News Reel

Today former Google CEO Eric Schmidt "was booed multiple times," reports NBC News, "while discussing AI during a commencement speech at the University of Arizona." Schmidt had started by remembering how computer platforms "gave everyone a voice" but also "degraded the public square... They rewarded outrage. They amplified our worst instincts. They coarsen the way we speak to each other, and that way, and in the way that we treat each other, is in the essence of a society." But then Schmidt "drew a parallel between artificial intelligence and the transformative impact of the computer — and was immediately met with boos." "I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you," Schmidt said, addressing the crowd as many continued to boo him. "There is a fear ... there is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating, that the climate is breaking, that politics is fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create, and I understand that fear." He went on to argue that the future remains unwritten and that the graduating class of 2026 has real power to shape how AI develops — a claim that drew further disapproval from parts of the audience... He closed by congratulating the class and offering them closing words. "The future is not yet finished. It is now your turn to shape it." 404 Media shared a video on YouTube of the crowd's booing — and what Schmidt said that provoked them: SCHMIDT: "If you don't care about science that's okay because AI is going to touch everything else as well. [Very loud booing] Whatever path you choose, AI will become part of how work is done..." "You can now assemble a team of AI agents to help you with the parts that you could never accomplish on your own. [Loud booing] When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat. You just get on... The rocket ship is here."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

️ Aaron Rai put together one of the great closing rounds – and sunk a monster putt for the ages – to finally scatter a bunched field at Aronimink
️ Official leaderboard

Parish noticeboard. Shane Lowry finished his week as he started it, with a fine round of 68. He never really got over the top into the water at 17 on Friday; that Cognizant Classic collapse cuts deep. He’s +2 for his week’s work. Matt Wallace won’t become the first Englishman to win since Jim Barnes in 1919, but he ends his tournament with a 68 as well; he’s +2 too. A final round of 74 for last weekend’s nearly man at the Truist, Alex Fitzpatrick, who departs his maiden Stateside major at +8. And Europe’s Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald finishes a very respectable week in style, with a 69 that puts the 48-year-old veteran at +7.

While we’re on the subject of tournament records, let’s give fair measure to Kurt Kitayama. His round of 63 ties the lowest final-round score at any PGA Championship, set by Brad Faxon at Riviera in 1995. Faxon stays top of the list, however, on account of Riviera being a par 71, so his round was eight under par, compared to Kitayama’s seven. But we’re splitting hairs here. Kitayama deserves his flowers.

In a heartfelt sign-off, Cooper reflects on the stories, risks, adventures, and human connections that defined his two decades with television's most iconic newsmagazine.

Correspondent Scott Pelley and director Christopher Nolan visited FotoKem, the last motion picture lab in the world that makes 70mm prints, to see finishing touches being made to "The Odyssey," the first feature shot entirely on IMAX film.

Prediction market users are profiting from bets on war. Analysts say suspiciously timed bets, and the high win rates of wagers on military outcomes , are likely signs of insider trading.

More than $1 billion has been bet online on military decisions and outcomes this year on Polymarket. Some wagers have been suspiciously timed, with information seemingly coming from insiders.

London black cab drivers, who are required to memorize thousands of streets to get their license, are being tested in a new way. Several companies are trying to bring robotaxis to the city's streets.

London's famed black cab drivers memorize 25,000 streets to get a license, but with robotaxis soon giving rides in London, cabbies could face new competition.

Christopher Nolan, director of "Oppenheimer," "Inception," "Interstellar," and "The Dark Knight," imagines every movie is the last he'll make, leading him toward an ambitious plan for "The Odyssey."

Director Christopher Nolan imagines every movie is the last he'll ever make. He brought that mindset to "The Odyssey."

Sunday's win at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, is only his second PGA tour victory, after winning the 2024 Wyndham Championship.

• Rai shoots 65 including 68-foot birdie putt on 17th

• Last Englishman to triumph was Jim Barnes 107 years ago

There’s never been a PGA Championship quite like the one that’s played out at Aronimink this week. At the start of the last day, there were 21 players within four shots of the lead, and eight major winners among them, every one of them sure that they had a shot at winning the Wanamaker Trophy.

There was the six-time major champion Rory McIlroy, the 2022 Open champion, Cam Smith, the 2017 and 2022 PGA champion, Justin Thomas, the 2021 US Open and 2023 Masters champion, Jon Rahm, and on, and on, and on, all the way down the leaderboard, past Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Rose, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Reed and plenty of other contenders too.

At least 80 deaths have been reported in a new Ebola disease outbreak in Congo and Uganda, authorities said.

Body says, on average, British women approaching retirement have half private pension savings of men – £81,000 versus £156,000

A shake-up of pensions in Britain must involve measures to close the gap in retirement savings between men and women, the revived Pensions Commission is to tell ministers.

According to the government-backed body, women approaching retirement have on average half the private pension savings of men, with a median pension wealth of £81,000 versus £156,000.

Justice secretary’s white paper will overhaul youth justice rules and could end lifelong criminal records for under-18s

David Lammy has promised to cut the number of children kept in jail while they await trial by a quarter as part of an overhaul of youth justice rules that could also end lifelong criminal records for under-18s.

The justice secretary is publishing a white paper on Monday that he says will reduce the number of children ending up in jail – something he admits was his greatest fear growing up in Tottenham in the 1980s.

Two campaign groups claim that change to how NHS treatments are approved amounts to ‘unlawful power grab’

Campaigners against the UK’s controversial drug pricing deal with Donald Trump are threatening the government with legal action unless it scraps a key element of the plan.

They claim that a change to how drug treatments are approved for use by the NHS, which could lead to it paying even higher prices for them, amounts to an “unlawful power grab”.

Survey shows businesses ‘struggling to absorb latest economic shock’, while data says April vacancies down 7.7%

The worsening fallout from the Iran war is forcing businesses to halt their UK investment and hiring plans, bosses have warned, as Britain enters a renewed period of political and economic instability.

More than two months into the US-Israeli war on Iran, leading surveys of UK employers showed companies were increasingly prioritising cost management over growth as rising costs and global uncertainty weigh on confidence.

Luke Grimes leads the Yellowstone sequel.

160 miles north of New York City, a man was convicted of manslaughter "with the help of license plate reader technology," reports a local news station. In the small town of Troy (population: 51,000), the mayor described the cameras as "a critical tool" in that investigation. But locals and city officials "have raised concerns about who can access the data collected locally, along with data security, privacy invasions and use by federal authorities, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reports WNYT: When Troy's contract came up for renewal, Mayor Carmella Mantello wanted to keep paying Flock and the council paused payments. The mayor then issued a public safety emergency declaration to keep the license plate readers active. The council has filed a lawsuit to overturn that..."If this illegal emergency order is left unchallenged, we give this mayor and any future mayor regardless of their political party or ideology, unchecked authority to issue an emergency declaration whenever they disagree with the council on any issue," [said Troy council president Sue Steele]. "The technology that's in place today is not the technology of six years ago," council president Steele told another local news station. "We have AI, we have rapidly changing and advancing technology. So that begs the need for regulations to protect certain data." The American Civil Liberties Union warns that Flock will use AI to let law enforcement search its trove of videos. But "Listen, if it was infringing on people's rights, people's liberties, we'd be the first to get rid of it. We have safeguards in place," [mayor] Mantello responded. Mantello noted that data captured by Troy's Flock cameras is only being shared with other local municipalities. Steele said the data had been shared nationally until she and other elected officials raised concerns. "As far as sharing with local law enforcement, that's necessary in the normal course of investigations. The concern is what Flock does with this data: sharing it with ICE, for instance, and other nefarious outlets," Steele said. As the debate continues over the small city's 26 Flock cameras, a columnist in Albany wrote that "it's a good thing. We should be asking questions about the growing surveillance state. We should be debating whether this is the future we want." As the American Civil Liberties Union noted, [Flock] has quietly built a broad mass-surveillance infrastructure, with cameras installed in 5,000 communities around the country, and is continually expanding how that network is used. Did we ask for that? Did we vote for it? Not really. The cameras have been installed in municipality after municipality, mostly with little discussion or controversy, which makes us like the proverbial frogs who didn't notice the water getting warmer until it was boiling. Suddenly, surveillance cameras are everywhere; we're always being watched... [T]he City Council's Democratic majority is considering legislation that, among other steps, would require that data collected by the cameras be generally deleted after 48 hours and that the city be more transparent about how the cameras are used. The controversy and pushback continues to draw local coverage. The mayor complains the proposed rules restricts the cameras "almost exclusively to cases involving individuals with outstanding felony arrest warrants or situations where officers can determine in advance that an incident will result in a felony charge... This is beyond reckless." But the Albany columnist still argues many of America's Flock cameras are unnecessary and are "being installed just because... It's worth considering where this might lead and whether the future we're installing is the future we want."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Mountain Home Air Force Base said​ in a social media post that it was locked down following an incident during the Gunfighter Skies Air Show.

British Chambers of Commerce survey shows firms ‘are dealing with rising levels of theft, fraud and cyber-attacks’

UK business leaders have warned that crime is becoming an increasingly “serious barrier” to growing Britain’s economy amid a rise in shoplifting, fraud and cyber-attacks against companies.

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), which represents tens of thousands of businesses across the country, called on the government to provide “a step change in the support businesses can count on” as it said two-fifths of companies had experienced some form of crime in the past year.

Tim Walz, the state’s governor, calls blazes ‘unpredictable and fast-moving’ as dry, windy weather fuels them

Minnesota’s national guard has been activated to help battle wildfires burning in the northern part of the state after the department of natural resources requested additional support.

Governor Tim Walz authorized the deployment by issuing an executive order that declared a peacetime emergency.

RACHEL GEHRMAN
Staff Reporter

Coffee is ingrained in the everyday routines of many college students — sometimes keeping their eyelids wide during all-nighter studying, or other times just serving as motivation to make it from one task to another. The caffeinated beverage has been a prominent aspect in American culture since the Boston Tea Party in 1773, but today, coffee’s role in our society varies widely — especially here on a college campus.

Socialization among college students is a large part of their university experience, though apart from dorm life and nightlife, desirable hangout activities can be limited. A common go-to activity has become “grabbing a coffee” — minimal money required, a sit-down spot provided, plus you get a fun drink to accompany conversation. 

Coffee runs are casual and versatile enough for friends who have a short window of free time, a date with someone you are not entirely comfortable with and even a relaxed business meeting with a boss. 

Or, working the other way around, socialization can act as the justification for buying coffee. It is easier to convince yourself that a $7 latte is worth your money when you are also catching up with a friend. Coffee can even be viewed as a replacement for alcohol for a new generation of young adults — chatting at a cafe to replace a night spent at the bar. 

