to serve you.
That’s their goal. Time will tell.
So 30 years from now when Spotlight Delaware is still kicking and hires a new reporter from Penn State, they can move to Lewes and have good quality healthcare.
Well, if that’s the case, the timeline is all out of whack, so…
Thank you, Nick, so much for your work helping Delawareans understand just what the medical school means for them. There’s more to come.
Thanks for having me.
The post ‘Beyond the Headlines’ Podcast: Understanding Delaware’s Medical School appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
Kenyan McDuffie stood in a dark suit and gingham tie in front of an infamous Chipotle in southeast Washington, D.C. The day before, a video of teenagers fighting inside the fast-casual restaurant had gone viral — and presented the former city councilmember a political opportunity in his mayoral campaign.
His opponent, City Council and Democratic Socialists of America member Janeese Lewis George, was “sitting on her hands and playing politics” by opposing a police-enforced curfew for minors, McDuffie said.
So-called “teen takeovers,” or large, coordinated meetups of teenagers in public spaces, have become a key political cause in D.C., where McDuffie argues the city needs to crack down to stave off the worst excesses of the federal government. His critics say he’s falling into a rhetorical trap laid by the Trump administration.
“When teen takeovers threaten the safety of residents and the young people themselves,” McDuffie wrote in a letter to the City Council, “the Council cannot afford to leave law enforcement and communities without every appropriate tool at their disposal.”
Last summer, before the federal takeover of D.C., McDuffie and Lewis George both voted in favor of broad emergency curfew powers that allowed Mayor Muriel Bowser to create targeted zones that youth could not enter after certain hours, enforced by local police. D.C. has long had limited curfew laws on the books, and an update to the city’s permanent curfew law with new restrictions on enforcement is set to go into effect mid-July.
The candidates, who will face off in a Democratic primary to replace Bowser on Tuesday, have since split. Lewis George voted against both extending the emergency and implementing the new permanent law. McDuffie, though no longer on the council, said he supported both.
To some, the scene at the Chipotle represented lawlessness and amplified their fears around the city’s youth. To others, the incident, which police told local media caused no injuries or damage, failed to warrant curfew policies which would increase arrests and police harassment of teenagers, primarily Black teens.
The neighborhood around the Chipotle is beautiful, said Alex Dodds, “designed as a space where people should come and gather.”
“When Black children do that, they are seen as criminals,” said Dodds, campaign director for Free DC, an organization advocating for the city’s sovereignty that has endorsed Lewis George. “I don’t even understand what we want children to do.”
A few miles away from McDuffie’s Chipotle press conference, Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, struck an eerily similar chord to McDuffie.
“Teen takeovers … have terrorized our neighborhoods,” said the former Fox News host. “They have shut down businesses, and they have wasted hard-earned tax dollars of law-abiding residents who just want to live and work in peace.”
Federal law enforcement officials would soon begin a “summer surge” targeting teenagers, Pirro warned. She added that her office would begin “aggressively prosecuting parents” whose children violated curfew laws, threatening them with up to six months in prison.
McDuffie has weaponized the teen gatherings in campaign advertisements and public comments to argue that strict curfew zones — and the tough-on-crime mayoral candidate pushing them — will help forestall more aggressive actions by the Trump administration.
But advocates for D.C. sovereignty and youth in the criminal justice system warned that his rhetoric would only legitimize the administration’s efforts to incarcerate D.C. youth on a large scale, and that there is no evidence teen curfews reduce violent crime. Instead, they say, such curfews would increase the rates of arrest and harassment, particularly of Black teens, at a time when the city is swarming with federal agents.
“Kenyan McDuffie is much more buying into the Trump administration’s playbook of lock-them-up and using fear to gain support,” said Dodds. “It’s so frustrating for our elected leaders … to obey in advance and go out of their way to press for a youth curfew.”
Trump personally weighed in on the race on Thursday, threatening to “take back Washington, run it on the federal basis,” if Lewis George were elected.
The theory in favor of juvenile curfews is that if you deter teens from gathering, they’ll have fewer opportunities to commit crime. But that relies on a misconception, said Riya Saha Shah, chief executive officer of the Juvenile Law Center.
“Social science research has shown us that [curfews] are actually not effective at reducing crime or victimization,” said Shah. “It could result in increased crime or displaced crime in different places or at different hours of the day.”
In 2015, research on juvenile curfews in D.C. found that they actually increased rates of gun violence among youth. Researchers theorized that the emptier streets that resulted from curfew policies could make “remaining offenders more comfortable opening fire.”
While juvenile curfews do not reduce crime, Shah said, they do increase run-ins with police, particularly for Black and brown children. A 2011 study found that African American youths were 269 percent more likely to be arrested for violating curfew laws than white ones. The laws can also end up criminalizing teenagers for being unhoused, and an estimated 10,000 children in D.C. experience housing insecurity or homelessness every year.
“They may be brought into a system by virtue simply that they don’t have the ability to go home,” Shah said.
In D.C., where nearly 20 federal agencies have been deployed, these types of curfews pose immense risks for teens. “There are so many different kinds of law enforcement all over the city now,” said Shah. “It really increases the likelihood that children will be arrested.”
“There are so many different kinds of law enforcement all over the city now. It really increases the likelihood that children will be arrested.”
In his letter to the City Council urging extended youth curfews, McDuffie argued the curfews were necessary to protect “Home Rule,” the 1970s law that gave Washington, D.C., relative independence from the federal government.
“President Donald Trump has deployed the National Guard on D.C. streets and floated proposals to try 14-year-olds as adults. Every week that this Council allows curfew authority to lapse, it hands the White House and its allies fresh evidence for that narrative and justification for federal intervention,” he wrote.
Lewis George, by contrast, has emphasized that her primary objection to the curfew extension is the intense presence of federal law enforcement in the city.
Despite the lack of evidence to support the idea that teen curfews lower violent crime rates, the policy is overwhelmingly popular with D.C. voters. A Washington Post-Schar School poll found that 71 percent of voters supported imposing curfews in certain parts of the city at night.
Though her current position is unpopular, Lewis George has continued to surge in the polls, leading McDuffie by 11 points in the same poll. Internal numbers shared with The Intercept have her up further.
But Lewis George has not done as well as her opponent with Black voters, a key constituency in the capital sometimes known as Chocolate City. In the Washington Post-Schar School poll, she trailed McDuffie by 5 points with Black voters. A spokesperson for her campaign said that Lewis George was proud of the multiracial coalition she had built, and argued that she does best in the most racially diverse areas of the city.
The relationship between race and power is complicated in Washington D.C. Rapid gentrification has pushed out much of the city’s Black population, displacing an estimated 20,000 between 2000 and 2013. Between 2000 and 2020 Black residents went from being 59 percent of the population to 41 percent. And yet, the city’s political leadership has largely remained Black — it’s had a Black mayor since Home Rule was established.
“There’s an element of disappointment with the Democrats in the city.”
Kurtis Hagans, chair of Metro DC DSA, which endorsed Lewis George, said it is understandable that people with long-standing ties to the city would be skeptical of someone promising change at the scale Lewis George is calling for. She has pledged to build 72,000 new homes in five years to deal with the city’s housing affordability crisis — double the goals set by McDuffie and Bowser; called for stronger labor protections; promised to vigorously enforce wage theft laws; and vowed to establish a Federal Workforce Transition Center to retrain the thousands of federal workers who were laid off by the Trump administration.
Lewis George strongly outperforms with voters 18-39, and she does the worst with voters 65 and older.
“There’s an element of disappointment with the Democrats in the city, folks who have before promised big change and transformative change, and then have let them down,” said Hagans, referencing previous mayors Vincent Gray and Adrian Fenty. “I can imagine that’s like, OK, well, at least we know Bowser.”
Mayor Bowser has not officially endorsed a candidate, but she has clearly made known her preference for McDuffie, who has benefited from her coalition of more centrist Democrats and the city’s business community.
In Dodds’s view, Bowser has spent much of her final term in office attempting to appease Trump with little to show for it.
“If appeasement was working,” she said, “we wouldn’t be getting attacked, and they wouldn’t be sending in troops, and they wouldn’t be escalating law enforcement, and they wouldn’t be overturning our laws, and they wouldn’t be attempting to destabilize our budget. But they are still attempting to do all of that, so what good has appeasement gotten us?”
She noted that crime rates had been declining for two years and that the Trump administration still deployed the National Guard and federalized the police force in August 2025. A month later, Trump pushed a House bill to charge children as young as 14 as adults.
Alignment between local leaders and the White House on pushing carceral policies predates Home Rule.
In “Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America,” scholar James Forman explains how many Black leaders in Washington and elsewhere were complicit in pushing the carceral policies of the 1970s, including teen curfews, that eventually led to the mass incarceration of Black Americans.
As Forman and scholars like Elizabeth Hinton have noted, those leaders were asking for support services alongside these carceral policies, as McDuffie is doing now. But those large-scale investments failed to materialize. Instead, their communities were ravaged by policing and mass incarceration policies that tore families apart.
Lewis George, who initially ran for her council seat on a platform of divesting from the police, is no stranger to attacks calling her soft on crime. But for some, it’s disappointing to see those same attacks coming from McDuffie, who previously was largely aligned with Lewis George on issues of criminal justice.
McDuffie had previously expressed skepticism over the emergency teen curfews, though he and Lewis George both voted in favor.
“The research has shown that curfews do not prevent violence,” McDuffie said at a City Council meeting last year.
McDuffie has taken progressive actions on policing in the past. In 2020, amid heightened political energy around police brutality and broader calls to defund the police, McDuffie voted to pull $15 million from the Metropolitan Police Department’s budget. And in 2021, he said that “we need to redirect funding away from the police department.”
Dodds said it concerned her that McDuffie’s campaign appeared to be capitalizing on D.C. residents’ fears. She argued that’s what the Trump administration wants.
“They very much want us to feel afraid of young people and of Black children in ways that are inherently racist,” said Dodds, “because when we feel afraid, we fight each other instead of fighting for one another.”
The post D.C. Mayor Candidates Are Fixating on Teen Hangouts — and Turning the Cops on Them appeared first on The Intercept.
Cengiz Yar/ProPublica. Source images: Wikimedia Commons, Getty Images, documents obtained by ProPublica.