However, younger generations are not only buying coffee for the social environment that often comes alongside it. For college students especially, a drink from Starbucks or Dunkin’ can work as a dopamine hit rather than a means to energize. With companies constantly releasing exciting new flavors and combinations, such as Dunkin’s recent banana-inspired spring menu, it is easy to crave a coffee for the sake of drinking something sugary and delicious. 

Why bore yourself sitting through class without a coffee when a Starbucks cold brew makes it that much better?

In today’s coffee culture, people do not need to enjoy pure, bitter coffee to enjoy drinking it. There are so many ways to customize a coffee to satisfy your desired taste, whether that be through creamers, cold foams or syrups. 

Speaking of customization, there is a psychological phenomenon that explains another aspect of coffee obsession. The “IKEA effect” describes how we often value things more when we are involved in its creation. The “IKEA effect” is highly applicable to coffee companies that encourage consumers to make the product their own. Especially with chain businesses, customers can easily alter a coffee’s sweetness, dairy, ice, syrups and toppings to create their signature, go-to drink. 

Companies often capitalize on this desire for consumers to create their own orders, and with a growing market for sugar lovers, on the sweet tooths of those who dislike plain coffee. 7 Brew, a newly popularized drive-through drink chain, offers over 20,000 drink variations. Catered towards a vast expanse of sweet-oriented preferences, some coffee options include the Funnel Cake Macchiato, the Frosted Cookie Breve and the Toasted Marshmallow Cold Brew. 

Though coffee will always be a reliable option for a bad night’s sleep or the start of a work day, the familiar caffeinated beverage has many more reasons to be purchased in today’s society. A justification for socializing, a creative outlet for customization or a sugary, trending dopamine boost, coffee now appeals to more people and more tastes than ever. 

Forbes describes it as "definitely already out there, and under active exploitation according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, urging all organizations to prioritize timely remediation as the attack vector poses a significant risk." "We have issued CVE-2026-42897 to address a spoofing vulnerability affecting Exchange Outlook Web Access (OWA)," Microsoft told SecurityWeek. "We recommend customers enable EEMS to be better protected, and to follow our guidance available here." Microsoft this week patched 137 vulnerabilities with its Patch Tuesday updates and the cybersecurity industry was surprised to see that the latest updates did not address any zero-days. However, a zero-day was disclosed just 48 hours later, on May 14... described as a spoofing and XSS issue affecting Exchange Server Subscription Edition, 2016, and 2019. "Improper neutralization of input during web page generation ('cross-site scripting') in Microsoft Exchange Server allows an unauthorized attacker to perform spoofing over a network," Microsoft said in its advisory. The company noted that the vulnerability affects Exchange Outlook Web Access (OWA) and an attacker can exploit it by sending a specially crafted email to the targeted user. "If the user opens the email in Outlook Web Access and certain interaction conditions are met, arbitrary JavaScript can be executed in the browser context," Microsoft explained. CSO Online shares more details. "Admins should note there are known issues once the mitigation is applied either manually or automatically through the EM Service." - OWA Print Calendar functionality might not work. As a workaround, copy the data or screenshot the calendar you want to print, or use Outlook Desktop client. - Inline images might not display correctly in the recipient's OWA reading pane. As a workaround, send images as email attachments or use Outlook Desktop client... - Admins may get a message saying "Mitigation invalid for this Exchange version." in mitigation details. This issue is cosmetic and the mitigation does apply successfully if the status is shown as "Applied". Microsoft is investigating how to address this glitch. Forbes notes "It's been something of a rough few days for Microsoft Exchange on the security vulnerability front," since this week also saw a zero-day demonstrated at the Pwn2Own Berlin hacking event, "which has been responsibly disclosed and not released into the wild." The Berlin event got off to a flying start on May 14 as Windows 11 was hit by no less than three zero-day exploits. On day two, hacking teams were no less successful, chaining together three new vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange in order to achieve the holy grail of SYSTEM-level remote code execution. Such was the level of this achievement that Orange Tsai from the DEVCORE Research Team was rewarded with a $200,000 bounty payment in return for immediately handing over all the technical details to the event organizers. "This is, in fact, good news," Forbes writes, since "full details of the vulnerabilities underlying the exploits, along with the technical nature of the exploit code itself, will be handed over to Microsoft, which will then have 90 days to provide a fix before any details are made public."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The attack, the largest and most deadly to target the Russian capital region since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, showed Kyiv’s increasing ability to carry out long-range strikes.

Four crew members are safe after incident involving aircraft during weekend air show at military base in western Idaho

Four crew members are safe after two navy jets collided and crashed to the ground on Sunday at an air show at Mountain Home air force base in western Idaho, officials said.

The collision involved two US navy EA-18G Growlers from the Electronic Attack Squadron 129 in Whidbey Island, Washington, said Cmdr Amelia Umayam, a spokesperson for Naval Air Forces, US Pacific Fleet.

Wave of almost 600 drones launched across 14 regions, after Moscow’s deadly three-day attack on Ukraine last week

One of Ukraine’s largest ever drone strikes against Russia’s regions, including Moscow, has killed at least four people and wounded a dozen more, the Russian authorities have said.

The wave of almost 600 Ukrainian drones struck overnight across 14 Russian regions, as well as the Crimean peninsula and the Black and Azov seas, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday, with the area around the capital among the worst-hit.

"Call Her Daddy" host Alex Cooper said on Instagram that she and husband Matt Kaplan are expecting their first child.

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for May 18, No. 1,072.

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for May 18, No. 806.

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for May 18, No. 602.

Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for May 18, No. 1,794.

White House-backed event billed as ‘One Nation Under God’ criticized for blurring lines between church and state

Thousands of people streamed on to the National Mall for a daylong prayer rally on Sunday billed as a “rededication of our country as One Nation Under God”.

Against the backdrop of the Washington Monument, worship music blared from a stage that made clear the event’s Christian focus. Arched stained-glass windows, set underneath grand columns resembling a federal building, depicted the nation’s founders alongside a white cross.

Abu Dhabi denounces ‘dangerous escalation’ as Iran war ceasefire grows more precarious

The United Arab Emirates has blamed a fire near its nuclear power plant on a drone launched by Iran or one of its proxies in what the UAE called a “dangerous escalation”.

The fire was just outside the Barakah nuclear plant and caused no injuries or radiation alerts, with the emirate’s nuclear regulator saying there was no radioactive leak or risk to the public.

"We may have accidentally detected dark matter back in 2019," writes ScienceAlert. "What if instead of trying to see dark matter, scientists attempted to hear it instead?" asks Space.com: New research suggests dark matter could leave a tiny but discernible imprint in the cacophony of ripples in spacetime called "gravitational waves" that ring through the cosmos when two black holes slam together and merge... Fortunately, when it comes to detecting gravitational waves from colliding black holes, humanity's instruments, such as LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), are getting more and more sensitive all the time... Vicente and colleagues searched through data gathered by LIGO and its fellow gravitational wave detectors, KAGRA (Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector) and Virgo, focusing on 28 of the clearest signals from merging black holes. Of these, 27 appeared to have come from mergers that occurred in the relative vacuum of space. One signal, however, GW190728, first heard on July 19, 2019, and the result of merging binary black holes with a combined mass of 20 times that of the sun and located an estimated 8 billion light-years away, seemed to carry the telltale trace of this merger occurring in a region of dense, "buttery" dark matter. The team behind this research is quick to point out that this can't be considered a positive detection of dark matter, but does say it gives us a hint at what to look for and thus where to direct follow-up investigations... "We know that dark matter is around us. It just has to be dense enough for us to see its effects," said team leader Josu Aurrekoetxea, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Physics. "Black holes provide a mechanism to enhance this density, which we can now search for by analyzing the gravitational waves emitted when they merge." They published their results this week in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As the campaign draws to a close, we looked at what each of the teams did best this season in the English top-flight

“What enriches you is the game, not the result. The result is a piece of data,” the Spanish football coach Juanma Lillo once said. “The birthrate goes up. Is that enriching? No. But the process that led to that? Now that’s enriching.”

Let that serve as the thinking behind the first annual Football Style Awards, a celebration of process over results. These awards are not about who won, though they are about pieces of data. A club data scientist friend and I have spent the last year building a new football app called futi that measures not just who’s good but what they’re good at, based on detailed phase of play data and models that measure how teams and players play.

President Trump said "there won't be anything left of them" if Iranian leaders do not "get moving, FAST."

Reform, which won more than 50% of the local election vote, is likely to focus heavily on immigration and Brexit

Andy Burnham faces a perilous race to win the Makerfield seat, his allies have said, as he gears up to fight a byelection that could decide the long-term future of Labour and the country.

The Greater Manchester mayor is likely to be confirmed as Labour’s candidate for the north-west constituency later this week, but those close to him say he faces an uphill battle to beat Reform UK. Nigel Farage’s party won more than 50% of the vote at the local elections and polling suggests Burnham is only marginally ahead.

Canal+ head says he will not work with hundreds of actors and directors who signed protest against Vincent Bolloré’s political sway

The head of France’s biggest film producer, Canal+, has said the group will no longer work with hundreds of cinema figures who signed a petition voicing concern over the growing influence of the rightwing billionaire owner Vincent Bolloré.

The open letter, published earlier this week to coincide with the opening of the Cannes film festival, was signed by more than 600 figures, including the actor-director Juliette Binoche, the director and photographer Raymond Depardon, the French-Iranian film-maker Sepideh Farsi and the director Arthur Harari, who co-wrote the Oscar-winning Anatomy of a Fall and is premiering his film The Unknown in the main competition in Cannes.

On this "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" broadcast, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Ambassador Alexander Yui, Taiwan's Representative to the U.S., join Margaret Brennan.

DYLAN DEVINE
Staff Reporter

The Delaware Blue Hens men’s lacrosse 2026 season is officially over. The team will not head to Virginia to compete in the Atlantic 10 (A-10) Conference tournament, and will end the year 5-8 overall. 

Despite the tough aches of the season, the team has learned more from each other than from its losses. The men’s lacrosse team embarked on a new chapter in its program’s history, leaving the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) and heading to the A-10 Conference. The team marked the end of its 23 seasons in the conference, finishing with two regular-season titles, as well as five CAA conference tournament titles.

This was one of the most anticipated and competitive seasons in program history. The Blue Hens faced off against many of the top 25 teams in either offense, defense, or both. 

Delaware had started its 2026 season against Utah on the road in Wilmington due to weather complications in the Newark area. It proved to be a testament to a season of new challenges with unexpected twists and turns.

The team picked up its first win of the season on the road against the St. John’s Red Storm in a close 12-11 victory, but then lost its next five games. It struggled to secure a win at home until finally breaking the streak with a 9-4 victory over Binghamton University. 

Head coach Ben DeLuca, in his eighth season with the Blue Hens, said he is proud of how far his team has come this year. 

“Adversity reveals character, for sure,” DeLuca said. “We hit a lot of adversity, a lot of challenges throughout the year, most of which were unexpected, and that’s kind of the way it happens.”

The home win against Binghamton marked the beginning of the run that Delaware had desperately been looking for, as they went on to earn their first conference win of the season with a 12–6 victory over Hobart and William Smith College.

The third straight win during this streak, against the University of Massachusetts Minutemen, was the first victory for Delaware in Amherst since 2015. The confidence that Delaware had gained continued into the fourth straight win against St. Bonaventure University, with a 19-16 victory on senior day. The team would end its season with a 3-3 record in conference play.

Delaware was able to rally towards the end of the season, winning four straight games before heading into the last game of the season against a fierce opponent, Saint Joseph’s University (SJU). Delaware knows the Hawks all too well, having won 17 of the last 22 games against them. 

Unfortunately, the Blue Hens’ efforts came up short in the last game of the season, losing to SJU 15-5. The game was a win-and-in situation for Delaware, as they would have clinched a spot in the A-10 Conference tournament.

Jason Kolar, a graduate student midfielder in his second season as one of the team’s captains, understands his role and the impact he has on his teammates.

“You’re always looking out for other guys, and making sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing, and they’re being held to the same standard that you’re holding yourself to,” Kolar said.

The team understands the importance of sticking together through the hardships, injuries and losses. Players have all been able to hold the standard of community and professionalism both on and off the field.

“If I didn’t show up in practice one day and it looked like I started to quit, like I started to give up, then everyone else is gonna feel that way,” Kolar said. “So, it begins with us.”

The culture and community that Deluca, his staff, Kolar and the rest of the team have built is the key to the team’s success heading into their 2027 campaign. The Delaware program has turned hardships into valuable motivational lessons. 

With the highly anticipated 2027 season ahead, DeLuca expects his team to carry the momentum from this season and use it as fuel to return to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2023.

Rescuers airlifted an injured hiker who fell about 50 feet from the summit of Washington state's Mount Si on Saturday.

Test scores "are lower than they were a decade ago in school districts across the U.S.," reports Times magazine, citing new data released Wednesday by Stanford researchers. "Reading scores were down roughly 0.6 grades in 2025 compared to 2015, and math scores were down about 0.4 grades. This means that students were 60% of one school year behind where their peers were in reading a decade earlier and 40% of one school year behind in math." But Stanford's announcement notes that America's schools "were in a 'learning recession' for seven years before the COVID-19 pandemic, with student test scores in math and reading on a steady decline since 2013." This reversal ended two decades of progress, according to Sean Reardon, the Professor of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford Graduate School of Education, whose data forms the backbone of the new research... The study reframes the narrative of pandemic-era learning loss, arguing that the crisis of the last few years was an acceleration of a problem that was already underway. "The pandemic was the mudslide that followed seven years of erosion in student achievement," said Professor Tom Kane, faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, and a lead author of the report... The study found that the slowdown in learning coincided with two major shifts in American childhood and education policy: the widespread dismantling of test-based accountability systems that defined the No Child Left Behind era and the rise of social media use among young people. Reading scores, in particular, suffered consistently, with the average annual loss in the years just before the pandemic being just as large as the loss during it... Today, 8th-grade reading scores on national assessments are at their lowest point since 1990. Compounding the problem, chronic student absenteeism remains a major obstacle to improving learning. Though down from its pandemic peak, 23 percent of students were chronically absent in the 2024-25 school year, far above the pre-pandemic rate of 15 percent. More context from Time magazine: Reading scores were down roughly 0.6 grades in 2025 compared to 2015, and math scores were down about 0.4 grades. This means that students were 60% of one school year behind where their peers were in reading a decade earlier and 40% of one school year behind in math... "The decline started around the time that social media's use among teens was exploding, and this was also occurring in a number of other countries," says Thomas Kane, one of the authors of the Educational Scorecard report and a professor at Harvard University... [H]e maintains that it is at the core of the decline in reading achievement. He points out that social media use was shown to be heaviest among the lowest achieving students. "Some states and school districts are making progress," notes the Associated Press, "largely by shifting toward phonics-based instruction and providing extra support for struggling readers." And "The picture is also brighter in math. Almost every state in the analysis saw improvements in math test scores from 2022 to 2025."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The following is the transcript of the interview with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Republican of Pennsylvania, and Tom Suozzi, Democrat of New York, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on May 17, 2026.

Saturday night’s fight came a decade too late to be relevant. But it also provided a spectacle MMA’s most powerful organization has been lacking

When Ronda Rousey stepped into the cage for the first time in almost a decade on Saturday night to challenge fellow mixed martial arts trailblazer Gina Carano, the fight was over before it ever really began. In a flash, Rousey had Carano locked in her signature armbar, leaving her opponent little choice but to tap. The fight lasted a mere 17 seconds.

“I didn’t really want to hurt her,” Rousey said after her win. “It was beautiful martial arts, that’s what I think that was. It was art.”

US president writes ‘vote the bum out’ as congressman faces close race against Trump-endorsed Republican

With two days to go before the next big test of Donald Trump’s iron grip over his party, the president went head-to-head on Sunday with his nemesis, Thomas Massie the Kentucky congressman who is in a fight for his political life in Tuesday’s Republican primary.

Over an eight-hour period starting in the early hours of Sunday, Trump took to his bully pulpit on Truth Social to taunt Massie, one of very few senior Republicans who has dared to defy him. Massie is the “worst and most unreliable Republican Congressman in the history of our Country”, the rant began, followed by a mid-morning exhortation to Kentucky voters to “vote the bum out on Tuesday”.

Excluding capital would be ‘missed opportunity’, says Sadiq Khan, given existing assets and ‘world-class infrastructure’

The mayor of London has criticised plans to explore a bid for the north of England to host the Olympics, saying that excluding London would be a “missed opportunity”.

Ministers have commissioned an assessment by UK Sport which could inform a bid for the international sporting event in the 2040s. If the campaign were successful, it would be the first time the Olympic Games and Paralympics were hosted in Britain since London 2012.

The Senate's rulemaker delivered a blow to GOP plans to fund security for President Trump's overhaul of the East Wing of the White House.

Bulgaria’s first-ever win in European song contest delivers ray of hope at turbulent time after years of political instability

Bulgarians have rejoiced in their country’s first victory at the Eurovision song contest as fans welcomed home the singer whose party anthem Bangaranga proved an unexpected breakthrough hit.

“Dara is yet more proof that Bulgaria can win,” declared the new prime minister, Rumen Radev, of Darina Nikolaeva Yotova, known simply as Dara. He hailed “a young artist who, thanks to her talent and professionalism, has managed to rise above all the complexities and prejudices surrounding the [Eurovision] voting process”.

Long Island Rail Road disruptions likely to affect weekday rush hour as Kathy Hochul says ‘I did not want a strike’

The shutdown of the Long Island Rail Road, North America’s largest commuter rail system, continued into a second day on Sunday after unionized workers went on strike a day earlier for the first time in three decades.

The railroad, which serves New York City and its eastern suburbs, ceased operations just after midnight Friday after five unions representing about half its workforce walked off the job.

An anonymous reader shared this report from Electrek: When Fisker Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2024, it left roughly 11,000 Ocean SUV owners holding the keys to vehicles that cost them anywhere from $40,000 to $70,000 — and that were rapidly losing the software brains that made them work. No more over-the-air updates. No more connected services. No more warranty. The manufacturer was dead. What happened next is one of the most remarkable stories in the history of the electric vehicle industry. Instead of accepting that their cars would become rolling paperweights, Fisker Ocean owners organized, reverse-engineered their vehicles' proprietary software, hacked into CAN bus networks, built open-source tools on GitHub, and effectively stood up a volunteer-run open-sourced car company from the ashes of Fisker... Within months of the bankruptcy filing, thousands of Ocean owners formed the Fisker Owners Association (FOA) — a nonprofit that quickly grew to 4,000 members and began operating as something between a car club, a tech startup, and an independent automaker. The FOA hired independent tech experts who began reverse-engineering Fisker's proprietary software patches. Members taught each other how to flash firmware. They organized bulk purchases of replacement parts — negotiating the price of key fobs down from roughly $1,000 each to a fraction of that through coordinated group buys. They hosted free global key fob pairing events, saving each owner $100 to $250... What started as desperate troubleshooting has evolved into a genuine open-source ecosystem around the Fisker Ocean. On GitHub, a developer named MichaelOE reverse-engineered the API behind Fisker's official "My Fisker" mobile app and built a Home Assistant integration that exposes every cloud API value as a sensor — with all the app's buttons available as Home Assistant controls... [Community members have also been systematically mapping CAN bus files.] The article noes this "is not an isolated incident. Nikola also filed for bankruptcy, leaving its owners in a similar bind. Canoo and Arrival are headed for liquidation auctions..." Consumer advocates are now pushing for structural changes: mandatory software escrow funds that would keep vehicle software running even if the manufacturer disappears, open-source mandates in bankruptcy proceedings, and shared repair data requirements... European automakers, meanwhile, are moving in a different direction entirely — Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and eight suppliers signed a memorandum in 2025 to develop a shared open-source automotive software platform.... The Fisker Owners Association has proven that a dedicated community can keep orphaned EVs on the road. But they shouldn't have had to... [O]wners shouldn't need to become hackers and parts brokers and quasi-manufacturers just to keep driving the cars they already paid for.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Buoyed by his removal of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, the US president is intensifying an economic stranglehold and military menace

While the world watched the pomp of Donald Trump’s trip to Beijing, the US was turning up the pressure thousands of miles away. Its oil blockade has plunged Cuba into a humanitarian crisis, sparking nationwide blackouts that have prompted rare protests, closing schools and universities and leaving hospitals battling to treat patients. Surveillance flights are circling. US media reported this weekend that federal prosecutors are preparing an indictment for Raúl Castro, the 94-year-old former president and brother of Fidel. Mr Trump has casually observed, while bragging about the kidnapping of Venezuela’s then leader Nicolás Maduro in January, that “Cuba is next”.

A military assault on Havana would be vastly more fraught for the US – even without the war on Iran – and disastrous for Cubans. Washington hopes that threats and privation will be sufficient. UN experts warn that the blockade is unlawful, puts human rights at risk and may amount to collective punishment. The government admitted on Wednesday that fuel oil had run out. Tourism has collapsed. The Canadian mining company Sherritt pulled out of a joint venture and countries have axed their contracts for Cuban doctors – a vital source of income for the island, and trained medical staff for others. Havana may hope that it can stagger on. But Mr Trump is not patient.