For more than a decade, Dr. Joseph Mercola cautioned parents against a potentially lifesaving shot of vitamin K for their newborn babies: “Vitamin K shots are completely unnecessary for your newborn.”
But now, in a break from his past warnings, Mercola is saying he no longer believes that.
ProPublica contacted Mercola recently as it was preparing an article about babies who died as a result of their parents turning down the vitamin K shot. Mercola’s new point of view is just as unequivocal as his old one: “The data is clear: vitamin K saves lives,” he wrote in an April article on his website two days after ProPublica contacted him. He added: “Based on the totality of the published evidence, I support vitamin K prophylaxis for all newborns.”
He also directed parents to speak to their children’s pediatricians.
“Vitamin K deficiency bleeding is rare, but when it occurs, the consequences can be devastating and irreversible,” Mercola wrote. “A single injection at birth can prevent it. Please talk to your doctor.”
Mercola is a leading vaccine skeptic and an ardent supporter of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He is a popular figure online, with a Facebook page that has some 1.7 million followers. He sends out a daily newsletter and sells alternative treatments for a variety of ailments.
His reversal comes at a critical moment. Hospitals and research studies have documented an alarming jump in babies not receiving the vitamin K shot, which has been recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics since 1961 to help newborns’ blood to clot. Without it, research shows, babies are 81 times more at risk for late vitamin K deficiency bleeding, which can be fatal.
Just as has happened with measles and other vaccines, vitamin K shots have become the target of a deluge of false information online. That has caused some parents to view it as an unnecessary pharmaceutical intervention amid a lingering mistrust of the medical system following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some point to a 2010 post from Mercola, entitled “The Dark Side of the Routine Newborn Vitamin K Shot.” A doctor in Tennessee recalled reluctant families citing the article, as did doctors in Oregon.
In the years that followed, Mercola stood by his opposition. He reiterated his position in 2014, after four babies in Nashville, Tennessee, suffered vitamin K deficiency bleeding. And he did so again in 2019, after hospital staff contacted child protective services in Illinois and took temporary custody of a newborn whose parents refused the shot for their baby.
In place of the shot, Mercola had recommended vitamin K drops, which are taken orally and have been touted online as a popular alternative. The drops, however, are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration and research shows they are not as effective as the shot, though they are used in some European countries.
In his April article, he addressed the rampant false information online regarding the vitamin K shot and acknowledged the role his writing may have played in spreading it. “The internet contains a significant amount of misinformation about vitamin K,” Mercola wrote. “Some of it may reference my own 2010 article. That article reflected the state of a scientific debate that has since been resolved. The science moved forward, and so have I.”
In fact, the science around the vitamin K shot has been settled for decades. The discovery of vitamin K and its role in clotting blood won the Nobel Prize in 1943. Newer studies have confirmed and furthered many of the findings that were available in 2010, but they do not represent a scientific shift from previous research. Some recent studies that Mercola cited in the April article document the rise in babies not receiving the shot and the catastrophic bleeding in the brain that can follow, but again both reinforce the same science that has encouraged giving the shot for more than 60 years.
In Mercola’s earlier posts, he wrote about what he deemed to be risks from the shot, beginning with “inappropriate” and “unnecessary” pain to the baby. He incorrectly claimed that the amount of vitamin K injected into newborns was far more than the needed dose. In addition, he wrote that the shot may contain preservatives that can be “toxic” to a baby’s immune system.
Benzyl alcohol is often used as a preservative in vitamin K shots, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other organizations have stressed that it’s safe. In the 1980s, doctors realized that some extremely premature babies suffered benzyl alcohol toxicity, but, according to the CDC, that was because they were on so many medications containing it. In addition, many hospitals now offer preservative-free options.
Some families have also expressed fear about a “black box warning,” which appears on a drug’s label to alert providers of serious risks. The shot does contain a boxed warning, as do more than 400 other medications, but that is primarily related to adults and vitamin K that is given through an IV, not as a shot in the thigh muscle, which is how doctors typically administer vitamin K to babies. None of the dozens of doctors interviewed by ProPublica said they have ever seen an adverse reaction in an infant who received a vitamin K shot.
But even back in 2010, Mercola dispelled one popular misconception that vitamin K injections increased the risk of cancer. That belief stemmed from a pair of older refuted studies. In 2010, he wrote, “that conclusion was in error.” In April, he reinforced that message.
Alternative treatments promoted by Mercola have attracted federal scrutiny. He and his companies have had to pay millions of dollars to settle allegations that he had made false claims about the safety of products.
During the pandemic, for instance, the FDA sent Mercola a warning letter after he offered unapproved and misbranded products, including vitamin C, on his website as ways to prevent or treat COVID-19.
In 2017, the Federal Trade Commission announced it was mailing $2.59 million to people who bought Mercola indoor tanning systems. The agency charged that Mercola and his companies claimed the tanning systems were safe and that research showed that indoor tanning doesn’t raise the risk of melanoma, a type of skin cancer.
Mercola did not admit wrongdoing. His online posts include a disclaimer that they are intended as a way of sharing knowledge and information, not medical advice. He also has said his 2010 vitamin K article was based on an interview with a Dutch researcher who studied vitamin K.
Mercola, a doctor of osteopathic medicine, declined to be interviewed for this story but said his current stance is accurately reflected in the April article. “While I do not agree with all of the characterizations and conclusions in your summary,” he wrote in response to questions from ProPublica, “I have nothing further to add at this time.”
Even though Mercola has now reversed his position on vitamin K, many on social media still cling to debunked and distorted claims. On Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, unsubstantiated claims often go unchecked.
One theme that has emerged on social media is the notion that God created babies perfectly, and there must be a reason they are born without sufficient vitamin K. In one video on TikTok, a woman who identifies herself as a nurse asked, “Did God really get it wrong?”
Responding to another, someone wrote, “Just know our creator didn’t make a mistake. Every baby is born like this for a reason.”
Others lump the vitamin K shot, which is not a vaccine, in with vaccines. A comment on a video about the vitamin K shot declared, “My baby isn’t getting any vaccines.” It received more than 600 likes.
Mercola also is not the only doctor being cited by vitamin K shot opponents. Commenters on Instagram, TikTok and Reddit have directed people to Dr. Suzanne Humphries, who has spoken out about vaccines and the vitamin K shot for many years.
“My opinion is that the more I read about vitamin K,” she said in a video posted in 2014, “the more I can’t believe that it’s injected into newborn infants.”
Last month, she appeared in a lengthy interview on the website of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine nonprofit founded by Kennedy. She cited the pair of studies from more than 30 years ago that found an association between the shot and cancer, though they were both called into question shortly after they were published. As even Mercola noted in 2010, several additional studies found no increased risk of cancer following the shot.
“Those of us that believe in a divine creator,” she said, “believe that maybe it is by design, or that actually it is by design, and that there’s a reason for it.”
Humphries did not respond to requests for comment.
During Kennedy’s time at Children’s Health Defense, the group published a post in 2020 that claimed aluminum adjuvants — added components that boost the body’s immune response — in vaccines are “significant sources of early exposure” to aluminum. Some vitamin K shots contain a small amount of aluminum, but studies have not found any evidence of serious or long-lasting harm. Adjuvants, according to the CDC, have been used “safely in vaccines for decades.”
Brian Hooker, chief scientific officer at Children’s Health Defense, said the aluminum concern remains, as does the cancer fear, despite multiple studies that found no basis for them. He said he would like to see more research on the vitamin K shot, as well as other newborn interventions like the hepatitis B vaccine.
“I do want to look at the individual components of these shots in conjunction with everything else that the infant is getting,” he said, “and to me that body of literature is really incomplete.”
Hooker said he worked with Kennedy for many years and, while they are no longer in direct contact, he has full confidence in the country’s leading federal health official. But Kennedy’s silence has served to deepen skepticism among experts.
“Now we’re starting to see something that I never saw, which was brain bleeds and gut bleeds in infants,” said Rep. Kim Schrier, a Washington Democrat who worked as a pediatrician for more than 15 years before running for Congress. “And that’s so scary and heartbreaking.”
At an April House subcommittee hearing, Schrier confronted Kennedy about vitamin K, saying that he made parents distrust doctors and shots, and as a result some parents are refusing the vitamin K shot and other standard care.
“Right now, Secretary Kennedy, given what I just told you about vitamin K, will you just tell pregnant women out there for the record, ‘Yes, you should get your babies the vitamin K shot’?” Schrier asked Kennedy.
Kennedy did not oblige her. He said he has never said anything about the vitamin K shot.
An HHS spokesperson did not answer ProPublica’s questions but said the CDC recommends that parents give newborns the vitamin K shot within 6 hours of their birth to prevent vitamin K deficiency bleeding. She acknowledged that uptake of the shot has declined during recent years “as public trust in health care institutions has fallen, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic amid heavy-handed mandates and inconsistent messaging during the Biden administration.”
“Rebuilding that trust,” the spokesperson wrote in an email, “requires honesty, informed consent, and respect for individual choice.”
Schrier said she empathizes with parents who are inundated with so many conflicting messages. She said she recently stepped out of the Capitol building and overheard a woman say — inaccurately — that every childhood vaccine contains glyphosate, which was an ingredient in some forms of the weed killer Roundup.
“I can just see how this is going to spiral right now. It gets out there, then it’s on social media,” Schrier said. “Every parent just doesn’t want to do the wrong thing.”
I want to understand more about why families decline a vitamin K shot. I know how difficult it is to talk about losing a child and how hard it can be to process this kind of grief. Words can’t express how sorry I am for your loss. ProPublica’s goal is to give the public the best, most trustworthy information. If you have a story to share, I hope you will reach out to me when you’re ready.
Duaa Eldeib
Send me your tips, stories and documents. Reach me by email or securely on Signal at 312-730-4797. I take the protection of my sources extremely seriously.
The post A Popular Doctor Had Long Warned That Vitamin K Shots Are Risky for Newborns. Now He’s Changed His Tune. appeared first on ProPublica.
John Healey’s resignation highlights profound strategic failure in the UK government’s approach to defence Expert comment jon.wallace
General Sir Richard Barrons – a co-author of the 2025 Strategic Defence Review – says a lack of government competence is making the UK less safe and undermining its reputation with allies.