Ronda Rousey used her signature armbar to stop Gina Carano just 17 seconds into a comeback bout between the two MMA fighters.

Officers were allegedly racially abused at Tommy Robinson march, which failed to draw huge numbers it was hoping for

Tommy Robinson’s “unite the kingdom” rally failed to get the huge numbers it wanted to march through London, with police confident that the crowd at his protest on Saturday was less than half the size of that at an event last year.

The far-right rally happened on the same day as a pro-Palestinian march, and the Metropolitan police said 43 arrests were made during the two events.

Gas prices, inflation weigh on Americans. Many see lack of clarity on what's happening in Iran.

While the LIRR work stoppage has caused a mess for people heading to weekend events​, the real concern is Monday morning's commute.

The following is the transcript of the interview with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on May 17, 2026.

The following is the transcript of the interview with Ambassador Alexander Yui, Taiwan's representative to the U.S., that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on May 17, 2026.

Journalist Simone Stolzoff in a new book explores why modern life makes not knowing harder – and how to learn to live with it

Simone Stolzoff describes himself as “naturally an uncertain person” inclined to rumination and self-doubt. This tendency benefits him in his work as a journalist, but can otherwise be a double-edged sword.

While working for a magazine in New York, Stolzoff was approached about a job at a design firm in San Francisco. Now, he laughs at how tortured he felt “having to decide between two attractive career paths”.

Taiwan's representative to the U.S. Alexander Yui said on Sunday that "we want peace and stability" as Taiwan became among the most closely-watched issues in last week's summit.

Long-time Slashdot reader internet-redstar shares an interestging response to "the recent wave of Linux kernel privilege escalation vulnerabilities like 'Copy Fail' and 'Dirty Frag'": Belgian Linux sysadmin and Tesla Hacker "Jasper Nuyens" got tired of the idea of manually blacklisting dozens or even hundreds of obscure kernel modules across large fleets of Linux systems in the near future. So he wrote ModuleJail, a GPLv3 shell script that scans a running Linux system and automatically blacklists currently unused kernel modules, reducing kernel attack surface without requiring a reboot. The idea is simple: many modern Linux privilege escalation bugs target obscure or rarely used kernel functionality that is still enabled by default on servers that do not actually need it. ModuleJail works across major distributions including Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL, Fedora, AlmaLinux and Arch Linux, generating 1 modprobe blacklist rules file while preserving commonly-used modules. Nuyens argues that the increasing speed of AI-assisted vulnerability discovery will likely turn kernel hardening and attack surface reduction into a much bigger operational priority for sysadmins over the next few weeks and months.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Exclusive: Families of men facing death penalty join opposition to proposals to run courses for defence ministry

The families of two scholars facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia have appealed to the University of Cambridge to drop proposals to run staff training courses for Riyadh’s defence ministry.

The Guardian revealed last week that Cambridge’s Judge business school has been authorised to offer “leadership development” and “innovation management” training for the Saudi defence ministry’s staff, despite internal opposition within the university over the kingdom’s record on human rights and academic freedom.

Tom Steyer has built his campaign for governor of California around affordability – he’s not the only Democrat testing the party’s appetite for a populist from the 1%

Tom Steyer has built his campaign for governor of California around affordability – and taxing the uber-wealthy.

It is perhaps an unusual message for a candidate with an estimated net worth of $2.4bn. But the hedge fund founder-turned climate activist and liberal mega-donor is pitching himself as a different kind of billionaire: one who wants people like him to pay far more in taxes.

Exhibition explores how artists mainly known for their paintings helped revive a skill that had fallen out of fashion

They may be best known for their vibrant oil paintings but an exhibition opening in the English West Country is focusing instead on the subtle printmaking skills of artists such as Édouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.

More than 50 prints created mainly by impressionists, post-impressionists and cubists are going on display at the Holburne Museum in Bath.

GIA JOELLA
Managing Arts and Culture Editor

The world of esports has, in recent years, launched initiatives to create new opportunities for marginalized genders. In 2021, Riot Games hosted its first VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) Game Changers tournament, a top-tier competitive circuit for players of marginalized genders. The program has now reached its fifth year. 

The university has followed this trend in its own esports program. In 2023, it introduced VALORANT Sphinx, its first team solely for marginalized genders. Soon after that, it introduced its second team, Overwatch Phoenix.

Kaitlyn Huynh, a senior animal sciences major and VALORANT Sphinx’s team captain, believes that having these spaces for marginalized genders has encouraged more players to participate in esports.

“You see it a lot when we’re at the Involvement Fair and we try to get people to join,” Huynh said. “Sometimes you see other girls that walk by and eye you down, and you can tell they play video games, but they don’t always walk up because they feel like they’re going to get judged. It’s so helpful to have other women standing at the booth.”

Sylv Chen, a sophomore majoring in game studies and esports as well as computer science, joined VALORANT Sphinx on a whim during their freshman year. They chose to join a team for marginalized genders because of the community it offered. 

“With marginalized genders, it’s like you kind of all understand the struggles that you’re going through, so you’re all very supportive of each other,” Chen said.

Esports function very similarly to traditional sports. They hold tryouts, which usually take place at the beginning of the fall semester, and spend about 10 to 15 hours each week practicing in addition to six to eight hours of matches, depending on how many leagues they are playing in. Each team has a coach who reviews their gameplay, and every player receives a custom jersey.

Shelby Turner, a freshman cognitive sciences major who joined VALORANT Sphinx after participating in an esports camp with Huynh, feels that the team’s closeness is what makes it special.

“They’re genuinely the sweetest group of people ever,” Turner said. “I’m so happy that these are the people that I got to play my first full year with.”

Though Huynh has been asked to join the university’s coed team, she has chosen to stay with VALORANT Sphinx because of her teammates.

“I like the women and nonbinary teams because it feels more like friends rather than just competition,” Huynh said. “I’d rather just stay where I am even if I’m not competing at the highest level that I could be. I’m able to make memories with my friends and have a good time instead of just having the competition.”

The university’s esports program is still mostly male, but since the inclusion of VALORANT Sphinx and Overwatch Phoenix, the number of players of marginalized genders has grown from just a few to a third of the program’s players in only three years, Huynh said. 

Chen believes that the advantage male players have over marginalized genders begins early in their lives.

“Men are kind of told to play games when they’re young, and they’re kind of told that it’s normal for them to, and so they get a lot better very quickly,” Chen said. “It’s not super normalized for marginalized genders to play competitive video games. So I think when that becomes more normalized as a whole, then we’ll start to see more of these players get a lot better.”

Turner’s earliest memory of video games was playing Minecraft with her father and LittleBigPlanet with her mother, while Huynh grew up playing Call of Duty with her father. They both believe that playing video games from a young age led them to eventually participate in esports.

“It’s insane to see so many of us that enjoy gaming and playing at the highest level that we can play, but also being able to keep each other up when there’s a lot of sexism and stuff in those games especially,” Huynh said. “It’s very interesting to see everyone come together and lift each other up.”

Humpback stranded on sandbank was unlikely to survive, experts had said, recommending it be left to die in peace

The German authorities have defended their decision to allow a risky rescue attempt of a stranded whale to go ahead, despite experts warning it was “inadvisable” because the animal was hurt and unlikely to survive.

The saga of the whale, known as Timmy, had gripped Germany since the beached humpback was spotted stranded on Timmendorfer beach, a sandbank in shallow waters near the coast, nearly two months ago.

• Award to be officially announced on Sunday evening

• Canadian aiming to deliver OKC back-to-back titles

Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been voted the NBA Most Valuable Player for the second consecutive season, ESPN reported Sunday morning.

The official announcement of the winner is set to come at Sunday at 7.30pm.

Researchers in Dublin discovered the oldest surviving English poem in a Roman library.

Are statistical programmers coalescing around a handful of popular languages? That's the question asked by the CEO of software assessment site TIOBE, which every month estimates the popularity of programming languages based on their frequency in search results: This month, the programming language R matched its all-time high by reaching position #8 in the TIOBE index once again. This is not a coincidence. The statistical programming language market is clearly undergoing a major consolidation. The biggest winners are Python and R, while many long-established alternatives continue to lose momentum. The era in which the statistical computing landscape was fragmented across many niche languages and platforms appears to be coming to an end. Several established players are steadily declining: — MATLAB is close to dropping out of the TIOBE top 20. — SAS is about to leave the top 30 for the first time since the TIOBE index began. — Wolfram/Mathematica remains well below its historical peak and is losing further ground. — SPSS dropped out of the top 100 last month.... Elsewhere in the index, Java and C++ swapped positions this month. Java gained momentum following the successful release of Java 26. Another notable riser is Zig, which is approaching the TIOBE top 30 for the first time. Zig's growing popularity appears to be driven by its rare combination of low-level performance, straightforward tooling, and relative ease of use compared to traditional systems programming languages. Their estimate for the most popular programming languages in May: PythonCJavaC++C#JavaScriptVisual BasicRSQLDelphi/Object Pascal The five next most popular languages on their rankings are Fortran, Scratch, Perl, PHP, and then Rust at #15. Rust is up for positions from May of 2025 — while Go has dropped to #16, seven ranks lower than its May 2025 position of #7.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The following is the transcript of the interview with former Defense Secretary Robert Gates that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on May 17, 2026.

"Sunday Morning" shares the love for three traditional foods in the City of Brotherly Love.

Ex-health secretary’s allies rally to defend him after culture secretary calls his comments about rejoining bloc ‘odd’

• UK politics live – latest updates

A row has broken out at the top of the Labour party over whether Britain should try to rejoin the EU after Wes Streeting said the country should eventually seek to regain membership.

Streeting, who resigned as health secretary last week in protest at Keir Starmer’s leadership, kicked off a war of words after he argued on Saturday that Britain’s future lay back in the EU.

Jon Favreau, creator of the "Star Wars" series "The Mandalorian," has now brought the father-son relationship of Pedro Pascal's bounty hunter and his charge "Baby Yoda" to the big screen.

Unspecified number of officers from royalty and specialist protection team being investigated, force confirms

Police officers accused of being asleep when they were supposed to be protecting the royal family at Windsor Castle have been placed under investigation.

An unspecified number of officers from the Metropolitan police’s royalty and specialist protection team are being investigated after concerns were raised, the force confirmed. The Sun, which first reported the story, said up to 30 officers were involved.

The French fashion house is today the world's largest luxury brand. "Sunday Morning" talks with artistic director Nicolas Ghesquière, who is shaping the future of Louis Vuitton by designing the unexpected.

Accessory Dwelling Units, or ADUs, are small, fully-functional secondary homes located on the same property as a main home, usually in the backyard, filling a vital need where housing has proved scant or expensive.

Campaigners say symbolism of Magyar inauguration must translate into real change for Roma rights after years of Orbán discrimination

The clutch of young Roma boys in black bow ties were lined up beneath the ornate arches and royal frescoes of Hungary’s dazzling parliament. Moments after Péter Magyar was sworn in, bringing an end to Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power, the young musicians launched into the unofficial anthem of Roma in Hungary, leaving many MPs wiping away tears.

It was an extraordinary moment – one that fused the nationwide hope for change with the longstanding aspirations of the country’s most marginalised community. Roma rights campaigners have seized the moment, calling on the new government to ensure that the symbolism of last weekendtranslates into real change.

The Vaillancourt fountain, an enormous sculpture in place since the 1970s, has been equally reviled and revered

It was a surreal, fitting end for one of San Francisco’s most divisive public artworks: the Vaillancourt fountain, an enormous concrete sculpture looming over Embarcadero Plaza since the 1970s, had burst into flames.

The hulking fountain’s angled arms were being dismantled in early May after the city voted to potentially replace it with an open, grassy park – a decision mourned by skateboarders like myself, who argued the city was losing an important piece of its skate culture and architectural heritage.

Daniel Sikkema is accused of hiring someone to kill his husband, Brent Sikkema, amid a divorce and alleged fights over money

In the early morning hours of 14 January 2024, a hitman slipped into the renowned New York City gallerist Brent Sikkema’s Rio de Janeiro townhouse.

The alleged assassin, Alejandro Triana Prevez, grabbed a kitchen knife and traveled to Sikkema’s upstairs bedroom. An altercation unfolded near the bedroom door. As Sikkema, 75, struggled for his life, Prevez stabbed him, a lawsuit filed in New York state civil court alleges.

China is dominating the energy transition with astonishing result, while fossil fuel fascists in the US try to turn back the clock

“Farewell,” the flag-waving Chinese children chanted to Donald Trump as he strolled along the red carpet back to Air Force One at the end of his summit with Xi Jinping in Beijing.

The US leader claimed he was leaving with a cluster of “fantastic” trade deals to sell US oil, jets and soya beans to China. That has not been confirmed by his smiling host, but one thing was crystal clear from the two days of meetings: the global balance of power is shifting, from the declining petrostate in the west to the rising electrostate in the east.

If your smartwatch is making you anxious, you're not alone. This is what research and experts have to say about it.

Incumbent GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, who had occasionally broken with the Trump administration, lost his bid for a third term.

After record losses last year, beekeepers report a warm winter has led to bees ‘waking up earlier’ this year

After a series of record-breaking US heatwaves, the 2026 bee swarm season in North America has started 17 days earlier than last year, pushing beekeepers to adapt to a rapidly shifting season while raising new questions about how honeybees are responding to the climate crisis.

According to a new report published by Swarmed, a tracking network of more than 10,000 beekeepers, focused on safe and ethical honeybee relocation, this year’s unusually early swarm season follows several years of record colony declines worldwide.

James Clyburn could now find his district dismantled after supreme court effectively gutted Voting Rights Act

South Carolina has had exactly one Black representative in Congress since 1897: James Clyburn. A proposal to redraw the state’s political map would dismantle the district he represents.

The state’s sixth congressional district starts on its southern border with Georgia, in the suburbs of Savannah, moving a hundred miles north to wind around the heart of Charleston, before cutting through Black belt farmland to the state capital of Columbia, another 115 miles away.

• 39-year-old stops 44-year-old with signature armbar

• Rousey says fight will be the last of her career

Ronda Rousey stopped Gina Carano with her signature armbar just 17 seconds into the two fighters’ double comeback bout on Saturday night.

After finishing the 44-year-old Carano with a ferocity that evoked her famous heyday, the 39-year-old Rousey reaffirmed that this was the epilogue to her historic MMA career. She insists she is headed into retirement after ending on a dominant victory.

The search for the remains of the four Italian divers was suspended Saturday, after a Maldivian military diver died.

xAI has launched Grok Build, "a coding agent of its own to serve as competitor to its rivals' products, such as Anthropic's Claude Code," reports Engadget: As Bloomberg notes, xAI has been trying to catch up to its rival companies like Anthropic and OpenAI. Elon Musk, the company's founder and CEO, previously admitted that it has fallen behind its competitors when it comes to coding. A couple of months ago, Musk said he was rebuilding xAI "from the foundations up" after several co-founders had left the company. One of the company's executives reportedly told staffers to work on getting Grok to match Claude's performance across various tasks. More details from PCMag: Grok Build is currently available in beta to those with a SuperGrok Heavy subscription, which starts at $300 per month. Just download it from the xAI website and log in. It's described as "a powerful new coding agent and CLI for professional software engineering and complex coding work." In its early version, xAI is seeking feedback and looking to fix any bugs... Only a few features have been highlighted, including a plan mode that lets you review, edit, and approve a plan before execution, and support for existing plug-ins and workflows.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lisa Nandy says no candidate has launched a challenge to Keir Starmer, despite ‘feverish speculation’ around Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting

The Conservative leader called accusations her party could not win a general election “very silly”.

Trevor Phillips, questioning Kemi Badenoch on Sky, suggested she was “reluctant to accept what the voters have said” in the local election results.

The FTC settled its case with Media Matters for America. But it doesn’t have to win in court to achieve its goals

Is there something “radically left” about being anti-Nazi? That was the question a judge put to the lawyer for the Federal Trade Commission, which has no good answer.

This week, the FTC abruptly settled its case with Media Matters for America, a media watchdog the FTC had been investigating over its reports about pro-Nazi content running alongside ads on X. Those reports drove advertisers off the platform and prompted X owner Elon Musk to threaten a “thermonuclear lawsuit”.

Experts say slashed funding and growing misinformation are some of the greatest challenges facing public health

The hantavirus outbreak, while unlikely to spark the next big pandemic, is shining a spotlight on the ways public health has deteriorated in the US: its ability to test for rare diseases, its expertise on outbreak prevention and response, its ability to battle misinformation and restore trust.

“Assuming everything goes well in containing this outbreak, which I hope it does, the takeaway from that should not be ‘we’re fine,’” said Stephanie Psaki, former White House global health security coordinator. “We’re not ready for this type of threat.”

Known for his ‘Manitowoc Minute’ skits and midwestern humor, the journalist turned comedian is speaking out against the AI datacenter boom in Wisconsin

Last summer, journalist turned comedian Charlie Berens started getting social media messages from concerned Wisconsin residents about plans for a massive datacenter campus in their state.

The developer, Vantage Data Centers, claimed the $8 bn project would largely run on zero-emission energy resources like solar, wind and battery storage. The company said the campus would bring thousands of temporary construction jobs and potentially more than 1,000 permanent jobs to Port Washington, a city of 13,000 people about a half-hour north of Milwaukee. Residents opposed the project for what they said was lack of transparency and criticized the lucrative tax incentives offered to Vantage. They worried about the strain on local water and energy sources from an enormous 1.3-gigawatt project that could ultimately span 1,900 acres.

Pilot program to reimburse patients for hemp-derived products could be undermined by ban passed by Congress

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently started a new pilot to reimburse patients for hemp-derived products – like CBD – but a hemp ban that Congress passed in November could derail the program.

The new program will make certain Medicare and Medicaid recipients eligible for reimbursement for up to $500 worth of hemp products each year and is intended in part to evaluate whether these products could reduce their other health related costs.

Russian defenses shot down 81 drones headed for Moscow overnight, state agency Tass reported, citing Sobyanin.

French police fire teargas and UK shops close for safety reasons as hundreds queue for Royal Pop timepieces that make up Audemars Piguet collaboration

The launch of limited-edition Swatch watches descended into chaos in several European cities and New York, with French police firing teargas to restore order at a store near Paris.

Hundreds of people waited through the night from Friday into Saturday – and in some cases for several days – hoping to buy the Royal Pop timepieces, made in collaboration with the luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet.

Actor says Ensemble 84 in Horden, employing local talent, is how a professional repertory company should be

It’s a chilly spring evening in what was once a Catholic church in a left-behind County Durham pit village, and Ian McKellen admits he is feeling emotional.

“This is the only company of actors in the United Kingdom and it’s in … Horden?” he says. “I’m feeling very emotional. This fulfils all my romantic dreams I’ve had ever since I discovered the joys of theatre-going and acting.”

The 2022 World Cup failed to deliver on its environmental promises. From air travel emissions to heat-related dangers, the 2026 edition will be even worse

Soccer fans are increasingly watching preparations for the 2026 World Cup through their fingers. The most popular sporting event on the planet is awash in controversy, whether it’s the eye-watering ticket prices, the question of Iran’s participation while the president of one of the host countries threatens war crimes against it, or the role that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement may or may not play in policing the event. And yet, lost in the political pyrotechnics is a fiasco that carries as much long-term peril as any: the tournament’s staggering contribution to runaway climate change.

The 2026 World Cup is not only the most politically combustible tournament in modern history, but it is also on track to be the “most polluting” World Cup ever, with total greenhouse gas emissions hitting nearly two times the historical average. Scientists conservatively project that the tournament will generate around 9m tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Air travel comprises approximately 7.7m tons of this carbon budget, and more than four times that of the average for tournaments held between 2010 and 2022. The researchers note that the worst-case upper estimate for air transport is about 13.7m tons of CO2. That may sound bad, but that’s just because World Cup emissions have never been worse.

Union representative concerned about safety as workers rush to finish repainting DC pool before 250th celebrations

Workers renovating one of Washington DC’s most historically symbolic sites in a project ordered by Donald Trump may be risking their safety as they race to finish on time for the US’s 250th anniversary celebrations, a union monitoring the site has warned.

Trade union scrutiny has focused on the reflecting pool on the US capital’s National Mall – scene of Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I have a dream speech” – after it was drained of water and fenced off from the public to allow contractors the chance to upgrade it by 4 July.

Apple said that this isn't unusual and that it's temporary.

In Troy, New York, residents and city officials are at odds over police use of Flock cameras, which some call a safety tool and others see as surveillance.

There were no big breakthroughs but also no blunders, and the summit positioned Xi Jinping as a leader at the height of his power seeking global stability.

Naegohyang FC due to play Suwon FC in semi-final of Asian Women’s Champions League on Wednesday

A North Korean women’s football club has arrived in South Korea for an AFC Women’s Champions League semi-final, marking the first visit by athletes from the isolated state to the South in eight years.

The delegation of 27 players and 12 staff entered the country on Sunday before Wednesday’s match between Naegohyang FC and South Korea’s Suwon FC Women in Suwon.

Conservatives expected to keep majority as socialists face drubbing and ballot tests trajectory of far-right Vox party

Voters in the southern Spanish region of Andalucía are casting their ballots in an election that is likely to deliver an absolute majority to the conservative People’s party (PP) and inflict another debilitating defeat on Pedro Sánchez’s embattled socialists in what was previously one of their proudest strongholds.