UK Defence Secretary John Healey resigned on 11 June. In his resignation letter, addressing Prime Minister Keir Starmer, he said: ‘you have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats’, stating that the forthcoming Defence Investment Plan ‘falls well short of what is required for defence and the country at this dangerous time’. These events highlight two clear failures in UK defence.
The first is a failure of competent government.
The Strategic Defence Review (SDR), published in June last year, set out three essential conclusions. First, that the UK now lives in a much more dangerous world. Second, that both the Armed Forces and wider civil society are in poor shape to deal with that reality. Third, that urgent action is therefore imperative.
The SDR was clear that preparing for war in the 21st century is not simply about filling long-standing gaps in equipment, personnel or capability. It is about transformation: changing the way the UK thinks about, funds, organizes and delivers defence.
Yet, a year after the SDR was agreed, the government has decided not to fully fund its own review. In doing so, it is not merely failing to move forward; it is actively going backwards.
General Barrons explains the ‘hard choice’ facing the UK on how to fund defence spending.
The second failure is that this decision makes the country less safe.
It diminishes the UK’s standing within NATO, weakens our credibility with allies, and increases our vulnerability to the realities of 21st-century conflict. Allies and adversaries alike will be paying attention.
The government has, in effect, decided not to fund the defence review it commissioned and endorsed, because it prefers to spend money elsewhere. That is a political choice.
The SDR charted a ten-year programme to put the UK in a stronger position. But the reality is that the country needs to be in a much better place within the next three to five years. The level of funding currently being put on the table means UK defence will not be fixed. In fact, it will continue to deteriorate. The transformation that the SDR says is imperative will simply not be affordable.
This is not ultimately a question of affordability. It is a question of choice. The government is choosing not to spend the money on defence that is necessary.
No one wants to spend more on defence for its own sake. But we are living in the world as it is, not the world as we would like it to be. We do not get to choose whether war matters. War can choose us, whether we prefer to ignore it or not.
That is the experience of Ukraine. It is also reflected in the turmoil across the Middle East. The UK must play its part alongside its allies, and that requires spending more money on defence sooner. If we choose not to do that, we will have to live with the consequences. Those consequences could be catastrophic.
At a time of political turmoil, the Defence Investment Plan (DIP) is the vehicle intended to deliver the Strategic Defence Review. Since the SDR was only agreed a year ago, it must be possible for government to think again, and to think more imaginatively.
The UK public sector spends around £1.3 trillion a year. Finding additional funding for defence is therefore a matter of priority, not impossibility. If government struggles to move money quickly within the public sector, it should also look beyond traditional funding routes.
South Asia’s Gen Z revolutions now face difficult realities Expert comment thilton.drupal
New governments in Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka have popular mandates for change. But governance is proving challenging.
Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka find themselves at a turning point. Their relatively new governments, brought to power in the wake of youth-led protest movements, retain popular mandates. But they must now grapple with governance challenges exacerbated by the Iran war and complicated relations with India.
In 2022, the government of Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was overthrown in a mass protest movement known as the Aragalaya (‘Struggle’). Bangladesh’s ‘Monsoon Revolution’ followed in 2024, with long-serving Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina removed from power, before the so-called ‘Gen Z revolution’ in Nepal toppled Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s government in 2025.
These movements were all fuelled by a combination of economic distress (all three countries are undergoing IMF bailouts), demographic pressures and political dysfunction, with growing resentment against ruling elites due to a culture of corruption, nepotism and increasingly autocratic tendencies. Social media also played an important role and allowed anti-establishment narratives to flourish.
There are undoubtedly some country-specific differences. In Sri Lanka, the Aragalaya was triggered by a sovereign debt crisis, hyperinflation and commodity shortages. In Bangladesh, the issue of public sector job quotas for families of war veterans became a lightning rod for anti-government unrest. In Nepal, the catalyst was a social media ban.
The elections that followed also took different trajectories. While Nepal chose radical change – electing a former rapper, Balendra Shah, as its new prime minister in March – Bangladesh opted for a degree of continuity in electing Tarique Rehman, the son of a former prime minister and president, from the established Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). And while Nepal rejected established left-leaning political parties, Sri Lanka’s President Anura Kumara Dissanayake heads a coalition led by a Marxist-Leninist party, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).
During a recent visit to the region, it was clear that despite optimism, all three countries now face similar internal and external challenges.
A climate of hope and belief in a fresh start persists. The new governments all came to power with large electoral mandates, creating a sense of opportunity. Even in Bangladesh, where there has been a degree of continuity, the proposed political reforms of the July National Charter have fuelled a sense of democratic renewal.
However, initial euphoria is also giving way to a feeling that governments are squandering their goodwill through their inability or unwillingness to implement necessary reforms. These doubts are not helped by missteps stemming from the new governments’ inexperience.
In Nepal, despite Shah campaigning on an anti-corruption platform, two ministers in the new government departed within its first month after facing scandals. In Sri Lanka, growing frustration over austerity measures was exacerbated by the government response to Cyclone Ditwah last year, which some consider inadequate. Earlier in the year, the ruling party’s vote share dropped in local elections.
In Bangladesh, violent crime is a growing concern as the army returns to the barracks after the February election. There are also concerns that the BNP government may only implement parts of the proposed July Charter political reforms to avoid changes that could erode its power. The party will face its first test when Bangladesh holds local government elections later this year.
Strong mandates therefore do not guarantee stability. This is particularly true if broader societal challenges are not addressed.
All three countries have a history of prolonged periods of violence and instability. Nepal, which was plagued by a decade-long Maoist insurgency, has various social divides, including along caste, generational, regional and ideological lines. A constitution passed in 2015 sought to address these cleavages. However, there are fears that social cohesion could be undermined by the new government’s focus on appeasing its younger urban voter base, which could risk overlooking other constituencies.
In Sri Lanka, the government has sought to separate itself from ethnic-based politics. But following the decades-long civil war, ethnic Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism remains entrenched in Sri Lankan society. This holds implications for lasting reconciliation with the country’s minority Hindu and Muslim Tamil community.
Meanwhile, in Bangladesh the main divide is between the country’s two long-established dynastic political parties – the BNP and Awami League – with efforts to forge a credible youth-led ‘third front’ failing to bear fruit in the election. For now, this rivalry has been deferred by the ban on the Awami League. However, this situation is unsustainable; it will eventually be necessary to rehabilitate the party in some form to break the cycle of revenge politics that has historically plagued the country.
These pressures are exacerbated by the ongoing war in Iran. All three countries have been severely impacted by the war with inflationary pressures, fuel rationing and limited fiscal space to withstand the economic shocks of the conflict. They are also all heavily dependent on foreign remittances from Gulf states. These economic strains have cut short any post-election honeymoon period.
Relations with India present another challenge. Governments in all three countries are seeking a reset in relations with New Delhi, which had been strained under their predecessors.
India is a crucial source of humanitarian aid, development assistance and infrastructure investment to all three countries. The Iran war has also created space for greater alignment, given that New Delhi has stepped up energy exports to its neighbours as they face shortages.
However, India’s prominence in the region also breeds mistrust from its neighbours, who face challenges in managing relations with their larger neighbour.
The recent victory of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state election in West Bengal – which borders Bangladesh – is a mixed blessing for India-Bangladesh relations. On the one hand, it is expected to improve coordination between New Delhi and West Bengal, which could be crucial for the renewal of the India-Bangladesh Ganga water sharing treaty that is due to expire in December.
However, with the BJP or its partners now ruling in four of five states bordering Bangladesh, there is also an increased risk of the party’s sometimes divisive identity-based politics souring relations with Bangladesh; border tensions recently flared after the BJP ordered a crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
In Nepal, Prime Minister Shah’s unpredictable leadership style has introduced a degree of uncertainty to relations, as seen in his refusal to meet India’s foreign secretary and the recent flare up of a territorial dispute. The BJP recently hosted Nepal’s ruling Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) and has sought to emphasize shared cultural ties, although this also risks fuelling fissures within Nepal.
Forensic tests helped identify a man whose remains were found inside a sleeping bag in Washington state in 2000.
A federal lawmaker is pushing for a provision that would bar the Federal Bureau of Prisons from offering taxpayer-funded VIP perks to pardoned drug lords and child traffickers.
Rep. Norma Torres, a California Democrat, introduced the measure last month as an amendment to a House appropriations bill, telling her colleagues that there “should never be preferential treatment for narco leaders.”
The move comes in response to ProPublica reporting on the special treatment extended to one high-profile pardon recipient — former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was released from a federal penitentiary late last year. Less than 18 months earlier, Hernández had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for taking bribes and allowing drug traffickers to export more than 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S. while he was in office.
But after President Donald Trump pardoned him in December, the Central American strongman — who has long maintained his innocence — got what Torres and others have described as the “red carpet” treatment. On the day of his release, ProPublica found, Hernández had in place what’s known as an immigration detainer, a formal request for law enforcement agencies to hold noncitizens for pickup by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Yet instead of holding him, the Federal Bureau of Prisons scrambled to get the detainer removed so he could walk free. Then, instead of giving him a bus ticket or airfare to get home on his own, prison officials paid a four-man tactical team overtime to drive him six hours from a West Virginia high-security facility to the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan, New York, according to records and three people familiar with the situation.
Torres sought to stop that sort of treatment with a narrowly tailored amendment barring the bureau and several other agencies from using taxpayer dollars to give convicted drug traffickers and child traffickers — even those who have been pardoned or received a sentence commutation — special accommodations or transportation, as well as from lifting “any detainers not provided to other inmates.”
Last month, the amendment hit an early stumbling block when the House Appropriations Committee voted along party lines against including it in its proposed 2027 spending bill.
“Taxpayer dollars should not be used to give convicted criminals special accommodations, lifted legal holds, or government-funded transportation,” Torres said in a press release afterward. “We should be enforcing the law, not handing out favors. I’m shocked that my Republican colleagues didn’t agree with that common sense idea.”
But that doesn’t necessarily mean the proposal is dead. Last week in a statement to ProPublica, Torres — a Guatemalan immigrant who last year criticized the decision to pardon Hernández — said she planned to raise the issue before the Rules Committee, which can decide whether previously rejected amendments still get a vote on the House floor.