Sunday’s election in Spain’s most populous region – the last big poll before next year’s general election – will serve as a barometer of wider electoral opinion and could also reveal whether the popularity of the far-right Vox party is beginning to peak.

Despite the ban on disposables, waste professionals say the mountain of discarded devices is a £1bn-a-year issue

It is 2pm and Ana, 47, has just started the afternoon shift at the Suez recycling plant near Birmingham city centre, standing beneath a sign reading “Non-ferrous sorting station” with a bucket of vapes in front of her. Sorting and dismantling them is part of her job as a site operative.

Recycling them is not simple. Each bucket holds between 40 and 50 devices, and over the course of a shift, she gets through about half a bucket. Using a hammer, she has to smash each vape open, pry out the batteries and separate each component into a different container.

Computer Weekly reports on "the long-awaited reform of Britain's outdated Computer Misuse Act of 1990 — which has hamstrung the work of the nation's cyber security professionals and researchers for years." The Computer Misuse Act was passed 35 years ago in response to a high-profile hacking incident involving no less than the King's father, the late Duke of Edinburgh. It defined the offence of unauthorised access to a computer — which has been used successfully in countless cyber crime prosecutions over the years. However, as the cyber security landscape has developed into its current form, this language has become increasingly vague and for some years now, a growing number of bona fide security professionals have been arguing that it potentially criminalises their work because from time to time, they may need to gain covert access to IT systems in the course of legitimate research. Speaking to Computer Weekly in 2025, Belfast-based security consultant Simon Whittaker described how the police showed up at his front door after his research was erroneously implicated in the infamous WannaCry incident of 2017... Sabeen Malik, vice-president for global government affairs and public policy at Rapid7, added: "As AI-driven vulnerability discovery scales, defenders need to run automated scanning, agentic red-teaming, and large-scale vuln research at machine speed — activities the 1990 Computer Misuse Act's broad unauthorised-access provisions were never designed to accommodate, leaving UK researchers exposed to criminal risk for work their adversaries face no equivalent friction performing." The reforms are part of a new bill that's "enhancing the powers available to law enforcement and the security services," according to the article. It points out that the U.K. government also intends "to create a Cyber Crime Risk Order that can be applied to control the behaviour of cyber criminals, and new abilities to search people believed to be concealing evidence on behalf of suspected offenders." It's all part of a proposed bill "designed to make the UK a harder target for hostile foreign states and other dangerous groups to attack."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Exclusive: Then-home secretary justified proscription of group in newspaper column despite advice it might unfairly impact trial of six activists

Yvette Cooper wrote a newspaper column about Palestine Action despite prosecutors warning it could prejudice criminal proceedings against six activists from the group, it can be revealed.

The then-home secretary wrote the column justifying Palestine Action’s proscription even though the Crown Prosecution Service advised it might unfairly impact a trial concerning a 2024 break-in at an Israeli arms manufacturer’s factory.

In New Mexico, a man is charged with forgery & larceny – and convicted of putting out a hit on his estranged wife. Twenty-six years earlier, a fire in Monaco kills a billionaire and his private nurse. At the center of that mystery was the very same man — with a different name.

Carmakers aim to expand into UK defence sector, exploiting spending boom by Nato countries

Jaguar Land Rover and General Motors are considering an expansion into UK defence via a £900m military contract, as carmakers seek to exploit a spending boom by Nato countries racing to rearm.

The manufacturers are among a group of automotive firms vying to make thousands of 4x4s for the armed forces to replace an ageing fleet of Land Rovers that have been out of production since 2016.

Flight from Melbourne to Dallas forced to land in Tahiti due to man’s alleged disruptive behaviour

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

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

A passenger has been banned from future Qantas travel after a plane travelling on a long-haul flight from Australia to the US was diverted at the weekend after the man allegedly bit a flight attendant.

The QF21 flight left Melbourne at 2.30pm on Friday en route to Dallas and was diverted to Papeete in Tahiti seven hours later when the behaviour of the disruptive passenger forced it to land.

"Survivor" 48 and 50 contestant Joe Hunter believes his sister Joanna, whose death was ruled a suicide, was murdered. He and their mother are working to be Joanna's voice and advocate for others who have experienced domestic violence.

Four months after Trump’s surprise raid, a political thaw has descended – but mingled with hope is trepidation for what comes next

When Ángel Linares heard a strange buzz followed by an explosion, his first thought was that neighbours were setting off fireworks to celebrate the new year.

Then his windows shattered, the building’s walls shook and its facade was ripped off, sending him flying on to the ground of an apartment suddenly reduced to rubble. His 85-year-old mother, Jesucita, feared Venezuela’s northern coast had been devastated by an earthquake, like the one she remembers from 1967.

Plummeting approval ratings for these three poisonous comrades-in-arms show voters are demoralised and tiring of forever wars – the west could soon breathe again

Feeling depressed about the state of the world? Worried about the future? You’re not alone. Pessimism about politics is the new normal among the peoples of the west. Major conflicts in Europe and the Middle East and the harms caused by right-left extremism, stagnating economies, inequality, corruption, terrorism, racism, big tech, mass extinctions and the climate crisis make for shared nightmares.

Growing numbers of people simply refuse to personally engage with current events via the news media, finding them too anxiety-inducing (so they probably won’t be reading this). In a Reuters Institute survey last year, 40% of respondents in about 50 countries said they sometimes or often avoid the news altogether, a rise of 29% on 2017.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

Cassidy’s bid to win nomination for third term was imperiled by his vote to convict Trump after January 6 insurrection

The Republican senator Bill Cassidy lost his primary on Saturday, as voters in Louisiana opted instead to advance two challengers to a runoff election after an extraordinary intervention by Donald Trump to oust the incumbent.

Cassidy’s bid to win the Republican party’s nomination for a third term in the deep-red state was imperiled by his decision to vote in favor of Trump’s conviction after the January 6 insurrection. In what was widely seen as an effort to rehabilitate his standing with the president, Cassidy last year cast the deciding vote to advance vaccine skeptic Robert F Kennedy Jr’s nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, flying in the face of the senator’s support for immunizations and training as a physician.

Proposal to fund $1bn in security additions for White House campus and president’s new ballroom fails to meet procedural rules

A US Senate official on Saturday removed security funding that could be used for Donald Trump’s planned $400m White House ballroom from a massive spending package, Democratic lawmakers said, imperiling Republican efforts to devote taxpayer money to the contentious project.

The decision by the Senate’s parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, deals a blow to Trump and his administration, which has sought the money for security purposes related to the ballroom.

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for May 17.

Unlike its Nordic neighbours, finding a place in the Swedish capital to bada bastu is hard, with years-long waiting lists at member clubs

There is little doubt that Stockholm is a city of sauna-goers. All year round, from early morning to late into the night, the city’s residents can be seen emerging from wooden huts, a trail of woodsmoke coming from the chimney, and lowering themselves into the deep brackish waters of the Swedish capital’s shoreline.

But, for locals and visitors alike, getting access to one of these saunas can be a bit like getting into the world’s most exclusive private members’ clubs: the most popular waterside venues have years-long waiting lists of thousands and when new places open up they disappear in minutes. While a proportion of spots are sometimes bookable to non-members, they are difficult to come by.

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for May 17, No. 601.

Today Amazon ends support for first- and second-generation versions of Kindles and Kindle Fire tablets, along with the Kindle Touch, the 9.7-inch Kindle DX, and other devices released in 2012 or earlier. Owners can continue reading ebooks that they've already downloaded, and they can also still sideload books using a USB cable (from, for example, Project Gutenberg). And PCMag points out that "There are plenty of e-stores where you can buy DRM-free novels legally, such as ebook.com and Smashwords. If you want to try this process for free, public-domain repositories such as the one at Standard Ebooks are a great place to start." (eBook files can be converted for the Kindle with the open source tool Calibre.) New ebooks can no longer be purchased directly from Amazon. But most of Amazon's affected devices "have not received firmware updates for over a decade," notes the blog OMG Ubuntu, "and most lost on-device access the Kindle Store." Some Kindle owners are taking things even further: You can unlock the firmware of older devices to add extra functionality (custom screensavers, epub support) or run entirely different software. On the hardware hacks side, some choose to turn old Kindles into photo frames or online dashboards. TechCrunch offers some caveats about jailbreaking: This process allows users to install custom fonts, new screensavers, alternative reading apps, and even third-party tools that expand the Kindle's functionality... [I]t's important to note that jailbreaking a Kindle might violate Amazon's terms of service. In many jurisdictions, jailbreaking isn't considered a criminal offense for personal use, but it may become a crime if it involves copyright infringement, illegal software distribution, or the sale of modified devices. Many Kindle owners who opt to jailbreak view it as a method to gain control over a device they purchased that is still functional, rather than being forced to buy a new device. However, jailbreaking is technical and carries risks, including the possibility of rendering the device unusable if something goes wrong. It also isn't possible on every Kindle model or firmware version, so before proceeding, Kindle owners should first spend some time researching if their device is compatible. Alternately, PCMag notes, "If you're feeling particularly virtuous, you can donate your old Kindle to a local library or send it back to Amazon free of charge via its electronic recycling program."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Rep. Julia Letlow, who was backed by President Trump in the primary against incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy, has advanced to a runoff in the Louisiana Republican primary for Senate.

An anonymous reader shared this report from Electrek: A Nevada utility just told 49,000 Lake Tahoe residents that it's redirecting 75% of their electricity supply to data centers, and they have less than a year to find a new power source. It's one of the starkest examples yet of the AI boom's impact on everyday Americans... NV Energy needs the capacity for data centers being built by Google, Apple, and Microsoft around the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center east of Reno, according to Fortune... Data centers drove half of all US electricity demand growth last year.... That dynamic — small residential customers losing out to massive industrial electricity buyers — is exactly what's driving the broader shift to distributed solar and storage. When the grid becomes unreliable or unaffordable because of data center demand, the homeowners who have solar panels and a battery in the garage are the ones with options. "The shift is measurable," they argue: Third-party ownership models (leases and power purchase agreements), which still qualify for the [U.S.] commercial investment tax credit through 2027, are projected to grow 25% in 2026 and capture up to 69% of residential installations, up from roughly 45% in 2025. Homeowners aren't waiting for incentives to come back — they're finding new ways to get solar on their roofs... [A] battery that can store cheap solar energy and deploy it during peak hours is increasingly essential. California utility customers alone are adding roughly 8,000 new home batteries per month — about 100 MW of new storage capacity. Municipal programs are accelerating the trend. Ann Arbor, Michigan, recently became the first US city to directly deploy solar and battery systems on 150 homes through its city-owned utility. Vermont's Green Mountain Power is offering home batteries at little to no upfront cost. These programs signal that utilities themselves recognize the value of distributed energy.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino joked that if someone does pay $2 million for a ticket to the World Cup final, "I will personally bring him a hot dog and a Coke."