“I am not giving up,” she said, adding: “The American people deserve a government that enforces the law fairly and holds powerful criminals accountable, regardless of who pardons them.”
A Bureau of Prisons spokesperson declined to comment on the measure out of respect for members of Congress. Previously, a spokesperson said that the bureau does not discuss conditions of confinement or security procedures and that employee standards of conduct prohibit staff from giving any prisoners preferential treatment. ICE had previously referred questions to the White House, which this week did not respond to a request for comment.
Long before his arrest and controversial release, Hernández had been a polarizing figure, plagued by allegations of corruption in his country. Still, he was seen as a key U.S. ally under the Obama and first Trump administrations, in part because of his apparent interest in tackling drug trafficking and migration issues.
But in 2018, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration arrested his younger brother, former Honduran congressman Tony Hernández, for weapons and drug trafficking charges. The following year, a jury found Tony Hernández guilty in a Manhattan federal trial.
And weeks after the elder Hernández left office in 2022, he was arrested in Honduras and extradited to the U.S. to face drug trafficking and weapons charges. Prosecutors said Juan Orlando Hernández funded his political career with money he got from “violent drug-trafficking organizations” in exchange for allowing them to “move mountains of cocaine” out of the country. At one point, they said during trial, he bragged that he would “stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos.”
After a federal jury voted to convict him in early 2024, Hernández was sent to a notorious high-security penitentiary in West Virginia to serve his time. Last year, he appealed to Trump’s sympathies, penning a four-page letter framing his case as a “political persecution” by the Biden administration.
In November — two days before the Honduran presidential election that swept Hernández’s right-wing National Party back into power — Trump announced his intent to pardon his former Central American counterpart. Experts said the timing sent an obvious message on the eve of a tight race; as one former high-ranking U.S. diplomat previously told ProPublica, the pardon was a show of support that served as a “clear green light for the National Party to manipulate the vote.”
(The narrow victory for Nasry “Tito” Asfura, who had been trailing in multiple polls, came amid reports of voter intimidation and fraud allegations. After the election, Asfura promised to “work tirelessly for Honduras.”)
On Dec. 1, Trump formally granted Hernández the full pardon, and by the end of the day he was on his way to the swank, five-star hotel in New York City, ProPublica reported. Days later, Renato Stabile, Hernández’s court-appointed lawyer, filed a motion to vacate the judgment and dismiss the indictment in light of the presidential pardon. When prosecutors didn’t file a response opposing it, a federal court agreed to Stabile’s request.
Previously, Stabile told ProPublica his client’s treatment during the release process was appropriate, as Hernández could have been arrested or killed had he been deported to his home country. He also declined to comment on where Hernández stayed but said the government did not pay the bill. Hernández had declined to comment through his attorney.
At the time, Joe Rojas, a retired prison worker and former union leader, said that BOP staff were “disgusted” after the agency “rolled out the red carpet” for Hernández.
Last month, when the amendment came up for debate in front of the 63-member House Appropriations Committee, Torres held up a printed copy of ProPublica’s investigation as she told her colleagues about the special treatment Hernández received and about how the prisons agency had used “our hard-earned taxpayer dollars” to pay for his transport to New York.
“These actions can never be allowed to happen ever again,” she said.
Two other lawmakers spoke in support of the measure. One, Rep. Hal Rogers, a Kentucky Republican, opposed it, calling the amendment “performative and unnecessary.” He did not explain his reasoning to the committee, and his office did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
Ultimately, 31 Republicans opposed the amendment and 27 Democrats supported it. None of the Republican members who voted against the amendment responded to requests for comment from ProPublica.
Though Torres plans to raise the issue again this summer in front of the Rules Committee, the 9-4 Republican majority there makes it unlikely the measure will garner enough support to move forward right now.
But if the House fails to agree on spending bills before the end of this Congress, the November elections could change the balance of power and give the Democrats more say in what amendments make it to the floor next year.
The post Lawmaker Pushes for Ban on Special Treatment for Convicted Drug Traffickers After ProPublica Report appeared first on ProPublica.
Newark High School held its 133rd commencement June 10 at the Bob Carpenter Center.
Glasgow High School held its 51st commencement June 10 at the Bob Carpenter Center.
Christiana High School held its 63rd commencement June 10 at the Bob Carpenter Center.
Kenya’s G7 role must address the economic pressures fuelling domestic criticism of President Ruto Expert comment LToremark
Kenya has felt the pressures of costly debt, risk-averse Western investment and China’s industrial dominance. The G7 summit on global economic imbalances is a chance to speak up.
Kenya’s participation at the G7 summit in France on 16-17 June sees it walk a familiar tightrope between international opportunity and domestic political risk. Though Kenya has attended three G7 summits since 2017, its presence this year has been spotlighted by South Africa’s reported exclusion following US pressure.
President William Ruto will see the invite as tacit endorsement of his efforts to present Kenya as a reliable broker between global powers. The G7 summit also follows Kenya’s co-hosting of the Africa–France summit on 11–12 May in Nairobi, framed as the first edition in a non-Francophone country by design – although critics took a more sceptical view.
But Ruto’s international ambitions rest on shaky domestic foundations.
Major anti-government demonstrations in June 2024, which led Ruto to dissolve his cabinet, followed a prolonged inflation crisis and proposed new taxes – but also came just weeks after a state visit to the US which drew criticism for its cost. Recent protests – over a US-backed Ebola quarantine facility on Kenyan soil, and a transport shutdown over rising fuel prices – show how external conditions continue to affect domestic politics.
A purely symbolic Kenyan presence at the G7 would do little to alleviate these pressures. The summit’s headline focus on global economic imbalances, however, is a chance for Kenya to speak out on structural conditions that have constrained its domestic choices.
The main theme of this year’s G7 refers to large and persistent disparities in the current account balances – the sum of a country’s trade in goods and services – of major economies. The world’s two largest economic powers feature on opposite sides of this equation: a US current account deficit of 0.9 per cent of global GDP last year contrasting with China’s surplus worth 0.8 per cent.
This G7 focus is particularly timely for Kenya. As a lower middle-income country with a market-facing economy and persistent trade deficits, its experience shows how global imbalances can deepen existing vulnerabilities.
Kenya’s defining weakness in recent years has been its public debt burden, with servicing costs consuming over a third of revenues. As the largest bilateral lender to Kenya, China has attracted much of the blame. But this is not the full story. There has also been a parallel rise in Kenyan borrowing from international commercial markets.
The decade following the 2008 global financial crisis saw Kenya issue its first Eurobonds alongside a rapid surge in Chinese lending to Africa, as global interest rates remained low despite US deficits. In the post-COVID-19 era, however, the US deficit has contributed to higher global interest rates, leading to rising Kenyan borrowing costs and refinancing challenges.
Billions of US dollars in Chinese lending agreed in 2014-15 for a major Kenyan railway project – converted to renminbi in 2025 – were set at floating commercial interest rates that subsequently surged after 2021. In parallel, Kenya’s struggles to secure liquidity for a $2 billion Eurobond repayment due in June 2024 brought a rapid slide in the Kenyan shilling, worsening the fiscal crisis that precipitated major youth-led protests.
Kenyan leaders must shoulder the primary blame for the rapid accumulation of unproductive debt. But indirect exposure to global conditions has made the solutions more painful.
Alongside its debt stock, China is also Kenya’s largest trade partner and runs a widening trade surplus: 2024 figures show Chinese exports to Kenya were $4.3 billion, against $196 million in imports.
Closing this gap will be difficult for several reasons. One is that deals presented by China as addressing the disparity may ultimately keep it intact. In May, China finalized an interim agreement extending zero-tariff access to 53 African countries. Kenyan agricultural exports are an obvious beneficiary of tariff removal – as the continent’s mineral and energy exports were already tariff-free – but Kenya’s middle-income status meant it had first negotiated a reciprocal agreement to open its market to Chinese imports. A rumoured 10-year timeline for this also compares unfavourably to existing 25-year deals with the EU and UK.
However, more consequential drivers of this trade gap are the structural conditions underpinning China’s global surplus – including weak domestic consumption, industrial subsidies and an undervalued renminbi – which erode the relative competitiveness of Kenyan industry. The US remains a more significant market for Kenyan exports, totalling $662 million in 2024, but its tariffs have introduced significant uncertainty.
The example of a French road project epitomizes how such imbalances constrain Kenya’s economic decisions. In 2019, Kenya signed a $1.5 billion deal with a French consortium to build an upgraded toll highway between central Kenya and Nairobi. Kenya cancelled the contract in 2024 amid rising costs and reports that the French partners declined to take on the risk of potential shortfalls in toll revenues. The contract was instead awarded to Chinese contractors who promised to accept this risk and deliver at a lower price, with labour and materials sourced from China.
This underscores the difficult decisions facing Kenya. On the one hand, Western countries claim that their financing models create fewer dependencies than China, yet a risk-averse private sector was unable or unwilling to deliver at a time of acute vulnerability for Kenya. On the other hand, Chinese firms, with the muscle of state backing, can reduce project cost and fiscal risk – but imported materials and labour add to an already glaring trade deficit.
Kenya’s G7 participation is a chance to ensure that summit debates on global imbalances do not neglect a shared responsibility to emerging economies.
An attainable first step following on from the Africa–France summit is to secure expanded G7 commitment to a first-loss guarantee mechanism to help derisk investment. Another more challenging objective will be to ensure that stricter EU trade measures do not disincentivize Chinese investments in African export industries. Kenya must also leverage its Ebola quarantine commitment to extract US concessions, including progress on a trade agreement first proposed in President Trump’s first term.
The last words spoken by Angela Prichard, 55, an Iowa wife and mother who called 911 to report she was in danger, was the first clue investigators had to identify her killer.
Are Gen Z’s calls for change being heard? The World Today iallan.drupal
Political protests by the young have swept the world – but do they feel they are making a difference? To find out, Chatham House canvassed Common Futures Conversations, its global community of under-30s.