Approximately 40 million people across the West depend on the Colorado River for water every single day. But the region could soon face drastic measures as the river keeps shrinking.

The war with Iran has created an additional strain for farmers, raising the price of diesel by about 50%. The cost of nearly everything else, from seed to fertilizer, is rising too.

Three paramedics at health centre among dead, while Hamas military chief Izz al-Din al-Haddad killed in Gaza strike

Israel carried out airstrikes in southern Lebanon, killing at least six people, including three paramedics working at a health centre, just hours after its envoys had agreed with the Lebanese government to extend a ceasefire.

Israel also said it had killed the Hamas military chief, Izz al-Din al-Haddad, in a targeted strike in Gaza on Friday.

• Kentucky winner Golden Tempo does not compete

• Race staged at Laurel Park amid Pimlico renovation

Napoleon Solo held off Iron Honor down the stretch to win the 151st Preakness Stakes on Saturday, rebounding from a pair of fifth-place showings for his first victory of the year.

Kentucky Derby winner Golden Tempo was held out of the race, leaving a wide-open field of 14 horses to contest the middle jewel of the Triple Crown, which was held at Laurel Park in Maryland this year because Pimlico in Baltimore is being rebuilt.

If case is settled for full amount Trump is requesting, a $10bn payment would more than double his family’s net worth – key US politics stories from Saturday, 16 May at a glance

Donald Trump may agree to drop his massive $10bn lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in exchange for the launch of a $1.7bn fund to compensate people he says were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration, according to reports.

The case is the latest example of how Trump has taken over the justice department – which typically operates at arm’s length from the White House – and deployed it for his own ends.

• Four-time MVP led Pittsburgh to division title in 2025

• Rodgers reunites with ex-Packers coach McCarthy

Aaron Rodgers is running it back with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Two people with knowledge of the decision told the Associated Press that the four-time NFL MVP agreed to a one-year deal to return to Pittsburgh on Saturday, ending a protracted decision-making process. The people spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the deal had not been announced.

The Trump Mobile T1, which was supposed to launch in 2025, may actually be a modified version of a 2024 phone.

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for May 17, No. 1,071.

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for May 17, No. 805.

Napoleon Solo hustled to first place at the 151st running of the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, coming out on top against 13 other horses.

Venezuela's government says it has deported a close ally of Nicolás Maduro to face judicial proceedings in the U.S. less than three years he was pardoned by President Joe Biden.

This year's field of 35 contestants is the smallest since 2003.

Parents had sued to halt law, saying they had the right to make decisions regarding the health of their children

A Kansas judge has temporarily blocked a law banning gender-transition treatments for minors in the state.

The state district judge Carl Folsom III granted an injunction requested by the parents of two teenagers who want to continue gender-affirming treatment with medicines. Folsom’s decision halts the enforcement of a recently approved state law that banned such treatments.

• Home hope surges to six under thanks to round of 68

• Rahm among five on four under; McIlroy is three under

The leaderboard was spinning like a tombola at Aronimink on Saturday, where at one point or another just about every player in the field had a birdie putt to take a share of the lead and then a bogey putt to let go of it again. When the drum finally stopped turning, Alex Smalley, a 29-year-old from North Carolina who has never won a professional golf tournament, was top of the leaderboard on six under, two shots clear of a five-way tie for second. No disrespect to Smalley, the world No 78, but the field are queued up like bowling balls on the rack waiting to take a run at him on Sunday.

Philadelphia loves an underdog, but it’s probably best if the trumpeter waits another day before he strikes up the opening notes of the Rocky theme.

The Preakness Stakes featured its biggest field in 15 years with 14 horses in the middle jewel of horse racing's Triple Crown.

People came to Montgomery by bus, car and plane to march on the state capitol with local and national leaders

Thousands of people from across the country descended on Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, on Saturday. They arrived by bus, by car and by plane to gather for the All Roads Lead to the South rally, following the supreme court’s Louisiana v Callais decision last month, which essentially gutted the Voting Rights Act and severely limited protections against voting discrimination.

Organized by a coalition of national and local civic engagement groups, the rally took place outside the Alabama state capitol building, in the same plaza where the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches – three nonviolent demonstrations in support of Black voting rights – are enshrined.

College grads outearn people without a degree within 15 years, even after paying for tuition, study finds.

The ethnic Hutu tycoon was indicted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for allegedly arming Hutu militias that massacred more than 800,000 mostly ethnic Tutsis in 1994.

Here's how to stream the remaining installments of the series starring Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney and Jacob Elordi.

EAMON BONSALL
Columnist

In the summer after my sophomore year of high school, my parents uttered the statement that no lazy 16-year-old wants to hear: “You need to get a job.” I had spent my freshman year in a relatively low-stress job, but had to leave due to not getting enough hours. This time around, starting with my second job, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Turns out, finding a job as a 16-year-old was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. After what seemed like endless interviews and an even more endless stream of rejections, I received the offer I eventually took: as a cashier at a chain of drive-through convenience stores.

If you’re from my neck of the woods, in southeastern Pennsylvania, you’ll know what I’m talking about. These stores sell pretty much everything: milk, cigarettes, iced tea, empanadas and more. 

Now, I’m not going to act like my job at the convenience store was akin to saving the world, but as a truly impatient person, it taught me more about patience, among other things, than I ever could’ve expected. 

Starting my first day at that job was one of the most anxious days of my entire life. It was my first real part-time job and I had never tended a cash register before. 

One of the first harbingers of my future distress in this job was actually on my very first day. It was a hot September afternoon, and the air conditioning was thankfully on. However, with the convenience store being a drive-through, the windows were constantly open.

Being a heat-sensitive person like myself, I was pretty reactive to any sort of above-average heat. Starting off my first day of actual work by sweating like a pig was not exactly what I had in mind. 

Another time that I regretted my choice of employment was a few months after my first day. Right when I walked into work, my manager (who was actually one of the good parts of the job) told me not to go to the bathroom the whole shift. 

Before I could ask why, my manager told me that the pipes from the toilet into the front lawn of the building were screwed up, and that dirt and grass were coming through and out of the toilet, preventing us from using it. 

You’d think that this would be an easy fix, right? Wrong. This bathroom problem went on for two weeks without any fix or word from the higher-ups who were supposed to handle it. Finally, after pretty much begging the owners to fix the issue, the toilet became usable again.

The store itself wasn’t the only point of contention I had with this job — the customers were a part of it too. Now, don’t get me wrong, most of my customers were great, but there were a select few that made the job a little tougher. 

I truly do think of myself as a genuinely impatient person, especially around people. Many times, customers got irritated because I was too slow or didn’t get their food ready fast enough. In the interest of not losing my job, I didn’t have a choice but to learn how to develop my patience or get fired trying. 

There were also a lot of little tricks I learned from having a convenience store job. I know the difference between pretty much all types of Marlboro cigarettes: reds, lights, super lights, menthols, menthol lights, 100s, 72s, etc. Never thought I would need to know that, but here we are. 

I think when you go from a really bad job to a really good one, you realize that things could be a whole lot worse. Now, as a bookseller, I work four-hour shifts, three days a week – when I used to work for seven hours, four days a week, after being in school for seven hours straight. 

It’s really important to recognize that even though some jobs can feel dreadful, they can still have their benefits. The more technical stuff, like working a register and customer service, actually helped me to land a job I wanted, one that I have worked at since my senior year of high school.

I look back on my time as a convenience store cashier pretty often. Yeah, it sucked while I was working there, but the fun moments I had with coworkers and the stories I got to tell after were well worth it. Would I work there again, though? Nope, not a chance.

Eamon Bonsall is an opinion columnist at The Review. His opinions are his own and do not represent the majority opinion of The Review staff. He may be reached at ebons@udel.edu.

Alex Smalley takes a two-shot lead into the final round but some big names lurk at Aronimink

Xander Schauffele fancies reclaiming the crown he won in 2024. He turned in 32, and now he’s just made his fifth birdie of the day at 11. He joins Rory as the only currently active member of the group at -3.

Justin Rose has rolled in two big putts on 18 already this week. Par savers both. And it’s three pars at the closing hole now, though he’s not so chuffed about this one, a 15-foot birdie attempt stopping just short. He cocks his head back in frustration, though it surely won’t sting for long, because that’s set the seal on a 65, and at -2 he’s right in the mix. He joins Kristoffer Reitan and Chris Kirk in the clubhouse lead.

"Every link leads to an entry that does not exist yet," explains the GitHub page for a Wikipedia-like site called Halupedia. "Until you click it, at which point an LLM pretends it has always existed and writes it for you, in the deadpan register of a 19th-century scholarly press..." Every article is invented on demand. The footnotes are also lies... The hardest problem with an infinite, on-demand encyclopedia is internal contradiction... When the LLM writes an article, it is required to add a context="..." attribute on every <a> it inserts, summarising the future article it is linking to (e.g. context="19th-century clerk who formalized footnote drift, Pellbrick's mentor")... When that target article is later requested for the first time, the worker loads the accumulated hints and injects them into the system prompt as "PRIOR REFERENCES — these are CANON". The LLM is instructed that the encyclopedia is hallucinated and absurd, but it must not contradict itself. Fast Company reports that Halupedia was created by software developer Bartlomiej Strama, who confessed in a Reddit comment that the site came about after a drunk night with a friend. In the week since launch, he says Halupedia has amassed more than 150,000 users." Beyond indulging in silly alternate histories, what's the point of using Halupedia? Strama hinted at one larger purpose in a reply to a donor on his Buy Me a Coffee page: "Your contribution towards polluting LLM training data will surely benefit society!" he wrote. The site is licensed as free software under the GPL-3.0 license. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Donald Do allegedly sought to export 292 loggerhead musk turtles under the false claim they had been captive-bred

A California man, who received a federal permit to export turtles under the false claim that they had been captive-bred, has been arrested on wildlife-trafficking charges, authorities said on Friday.

Donald Do and an unidentified accomplice allegedly sought to export 292 loggerhead musk turtles to Taiwan from December 2022 to May 2024. The accomplice obtained the US Fish and Wildlife Service export license, after which, authorities say, Do purchased turtles poached from the wild in Florida and other locales. Do had also allegedly sent instructions for the animals to be shipped to San Francisco.