Over the past two years, waves of youth protests have swept across the world. From South Asia to North America and Africa, record numbers of young people have taken to the streets to rally against endemic corruption and rising inequality. In 2025, the ‘Year of Protest’, demonstrations and movements led by Gen Z activists were instrumental in toppling governments in Nepal and Madagascar, while anti‑government rallies in Kenya, campus movements in the United States and student protests in Serbia attracted global attention. Across different political contexts, calls for change from young people have grown louder. But do they feel those calls are being heard?
Against this backdrop, Chatham House carried out its first youth barometer survey, canvassing more than 160 young people from 60 countries; the gender split was roughly a third male and two‑thirds female. We asked them how they engage in politics, the risks and opportunities involved and whether they feel they have any political influence. Many are involved in politics. Although some say such involvement carries risks, they are not without hope for the future and their ability to influence it.
Respondents were drawn from members of Chatham House’s Common Futures Conversations (CFC), an online community of young people aged between 18 and 30 working to develop policy solutions to global challenges and help combat the feeling of youth powerlessness. CFC members participate in monthly policy discussions where they can meet government officials and experts in the field. The current cohort includes more than 1,500 participants from more than 130 countries.
Here’s what the young people of Common Futures Conversations told us about their political hopes and fears.
**Five most popular answers
*Respondents were asked to what extent they agreed with the statement on a scale of 1 to 7 (from strongly disagree to strongly agree). The result given aggregates the percentage of those who indicated 5, 6 or 7
To read more from the summer issue of The World Today, click here.
Brexit 10 years on: Michel Barnier and the future of UK-EU relations 22 June 2026 — 10:00 TO 11:00 BST Anonymous (not verified) Chatham House and Online
Join a fascinating discussion with the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator to assess a decade of change and the future of EU-UK relations.
Join a fascinating discussion with the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator to assess a decade of change and the future of EU-UK relations.A decade after the Brexit vote, UK-EU relations are entering a new phase marked by friendly yet cautious engagement. Ongoing disputes over trade, regulation and mobility continue to test progress. These pressures frame efforts to rebuild cooperation, while domestic politics and wider European shifts influence the direction of the relationship.
Join us as Michel Barnier, former Prime Minister of France, discusses the challenges framing efforts to reset cooperation between London and Brussels. From a potentially pivotal 2027 presidential election in France, to wider issues facing Europe and the UK, Mr Barnier will outline potential solutions to overcome these challenges.
This event discusses:
In city after city, the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has been met by protests and rallies from members of the local community opposed to the White House’s deportation policies. Federal agents from the Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have repeatedly attempted to break up and drive back these crowds through the use of airborne irritants like tear gas and pepper spray, which can cause an array of immediate reactions — from eye pain to shortness of breath to nausea and vomiting — intended to temporarily disable their targets.
DHS has defended its use of these weapons on crowds and said that it “does NOT target children,” but after reviewing news accounts, lawsuits and officer-worn body camera footage, as well as verifying incidents by interviewing more than 40 victims or witnesses, ProPublica recently identified more than six dozen instances in which children had been harmed by tear gas and pepper spray.
Here are five things you should know about how these airborne weapons have been used during Trump’s immigration crackdown and how their use has particularly harmed children.
So-called less lethal weapons like tear gas and pepper spray were developed to inflict severe pain and debilitate adult combatants and rioters, but ProPublica identified 79 children across the country since 2025 who have been harmed by these chemicals after they were deployed by federal immigration officers. Our tally is nearly four times the number cited in a recent congressional report, yet it is likely still a vast undercount.
The Department of Homeland Security has defended its agents’ use of the chemicals and claimed the blame lies with “agitators” in the crowds and parents who put their children in harm’s way. Many children harmed by tear gas and pepper spray were in their cars, at home or walking to school when they came into contact with the airborne weapons.
There is no one such thing as “tear gas.” It’s a catch-all term for various chemical irritants that exist as a fine powder and trigger nerve endings to feel as if they’re on fire. The chemicals sear your lungs and throat, inflaming your airways until it feels like you’re breathing through a straw, while snot and tears stream down your face. They can cause vomiting, rashes and coughs that last for weeks. Pepper spray is made from compounds found in hot peppers and causes similar effects.
Because children breathe more rapidly and can pull in more contaminated air than adults relative to their body weight, these weapons are particularly dangerous to the young. Children are also more vulnerable because they have narrower airways and they are closer to the ground, where tear gas tends to pool after being deployed. The Trump administration’s use of tear gas has been so extraordinary that no one yet knows what long-term harm may result from children who’ve come into contact with these chemicals — some of them multiple times.
In November 2025, a federal judge in Illinois ruled that ICE and CBP officers had deployed these chemicals “without justification, often without warning” against people who didn’t pose a physical threat. This constituted an illegal use of excessive force, said the judge, ordering the agencies to stop. But her injunction covered only the areas mentioned in the complaint. Agents were unfettered to continue using the weapons elsewhere.
After federal agents in Portland, Oregon, responded to a Jan. 31 rally by firing various less-lethals into the crowd — including Triple Chaser grenades that each separated into three tear gas canisters; dozens of pepper ball projectiles filled with chemical munitions; and “rubber ball grenades” that released stinging pellets, bright lights, and loud sounds — a judge there issued a temporary restraining order that forbade federal agents from using chemical munitions unless targeted at someone who posed “an imminent threat of physical harm.”
However, appellate courts have subsequently vacated the Illinois judge’s ruling and multiple rulings from judges in Portland seeking to enjoin the use of these weapons.
Though the Trump administration has defended agents’ training and said ICE officers are taught to use “the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations,” not only can tear gas canisters launched into a crowd bounce and roll unpredictably, but the toxic chemicals can travel through the air, sometimes for blocks. In Minneapolis, ProPublica found that tear gas had traveled at least a quarter mile before seeping into a McDonald’s.
Derrick Nash and his family live a block and a half east of an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois. Even from that distance, they felt the effects inside their homes when officers tear-gassed protesters. Each time the tear gas seeped in, the kids — ages 6 to 17 — coughed, and their throats often burned. The eldest, a high school senior with asthma, would hide out in his second-floor bedroom. One evening, his face turned red as he coughed uncontrollably and sucked on his inhaler without relief.
“He was wigging out, saying, ‘I can’t breathe,’” Nash recalled. The family considered calling an ambulance, but the street was closed.
Law enforcement policies governing the use of tear gas and pepper spray differ widely by location, and no federal standard exists. The DHS policy on force says officers must use tactics that “minimize the risk of unintended injury” and should be guided by “respect for human life.” The CBP’s policy says officers “should not use” pepper spray or “less-lethal” chemical munitions against “small children.” ICE’s policy says “the presence of other officers, subjects, or bystanders” are a factor in determining whether an officers’ use of force is reasonable.
Compare that with tear gas policies in two cities that have experienced Trump’s immigration crackdown firsthand. In Portland, police officers who consider using tear gas must take into account their proximity to homes. Meanwhile, Minneapolis forbids officers from using chemical munitions for crowd control unless authorized by the police chief — even when officers fear they will be physically harmed.
Requiring all law enforcement agencies to adopt uniform policies and training methods would go a long way, experts told ProPublica. At the same time, they acknowledge that this would likely require Congress to pass a bill mandating that federal law enforcement entities adopt stricter practices and incentivize local police departments to do the same.
Bills that seek to strengthen use-of-force training on such a wide scale and legislation that targets DHS and its use of these weapons have thus far failed to even make it to a vote in Congress. Following ProPublica’s investigation, U.S. lawmakers have begun demanding reforms to immigration officers’ use of these weapons.
The post What You Need to Know About How Tear Gas Harms Kids appeared first on ProPublica.
A new maintenance facility for Amtrak trains will bring 100 jobs to the Newark area, officials announced last week.
Darrian Lynnelle Randle is facing life in prison without parole after a Cecil County Circuit Court jury convicted her of first-degree murder and two child abuse charges Monday in the beating death of her 3-year-old daughter, Nola Dinkins, in June…
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A white Ford pickup truck broke through a thick curtain of fog one morning in February, winding its way down a muddy farm road in California’s Central Valley. From it emerged a 64-year-old dairyman, burly and tan, who left the engine running as he lumbered toward me with open arms.
“You must be Mark,” I said, warning him I wasn’t one for hugging.
“I’m a hugger,” he said, pulling me in anyway. “I feel like I’ve known you for a lifetime.”
I had spent the past couple of weeks corresponding with Raw Farm founder Mark McAfee, who’d filled my inbox with messages and PowerPoints extolling the virtues of his most important, and controversial, product:
It is delicious.
It makes you feel good (the gut-brain serotonin and dopamine cycle).
It’s great for asthma and literally saves lives.
He was talking about raw milk, which, if you trust 150 years of bedrock science, offers little reason to consume. By definition, it has not been pasteurized, the simple process of heating milk to kill off harmful bacteria. Before the practice was widely adopted a century ago, thousands of babies died each year from illnesses linked to contaminated dairy. Today, most scientists and health experts agree that raw milk has no significant, proven nutritional benefits over its sanitized counterpart, cannot treat or cure disease and subjects its consumers to over 100 times the risk of foodborne illness, which can be especially dangerous for young children.
And yet, McAfee’s farm, the largest raw-milk dairy in the country, is pulling in about $30 million a year, meeting a growing demand from customers who say they want food that hasn’t been robbed of health benefits by industrial processing. Once drawing a fringe crowd, raw milk has been thrust into the mainstream in recent years by a potent mix of politics, wellness culture and a wave of suspicion that health institutions have been compromised by Big Pharma and Big Food. Its proponents have turned it into a symbol of freedom and defiance. More than 10 million Americans now drink it; national weekly sales rose by 65% from 2023 to 2024 alone.
Raw milk’s success confounded me: How had it gained such a foothold in this country, despite regular outbreaks of salmonella and E. coli, and even the discovery of bird flu in Raw Farm’s milk? More pressing still, what was the government doing to protect the public amid demands for products that scientists warn are risky, even deadly? Speaking with McAfee seemed like a good place to start; federal and state regulators had linked his business to more than a dozen recalls and outbreaks that had left hundreds of people ill.
“I’ve put a couple kids in the hospital, and they have been sick, but they recovered,” McAfee acknowledged before my visit. “But here’s the thing: I’m a pioneer. And I’m going against the grain here. I’m climbing a mountain they say you can’t climb.”
McAfee isn’t any ordinary farmer. He is a raw-milk zealot who has escaped serious sanctions despite two decades of skirmishes with the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Justice, which have repeatedly accused him of breaking federal laws and regulations. The Biden administration was on the verge of a crackdown against his farm when President Donald Trump assumed office and turned over leadership of the nation’s health agencies to one of McAfee’s most notable customers.
The year before he was confirmed as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ran for president, using his campaign platform to decry the government’s “aggressive suppression” of raw milk. In his new role, he said he was “advocating” for it and celebrated the release of a federal report to Make America Healthy Again with a toast of raw-milk shooters in the White House.
For his part, McAfee isn’t just selling Kennedy’s favored milk. He is selling the notion that his dairy products are safe and healthy — for you, your kids, your grandparents — because his farm thoroughly screens its milk for bacteria.
“They think we’re some kind of a fringe, weird trend, and we are dead serious here,” McAfee said after he greeted me at his farm, which he runs with his adult son and daughter, 20 miles southwest of Fresno. “And you’ll see that in what we’re doing today.”
He led me into a cream-colored bungalow he called his pathogen laboratory, where two workers in lab coats prepared milk samples.
The farm screens each batch for four types of bacteria: salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter and listeria, all of which thrive in the intestines of cattle and can contaminate milk through microscopic flecks of infected feces. The microbes can cause a constellation of symptoms in humans, from vomiting and diarrhea to sepsis, kidney failure and even death.
“We catch these things and divert the milk immediately,” McAfee said of the pathogens.
I assumed that after diverting batches, the farm discarded them.
Later that day, I learned otherwise.
“We have a red-flag system here, where if there’s anything that gets really out of whack, they can immediately tag the milk, and it doesn’t go to anything but cheese,” McAfee told me. “Because, you know, cheese is resistant to pathogens.”
Research has shown that raw cheese is not, in fact, resistant to pathogens; while aging can mitigate some risk, harmful bacteria can still survive the usual 60-day maturation process.
Hearing about the practice took me by surprise — the farm did what with that milk? — so I asked about it again.
McAfee confirmed that milk with pathogens was used to make cheese, except for batches with salmonella, which he said were dumped or sent out for pasteurization. (I later learned the FDA knew he was doing this and had told him to stop two years ago. But no one had alerted the public.)
“Our cheese is just wildly successful across America,” McAfee said, noting it was sold in hundreds of stores from natural food shops to chains like Sprouts Farmers Market. “H-E-B down in Texas sells 50,000 bucks a week.”
I wondered how long it might take for the cheese to be linked to another outbreak.
Unbeknownst to me, one was already underway.
In the early 2000s, McAfee was producing pasteurized milk for the dairy group Organic Valley when a raw-milk enthusiast named James Stewart made an unusual request.
Stewart had founded a private food club in Venice, Los Angeles. Its members included movie stars, “crystal worshippers” and other “fanatical people,” McAfee recalled. They were looking for a steady source of raw milk at a time when consumers were waking up to the risks of food contaminated by additives, fertilizers and pesticides.
“How fast can you drive down here with as much milk as you can?” McAfee recalled Stewart asking.
McAfee, not fully grasping why people would want to drink milk that was unpasteurized, nonetheless went to his silo, filled half-gallon containers and packed them in ice chests. Then, with his wife, he made the long drive south to the L.A. coast.
Dozens of people were waiting for them, McAfee said, launching into a scene that unfolded with a Hollywood sheen. “I couldn’t even get out of the car,” he said. “They’re beating on the windows and opening up the back. … Just mayhem, cheering, excitement, crying.”
As their $20 bills started flying at him, so did their stories, about how raw milk had healed their health issues, including asthma. The moment transformed him, he said: He realized that he was selling more than just milk — it was “food as medicine.”
Twenty-odd years later, Stewart, too, recalls the moment. “I saw the light go off in his head,” Stewart told me. “He was looking for a way to expand what he was doing and not just be a commercial, pasteurized, homogenized milk provider.”
McAfee, a third-generation California farmer, was born into a family that had charted an unconventional course. His father, whom McAfee described as both a humanitarian and a rebel, founded multiple farm cooperatives and made national news in 1972, when he helped post bail for activist Angela Davis by putting his land up as collateral.
McAfee didn’t initially follow in his father’s footsteps. He worked for 16 years as a paramedic before taking the helm of family farmland that his grandparents left behind. The farm grew apples, almonds and alfalfa, and, by 2001, McAfee had expanded into commercial dairy. But his days of producing milk for pasteurization were short-lived; within a few months of meeting Stewart, McAfee converted his dairy to sell only raw milk.
He entered a market on the verge of extraordinary growth.
California had always permitted raw milk to be sold in stores, but Los Angeles County’s more stringent rules had, in effect, curbed its retail sales. In 2001, food-freedom advocates, including Stewart, successfully petitioned the county to weaken regulations, providing McAfee access to a new pool of customers. That would happen again and again, in state and local governments across America, as the internet, and then social media influencers, drew exponentially more people to the cause.
Around the time McAfee converted his dairy to raw milk, only 27 states allowed its sale.
In one way or another, nearly all of them ultimately would.
A consumer could buy raw milk:
One thing stood between McAfee and all of that business: a federal regulation restricting the sale of raw milk from one state to another. The 1987 ban had the effect of keeping outbreaks contained, making it easier for local officials to address them.
But there was a loophole: Raw milk could be sold across state lines if labeled as pet food.
McAfee saw an opportunity, and he wasn’t subtle about it on the website for his farm, which at the time was called Organic Pastures. The farm “creatively labeled its products for sale outside of California in such a way that it is not illegal,” the site said, and it assured people they could still consume them. Justifying the strategy to an Oregon newspaper, McAfee said in 2005, “I am a revolutionist in this, and I won’t overlook any loophole that will get the milk out there.”
As his raw dairy grew, McAfee portrayed himself as an underdog waging a war against industrialized food. “The giants of the marketplace have processed our food to death to extend shelf life and expand distribution,” he said in a 2006 interview. “The raw milk revolution grows right out of this disorder.”
Two decades later, he still talks about raw milk with the passion of a convert. He answered even simple questions with lengthy explanations, speaking in a quick, torrential style and snapping his fingers or pinching the air for emphasis. Only later did I realize that much of what sounded spontaneous was a pitch he had been refining in years of promotional interviews and farm tours.
McAfee has professed the benefits of unpasteurized milk in public libraries and chiropractor offices. Raw dairy, his farm has claimed, could cure, treat or prevent myriad diseases and ailments, from diabetes and ear infections to allergies, eczema and arthritis. The farm developed the website icanbreathe.org to promote the so-called Milk Cure for asthma. “Only raw milk works in this natural treatment,” the dairy stated. “Pasteurizing milk kills or changes the natural enzymes, antibodies, and fatty acids that are critical to the physiology of how this works in your body.”
McAfee founded a nonprofit, Raw Milk Institute, in 2011, broadcasting similar claims alongside studies he said support them. While a few European studies he cited observed a correlation between drinking raw milk and lower rates of asthma and allergies, they did not prove raw milk directly led to reduced illness, nor did they recommend its consumption due to pathogenic risk. Experts have suggested the association could likely be explained by the “farm effect,” in which children growing up around animals and agriculture have been shown to have stronger immune systems.
Exhaustive reviews of the published science on raw milk have broadly been unable to substantiate claims of its benefits, and most experts agree that it is neither healthy nor safe to consume. But McAfee said his customers know better. To him, the stories of families who believe raw milk has transformed their health are their own form of evidence, revealing truths that institutions have failed to capture. “If raw milk was a fad or a lie, then why would people repeatedly buy raw milk and then tell the world how they love it,” he said. “Our consumers read their gut and watch their kids thrive.”
He also said the government hasn’t invested enough in research to assess its benefits.
“I’m begging you to say: ‘This is not anti-science, this is extremely pro-science,’” he told me. “It’s using science that is not conveniently accepted yet.”
And for many health-conscious people, this possibility that raw milk may help them — or their loved ones — is often enough for them to try it.
Mary McGonigle-Martin was shopping in a Southern California grocery store in 2006 when she spotted ads suggesting McAfee’s milk could treat allergies and digestive problems. She thought of her 7-year-old son, Chris, who she suspected was dealing with dairy sensitivity, and later visited McAfee’s website to learn more. She knew the risks of forgoing pasteurization, but the site eased her concerns: It said the farm tested its milk and had never found a single pathogen.
So she started buying it, and her son started drinking it. And about a month later, he fell gravely ill. What began as a trip to the nearest hospital for bloody diarrhea turned into a race to save his life as his kidneys started to fail. Airlifted to a children’s hospital in Loma Linda, Chris was put in a medically induced coma. He spent nine days on a ventilator and 18 days on dialysis, during which time doctors gave him blood, platelet and plasma transfusions. “He was on the verge of death,” Martin told me. “I had flashes of him being in a casket and being at his funeral.”
Chris had a dangerous strain of E. coli, known as O157:H7, which led to hemolytic uremic syndrome. This rare condition, which mostly impacts children, occurs when bacterial toxins spread throughout the body and damage red blood cells, causing clots in the organs, primarily the kidneys. With quick intervention, most people survive. But it can cause lifelong complications.
While sitting in the intensive care unit, Martin overheard another mother mention her daughter had the same condition. It turned out the young girl had also drank milk from McAfee’s farm. Hoping to intervene before others got sick, the families reported the illnesses to the dairy and the state, which quickly issued a recall and quarantine order, suspending distribution of the farm’s products.
McAfee told me that when he learned of the two sick children, he “wanted to know the truth.” So he took his wife’s Volvo and drove four hours to the hospital. Then, somehow, he found a way into the ICU. “I knew how to get back past security,” he said. “A paramedic can get anywhere, and I sucked up to the nurses.”
Martin told me she was surprised when McAfee introduced himself in the waiting area, but nonetheless she shared details of her son’s ordeal. “I listened to her as compassionately as I could,” McAfee told me. But in his recollection, he observed that Martin’s son was not as critically ill as he’d been led to believe. “He’s eating McDonald’s, watching cartoons, doing just great, and they’re telling the story to the world that he’s ready to die,” claimed McAfee. “I was really upset about that.”
McAfee’s version of events was impossible, Martin told me: When he appeared at the hospital, Chris had just been taken off the ventilator and still struggled to breathe on his own; reams of her contemporaneous notes confirm this. Even after being extubated, he couldn’t have solid food for weeks due to severe pancreatitis. “I was so hungry,” Chris told me. “I started crying because I couldn’t eat.”
When I asked Martin why she thought McAfee gave such a different account of their meeting, her response was simple: “Mark is the master of spin.” (McAfee maintained that his recollection was accurate: “This is not spinning; this is simple truth.”)
Six people contracted E. coli during the first outbreak connected to McAfee’s farm, according to federal regulators; their median age was 8. While the outbreak’s specific strain of E. coli was not found in the products, some samples taken by investigators had high bacterial counts, indicating contamination.
Chris suffered permanent kidney damage. Now 27, he can’t drink alcohol and will spend the rest of his life under a nephrologist’s care because of his elevated risk of chronic kidney disease.
The illness lingered in other ways, too. “I would have random flashbacks and panic attacks from anything,” he told me. The smell of hospital soap. The sticky feeling of Band-Aids or tape on his skin. His mother found him a trauma counselor, which was “life-changing,” he said, except he still held onto a knot of resentment. Not toward his parents; he views them as victims like him. “Just so much anger towards Mark,” he recently told me. When he later saw McAfee’s milk being sold at a Sprouts, “I wanted to take a bat and smash the entire aisle.”
Martin couldn’t let go either. She hired Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney who specializes in food safety litigation. Alongside the family she met in the hospital, she sued McAfee’s farm in 2008, and the dairy settled for an undisclosed sum. “They couldn’t find the pathogen in our milk,” McAfee told me. “She claims she had it in her milk with her child, and that’s what the insurance company took to settle, and we weren’t going to litigate it.”
Emboldened, Martin, who was a high school guidance counselor, found her second calling as a food safety advocate, testifying against raw-milk-access bills across the country.
Following the settlement, McAfee wrote to Martin to apologize, but also begged her to move on.
“Mary, please appreciate that so many children thrive and grow very strong on raw milk,” he wrote. “The very remote theoretical risk of illness from tested, retail, approved raw milk is far outweighed by the health and recovery from the illness that children that drink raw milk enjoy.”
Martin appreciated the note, but recognized that even in his seemingly heartfelt apology, McAfee could not adapt his belief system to fit her experience. “He really believed this was like a fluke. It’s not going to happen again,” she said.
Eager to keep showing me his farm’s serious approach to pathogens, McAfee ushered me into his truck to see the milking of his cows. Raw Farm keeps about 1,400 of them, which produce up to 8,000 gallons a day, each priced at $19. The smell of sweet milk hung in the air, mixed with the earthy musk of manure.
“We’ll see what kind of music they’re playing this morning up in the milk barn,” he mused.
“You play music for the milking?” I asked.
“Mexican music,” he said, as he got behind the wheel. “It’s very Pavlovian. … You start seeing milk coming out of their teats.”
In the open-sided barn, workers sprayed a small herd of cows with a fire hose, removing flies and flecks of manure from their bellies, which were then inspected, coated with iodine and wiped with a towel. The steady pulsing of milking machines mingled with a thumping musical beat as McAfee marched down the rows, pointing to their light pink udders. “Super clean,” he said with pride.
Hygiene appeared to be a clear priority everywhere we went, from the thick binders of safety plans — “not one of those documents collects dust,” he told me — to the sterile, full-body moon suits workers wear to package milk.
McAfee said the 2006 outbreak opened his eyes to the risk of his product and was part of the reason he developed standards for unpasteurized dairies.
But more awareness and better practices didn’t stop McAfee’s customers from continuing to get sick — in 2007, and 2011, and 2012, and 2016 — and the farm had to issue recalls more than half a dozen times after pathogens were found in its products.
And then between 2023 and 2024, regulators linked the farm to one of the largest publicly known raw-dairy outbreaks in decades, with more than 170 people falling ill from salmonella. McAfee disputed his farm’s connection to many of the outbreaks, including this one.
“I call complete crap,” McAfee said, claiming that his farm was not responsible for all the cases. “It was 25, maybe 30.” He also disagreed that the majority of patients were children, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had detailed in a report published last year. “I challenge that data at the fundamental level.”
It was a typical McAfee defense. Throughout our conversation, he never lost his composure, even when discussing outbreaks. Instead, he calmly dismissed the government’s methodology, explaining that it was counting cases of “standard diarrhea,” which he said have “no claims for illness,” as they could be managed with “good hydration and plenty of good bone broths and electrolytes and stuff.”
He also seized on instances when the government could not identify an outbreak strain in his products, but instead found it in samples of farm water and cow feces or drew ties to his farm using genetic sequencing or interviews with patients — practices epidemiologists routinely rely upon. McAfee held that none of this was smoking-gun proof that his farm directly caused outbreaks. Instead, such episodes seemed to reinforce his perception that he was climbing a mountain alone, battling institutions that were already biased against raw milk before hearing his case.
When mandated quarantines ended, he would declare victory.
After his dairy reopened following an outbreak that sickened five children in 2011, he revealed how much people were suffering without his product in a celebratory video. McAfee shook the hand of a young man who was wearing a sideways cap. “This guy came all the way from Alaska to get raw milk!” McAfee said. The young man described a kind of withdrawal: “My immune system broke down. I lost a lot of lean body mass.” When a gray-haired woman said she was driving four half-gallons to her grandbabies in Texas — “that’s how desperate I am for them to be healthy” — McAfee kissed her on the head and called her a “raw-milk freedom rider.”
At least 233 people have been sickened in eight outbreaks that federal and state regulators have connected to McAfee’s farm since 2006, and at least 40 of them have been hospitalized.
The tally is almost certainly an undercount, experts and regulators told me. Many recover at home from foodborne illness and do not seek out testing.
Federal and state regulators have linked 233 outbreak cases to Organic Pastures or Raw Farm. The true number of cases is likely higher.
The outbreaks raised an obvious question: Why hadn’t regulators shut down the farm? America’s food safety system aims to balance public health with people’s freedom to eat foods that can harm them, like raw oysters and sushi. Regulators expect some will inevitably get sick, and so they focus on ensuring consumers, at the very least, are aware of the risk.
State regulators are responsible for overseeing raw milk sold legally within their borders. In California, they require it to be sampled and tested monthly for pathogens. Raw Farm is in good standing, according to the Department of Food and Agriculture, consistently meeting standards for sanitation and cow health. But spokespeople for that agency and the state Department of Public Health emphasized that the best way to prevent illness is to drink milk that has been pasteurized. Otherwise, they wrote in an email, “there will always be some risk of contamination.”
Many people who turn to raw milk don’t have a full understanding of that risk, John Lucey told me. A professor of food science who directs the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Lucey grew up on a farm and has studied dairy products for three decades. “Cows poop all the time,” he said. “Farms are just a reservoir of bacteria: The soil has got bacteria, the walls have got bacteria, the cows are carrying bacteria.”
One of the draws of raw milk is a deeper connection to its source; by knowing a farmer personally, people assume their food will be more safe, Lucey said. But what raw-milk consumers often don’t realize is that many dairy farmers are in a relentless battle to produce clean milk.
“Sometimes you lose because the cow kicked off the milking machine. Something just happens,” he said. “Farmers do the best they can and they are super hardworking people, but just because Daisy is a nice cow and the farmer is a nice guy doesn’t guarantee that things are sanitary and that they can prevent things 100% of the time.”
Over the past two years alone, nine states have experienced outbreaks that regulators linked to raw dairy, not including those connected to McAfee’s farm. In Washington state, about 10 people fell ill with E. coli connected to raw-cheese consumption, and in Florida, where raw milk can be sold only as pet food, about 20 people got sick. Among them was a pregnant mother whose toddler was hospitalized; she said she caught his bacterial infection and had a miscarriage at 20 weeks. (The Florida farm said its products had not tested positive for pathogens and that it informed customers its raw milk was not for human consumption; the Washington creamery voluntarily recalled its cheese.)
Just last week, Idaho’s health officials announced that nearly 60 people had become ill after consuming raw milk.
Discussing the risk of raw milk with McAfee was a challenge.
As we rode in his truck to the next stop on the tour, I brought up the prevalence of pathogens, as well as his farm’s pattern of outbreaks. He acknowledged that some risk exists, but stressed that it was “very, very, very small” and was “fantastically” outweighed by raw milk’s therapeutic value. And then, he insisted one should disentangle the benefits from the risk, as if that’s even possible.
“Show me the criticism of raw milk if it’s safe,” he told me, one hand on the wheel, the other punctuating his points in the air. “None.”
“Well, the critics would argue that there’s risk—”
“No, if it’s safe,” he said, cutting me off. “If it’s safe, how could you criticize it?”
“But they would argue that it’s not safe,” I said.
“Show me the risk,” he repeated. “I’ve yet to see it. We found it. We immediately diverted it.”
We’d seen nearly every stage of production — from “grass to glass,” as McAfee called it — when he parked his truck next to the hangar that houses his Cessna 210 Centurion propeller plane. Next to it, steps from his hacienda-style home, is a bungalow he uses as an office.
He showed me his replica medieval broadsword, his podcasting setup and one of his favored books, Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War.” He said the ancient Chinese military treatise had informed his longstanding feud with the federal government.
Two decades ago, his use of the pet food loophole to ship across state lines attracted scrutiny almost immediately. In 2005, an undercover investigator from the FDA called the farm and was told the milk was safe for human consumption. Two years later, according to court records, the farm sent an email to consumers saying, “Raw milk can be shipped via UPS to all US states,” and “Tell everyone who has asthma that they will be cured by raw milk.”
In 2008, the DOJ pursued criminal charges and a civil suit. McAfee resolved the charges, promising that the farm wouldn’t sell raw milk across state lines again. But prosecutors wanted a court order that would force McAfee and the farm to comply, citing their “unabashed efforts to manipulate the law.”
To illustrate McAfee’s ongoing defiance, the government pointed to statements he had made online that year and the next. In one post on a blog, he said, “If we ever get raided it will be grand theater. … There will probably be some riots.” In another, he said he would not use guns “until the tipping point” and mentioned “another Wounded Knee, Ruby Ridge or Waco.” Prosecutors argued his conduct demonstrated a “cognizable danger” that he would violate the law again.
In 2010, the judge granted a permanent injunction, requiring, among other things, that the farm stop selling raw milk beyond California and take down any statements promoting its health benefits. McAfee told me the directive was an attack on his right to free speech. “I deeply and passionately believe in the truth, and they were telling me I could not speak the truth,” he said. “I’ve had to have therapy over that, you know. I didn’t want to do something stupid.”
A violation of the order could have led to an enforcement action, but in the years that followed, officials pulled their punches. (McAfee insisted they had no punches to throw.)
The FDA and the DOJ kept finding evidence of violations, in 2016, and 2019, and 2021, according to court records. Though federal prosecutors initially pushed for strong penalties, including holding Raw Farm and McAfee in contempt, they agreed to a consent decree in 2023, which required the farm to undergo independent audits to ensure it was complying with the law.
Then, in early 2024, FDA inspectors discovered the farm had a “standard practice” of producing cheese from milk suspected or known to contain pathogens, according to court documents; lab records showed its cheese had also tested positive even after the mandated aging period.
That February, federal regulators publicly linked Raw Farm’s cheese to a monthslong E. coli outbreak. Nearly a dozen people across five states fell ill.
Among them was Paul Panelli, who went to his grocery store in Newport Beach, California, looking for Tillamook cheese to make tacos. Finding it was sold out, he reached for Raw Farm’s cheddar, drawn in by packaging that made it seem organic and all-natural. He told me he didn’t realize the cheese was made with unpasteurized milk.
Both Panelli and his wife, Julie, came down with food poisoning. She was diagnosed with an E. coli infection that left her needing several kidney surgeries. “She literally is afraid to eat things,” her husband told me. The family’s lawsuit against Raw Farm is ongoing; in court records, the farm denied responsibility for their illnesses.
Raw Farm pushed back against the government, maintaining that it followed federal regulations by aging its cheese and claiming to have tested all of it before sale, so no contaminated product reached the market, according to court records. Federal law allows the interstate sale of unpasteurized cheese as long as it’s aged for at least 60 days, though this doesn’t fully eliminate the risk — or account for a farm using pathogenic milk to make it. The FDA told the farm to destroy any cheese made with contaminated milk, arguing that it was violating the law, according to court documents. The farm’s lawyer said it was in compliance, and insisted there was no “bad cheese” to throw out.
To force the farm to follow the government’s orders, it needed a judge’s ruling, but a backlog in the under-resourced Eastern District of California left the case on pause well into 2025. The arrival of the Trump administration that year created a political opening for McAfee.
By the time Kennedy took the helm of the health department, McAfee had already developed close ties to his inner circle. “I go way back with him,” McAfee told me. Kennedy’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, had made a stop at Raw Farm during his presidential campaign, creating multiple videos featuring McAfee. (She did not respond to my emailed questions.) He was even asked to become an adviser to the FDA, McAfee told me. The position never materialized, but McAfee still benefited from the change in administration.
Without publicly stating a reason, this past January the government dropped its efforts to take action against the farm. A former federal employee with knowledge of the suit told me that cases involving raw milk were deprioritized in the new administration because of Kennedy’s stance on it.
Natalie Baldassarre, a DOJ spokesperson, didn’t respond to my questions about the decision, but said in an email that the administration will “always be concerned about risks to public health and will continue to take enforcement action as appropriate to protect American consumers.” The health department and the FDA did not respond to my attempts to seek comment. Kennedy, through his department, also did not respond to my questions.
McAfee called the withdrawal a “big win.” Drawing on Sun Tzu’s teachings, he told me that he had learned not to engage in “their war,” but his own.
“You win the war they don’t expect you to fight,” he said. While officials were gathering evidence, he was focused on the “education” of consumers. He once delivered his message to dozens at a time. Now online influencers spread it to audiences of millions. “They have the guns and the money,” he said of the government. “I got the truth and the moms.”
His work could soon pay off. A month after I shook McAfee’s hand and left his farm, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, reintroduced the Interstate Milk Freedom Act, which would prohibit “federal interference” with the interstate sale of raw dairy in states where raw milk is already legal.
Massie, who served raw milk at his recent wedding, has a farm with 50 cattle, and Pingree, a former dairy farmer and the only Democratic sponsor of the bill, raises her own grass-fed beef. “The Interstate Milk Freedom Act would make it easier for families to buy the milk of their choice,” Massie said when he announced the bill, “by reversing the criminalization of specific dairy farmers.”
When asked if she was concerned the bill may increase access to a product that puts people at risk, Pingree told me that the bill was not about marketing raw milk or making any health claims. “I trust state departments of agriculture and health to monitor compliance, assess health risks, and enforce the rules in place to protect consumers,” she said in an emailed statement. Massie did not respond to my questions.
Six weeks after I left Raw Farm, it happened.
On March 15, federal regulators publicly linked its cheese to yet another E. coli outbreak.
Nine people were infected across three states; more than half were younger than 5. Of the three people who had to be hospitalized, according to regulators, one developed the same severe kidney condition that Martin’s son had battled two decades earlier.
Initially, federal health agencies didn’t urge the public to avoid the cheese or throw it away, as they had under previous administrations. Instead, a CDC notice said consumers should “consider” not eating it; the FDA gave no consumption guidance at all. Three federal health employees later told me political appointees had watered down the original language. (The agencies’ advisories have since been updated. Neither the CDC nor the FDA responded to my questions.)
The fact that the agency was under Kennedy’s leadership didn’t make Raw Farm any more compliant when regulators asked it to recall its products. It refused. “If there was ever a question about whether there was a pathogen in our products,” McAfee later told me, “I’d be the first one to recall immediately, voluntarily.”
He said he texted Kennedy to “call off the dogs,” but got no response.
When FDA inspectors showed up unannounced at the farm, it complied with an investigation. And when the agency threatened to force a recall, the company reluctantly issued its own, 18 days after the outbreak was announced.
The farm appended several unusual statements to its April 2 advisory:
This Voluntary Recall is being performed under protest.
This Voluntary Recall is performed as a path forward.
The farm retracted those statements five days later, but continued to dispute the cause of the outbreak and contest the agency’s findings. It had tested its products, found no pathogens and wasn’t at fault, McAfee said.
However, during its investigation, the FDA also sampled and tested the company’s cheese. While it didn’t find the recent outbreak strain, one sample tested positive for E. coli. In their inspection, agency officials also found the farm’s cheese had recently tested presumptively positive for pathogens even after 60 days, showing the limitations of its aging process. The farm destroyed these contaminated batches.
I reached out to McAfee and asked him whether the illnesses might be connected to his practice of using problematic milk to make cheese. But now, he told a different story.
“We would in the past divert to cheesemaking,” he told me. “We no longer do.” He didn’t pinpoint exactly when the farm made the change, throwing out dates from two years ago to last summer. “It’s been quite some time.”
I brought up the fact that he’d made similar disclosures in podcasts in the last year and to me just weeks earlier. But he doubled down.
“I think you have caught me in something where there’s an issue between practice and what I’m saying,” he said. “If I said it, I believed that at the time to be true, but I do know that now we do not use any questionable milk.”
In almost the same breath, McAfee noted that his farm would not have violated any laws if it had done so. “It’s not illegal,” he said. “That’s why the FDA dropped their thing.” (California regulators told me such a practice was “concerning.” The FDA refused to respond to questions about it.)
Speaking to a congressional subcommittee on April 16 about the outbreak, Kennedy noted that companies usually comply with recalls right away. “But there was foot-dragging,” he said. “This company was intransigent.”
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., asked Kennedy whether in the face of these new, serious illnesses, it wasn’t time for a shift in his messaging: “You are the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Is there not some moral responsibility or compunction to say, ‘Don’t drink raw milk’?”
“Every product can contain contaminants,” Kennedy replied. “What we do is inform the public, and we let people make the choice.”
On April 30, the FDA closed its investigation without taking any enforcement action. McAfee told me his raw-cheese products were back in stores. Sprouts and H-E-B, two major retail chains that have carried his cheese, did not respond to my emailed questions about the outbreak.
“We don’t feel bad at all,” McAfee told me about the entire episode. “Our sales are highest they’ve ever been, and feedback online with influencers is: If the FDA says something, do the opposite. It’s safer. They don’t trust them at all.”
On a sunny weekend in early May, hundreds congregated at Raw Farm for its annual Camping With the Cows event. Blue skies extended to the horizon, and a small colony of tents, camper vans and motorhomes sprawled out across the lush alfalfa fields. Influencers in cowboy hats chugged cartons of milk. Matt James, the leading man on Season 25 of “The Bachelor,” ambled around with his mother in a T-shirt that read, “Raw Milk Club.”
Many attendees were unbothered by the recent illnesses. They said they consumed raw dairy because they wanted to reduce their inflammation, and avoid additives, and prevent lactose intolerance, and clear their skin, and bring their hormones into balance. They wanted nutrients that didn’t exist in “boiled to death” milk. They wanted to drink it “the natural way.”
Alyssa Wolfer, a 42-year-old mother of two from Bakersfield, viewed raw milk as a symbol of “true American freedom,” she said. “I very much lean on the side of freedom of people to choose what they consume and less regulation.”
“I’m seven months pregnant, and I drink raw milk because that’s how God has created it to be,” said Lindsay Espinoza, 34, reclining on a bale of hay with her husband and young son. “There’s so much fear behind raw milk, but it makes sense to us.”
Some, like 58-year-old Melanie Copeland from Huntington Beach, questioned whether the outbreak had occurred at all. “The odds of it being true are slim to none,” she said, “and people need to do their research.”
McAfee mingled among his flock. Some stopped him for pictures as he beamed down the camera and flashed a thumbs-up.
The post He Profits Off Raw Milk That’s Making People Sick. The Government Isn’t Stopping Him. appeared first on ProPublica.
Aiming to control the overpopulation of deer, Newark City Council on Monday authorized a managed deer hunt in Redd Park.
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