Former Microsoft programmer Keith Curtis "wrote and self-published After the Software Wars to explain the caliber of free and open source software," according to his entry on Wikipedia, "and why he believes Linux is technically superior to any proprietary OS." He's also KeithCu (long-time Slashdot reader #925,649), and has written a blog post on "How I added an LLM-based grammar checking + TeX math import to LibreOffice." : At Microsoft, I spent five years working on the text components RichEdit and Quill, and came to understand the "physics" of word processing: the file formats, data structures, and algorithms that provided fast access to text and properties, independent of the length of the file. Selecting one million characters to make them bold took about the same time as changing one character, because of the clever data structures (piece tables) and algorithms in these engines... When I decided to add a real-time AI grammar checker to [LibreOffice plugin] WriterAgent, I knew what I was getting into, but I underestimated the trickery of LibreOffice's UNO. His site shares the surprises he encountered, one by one. (Starting with "the office suite throws a bunch of initialization variables at your constructor. If your Python __init__ method doesn't handle them, the code fails to map the call, the stack misaligns, and the program dies.") There's sentence casing issues, duplicate words, and foreign-language syntax — all culminating in new features for "a LibreOffice extension (Python + UNO) that adds generative AI editing to Writer, Calc, and Draw..." "If you want to try it out, the repo is here... Let's make LibreOffice and the free desktop AI-native!"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Iran and the U.S. cut diplomatic ties in 1980, and the players are expected to use their time in Turkey to complete the necessary procedures for obtaining visas.

Asylum seekers express dismay at continuation of scheme agreed last year that has failed to stop crossings in Channel

The Home Office is extending a controversial scheme to stop asylum seekers crossing the Channel in small boats, the Guardian has learned.

The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, signed a deal they hailed as “groundbreaking” last July, known as “one in, one out”.

Met police say they pursued vehicle believed stolen before it collided with another vehicle in Ilford

Nine people have been injured after a car being pursued by police crashed in east London.

The Metropolitan police said officers had tried to stop a vehicle they believed had been stolen.

Colombia's presidential elections are scheduled for May 31, marking the end of the term for Gustavo Petro, the country's first leftist president.

Bloomberg reports that Apple's two-year-old partnership with OpenAI "has become strained, according to people familiar with the matter." Bloomberg describes OpenAI as "failing to see the expected benefits from the deal and now preparing possible legal action." OpenAI lawyers are actively working with an outside legal firm on a range of options that could be formally executed in the near future, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. That could include sending the iPhone maker a notice alleging breach of contract without necessarily filing a full lawsuit at the outset, according to the people... OpenAI believed that the companies' partnership, which wove ChatGPT into Apple software, would coax more users into subscribing to the chatbot. It also expected deeper integration across more Apple apps and prime placement within the Siri assistant. Instead, Apple's use of OpenAI technology across its operating systems remains limited, and features can be hard to find... Apple has had its own concerns about OpenAI, including whether the company does enough to protect user privacy. And a recent push [by OpenAI] to make devices — an effort overseen by former Apple executives — has rankled the iPhone maker. Any legal move by OpenAI likely wouldn't come until after the conclusion of the Musk trial, according to the people. No final decisions have been made, and OpenAI still hopes to resolve its issues with Apple outside of court. The article points out that OpenAI "initially believed the deal could generate billions of dollars per year in subscriptions — something that hasn't come close to happening." An OpenAI executive argues to Bloomberg that from a product perspective Apple hasn't done everything they could, "and worse, they haven't even made an honest effort."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The person was onboard the MV Hondius, the center of the outbreak that has claimed three lives

Canadian officials said on Saturday that a test for one of the four Canadians currently quarantining in British Columbia after being exposed to the hantavirus while on board the cruise ship where the outbreak occurred indicated a positive result.

Speaking at a news conference, Dr Bonnie Henry, British Columbia’s provincial health officer, said the individual developed mild symptoms, including fever and headache, two days ago, and that the individual and their partner, who had also been on board the cruise ship where they had been isolating together, were transferred to a hospital in Victoria for assessment and testing.

RYAN SHORE
Staff Reporter

The Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens women’s lacrosse season was a strong start to the foreseeable future, opening its first season in the Atlantic Sun Conference (ASUN) as the top seed, going undefeated against the division.

The Blue Hens took home a haul of awards, including Morgan Gore as the Midfielder of the Year and Kennedy Radziul as the Defensive Player of the Year. Along with those awards, head coach Amy Altig was named the unanimous Coach of the Year along with the unanimously named Offensive Player of the Year, senior Ella Rishko. 

Altig reflected on the regular season and the proudest moment of the year before the championship series.

“I think for us it is probably overcoming the start that we had at 1-4 and really establishing ourselves as a program who’s just persistent and relentless in our pursuit of excellence and what excellence is for us,” Altig said.

She went on to mention that the team could have given up when it had a losing record, but through persistence and drive, it found solutions that led to success. Despite that, Altig acknowledged that there is much more work to be done.

Rishko spoke of her role as a leader going into the championship.

“There’s definitely a lot of nerves, but like many people say, nerves are the same as excitement,” Rishko said. “We’re turning all of our anxiousness into excitement and hard work, using all that energy that may rattle a lot of people and working on helping our younger girls change their perspectives on the big stage. We use that energy to fuel them through all of the difficulties of being on an 11-game win streak.”

However, after a stellar season, their efforts in pursuit of the trophy they worked for all year fell short after being defeated 16-11 by the second-seeded Jacksonville University Dolphins in the ASUN Women’s Lacrosse Championship Final. A heartbreaking loss after a 12-game winning streak to close out the regular season.

Altig opened up about the first year in the ASUN, and the difficult adjustments that had to be made against a new set of opponents.

“This group’s mentality has really been all year long about adjusting, and sudden change is the one constant that we faced,” Altig said. 

She explained that the team had to adjust to the different playing styles and weather conditions that came with facing new opponents, but they rose to the occasion and lived in the space of change very well.

Despite the hopes of winning the championship, Altig looks to the future with a positive and hungry mentality for the new class ahead.

“In the past, it was really different,” Altig said. “We were the ones who were on the hunt, fighting for a fourth seed just to get into the conference tournament. Now, we are the hunted.

“I think there’s an intensity to this group that this senior class has instituted this year where we don’t just sit back. I give this senior class and these leaders a ton of credit for their leadership styles and how they’ve all come together.”

With Rishko’s departure this year, she reflects on her highlight moments at the university after originally transferring from Virginia Tech.

“Being able to work with all the girls who work on the draw circle these past two years has been so much fun,” Rishko said. “We put in so much work that no one else sees. We’re out at practice every day but we have to do individuals, film, all the extra work and it’s been translating this year into our game.

“I think you can really see that and I’m so lucky to have a draw team and staff that puts a strong emphasis on that aspect of the game.”

Many players are set to graduate following this season, leaving Altig and the coaching staff behind to recruit the future of the university’s team.

“We have an incoming class,” Altig said. “But will they fill every shoe right away? I don’t know.”

The jury’s still out on the incoming recruits — but there are certainly shoes to fill. 

The transfer portal will remain an option, but the team intentionally built its young core with the understanding that players such as Morgan Gore, Jaclyn Marszal, McKenzie Didio and Ella Rishko would eventually graduate.

The Blue Hens may be losing core pieces in the upcoming year, but they look to defend their top seed and championship mindset going into the 2026-2027 season.

Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for May 17, No. 1,793.

Track your blood pressure easily at home with these expert recommendations.

Police estimated that around 60,000 people attended the "Unite the Kingdom" march, making it one of the largest right-wing mobilizations seen in Britain in recent years.

The Wolves probably won’t win a title without big roster changes, but their postseason run made their case as one of the league’s most entertaining teams

The Minnesota Timberwolves are out of the NBA playoffs. It’s a miracle it took this long. In their first-round series against the Denver Nuggets, they saw two starters and another key reserve suffer significant injuries. The Nuggets entered the series on a 12-game winning streak and were favored from the jump. After somehow winning that series in six games, finding Denver’s weak points and pummeling them until they broke, the Wolves met an even more daunting opponent in the San Antonio Spurs. Though they’d have been forgiven for tiredly accepting a sweep, the Wolves swiped Game 1 on the Spurs’ home floor, then a close Game 4 at home. After that, the tank finally ran empty. But even in the losses – including Friday night’s in Game 6 – the Wolves found ways to frighten. They’d go down 18-3 and then tie the game by the end of the first quarter. They’d tighten a 29-point deficit to 12 entering half-time. The tenacity and spite they played with was a finite resource, but at times this postseason it was potent enough to convince me otherwise.

The Wolves were not the deepest team in these playoffs, nor the most consistent. They may lie closer to the bottom of those categories than the top. After their elimination, coach Chris Finch and players alike admitted they’d failed to take the regular season seriously enough, failing to set themselves up well for the high-stakes games of April and May. (My old teachers probably shared a similar sense of disappointment in me before finals.) And yet this odd bunch regularly play some of the most soulful basketball in the NBA. Anthony Edwards can take over a game at any time, either by shooting deep threes or acrobatic layups. French albatross Rudy Gobert anchors the defense, which the team plays with astonishing vigor at its best. The best athletes are sometimes so clinical that they produce a rather emotionless watching experience, but certain passages of Timberwolves basketball inspire in me feelings of pure glee.

"Most of the plastic waste in California is about to lose the recycling symbol," writes the Washington Post's "climate coach." The "chasing arrows" symbol, created in 1970 by a college student inspired by the burgeoning environmental movement, has been stamped indiscriminately on plastic bottles, clamshell takeout containers, chip bags and more for decades. The majority of the items emblazoned with the mark have been virtually impossible to recycle for most people. California lawmakers say they want to end the charade: Under what's known as the Truth in Recycling law, plastics cannot use the symbol if they aren't collected by curbside programs serving 60% of Californians and sorted by facilities serving 60% of the state's recycling programs (with some additional requirements). If the law goes into effect as scheduled on October 4, more than half of the types of plastic packaging and products sold in the state can no longer carry the chasing arrows logo. That will affect plastic films, foam, PVC and mixed plastics... Food and packaging groups have sued the state of California, calling the law a form of censorship whose vague restrictions violate the First Amendment and due process rights.... Advocates of the law counter that corporations deliberately misled the public by turning the recycling symbol into a marketing device that masks the fact that only a small fraction of plastic packaging is ultimately recycled... The mark was originally intended to informwaste processors what polymers a plastic item was made from. But the public reasonably assumed anything stamped with the symbol was recyclable. Millions of tons of worthless plastic trash have since poured into recycling facilities unable to process it.... States are now taking action. Seven have passed laws shifting the cost of recycling onto packaging makers. Oregon and Washington have lifted requirements that plastic containers carry the chasing arrows symbol. The article notes that Norway already recovers 97% of beverage bottles, while Slovakia recycles 60% of plastic packaging. "But the U.S. only recovers about a third of its PET and HDPE bottles, and just 13% of plastic packaging, according to U.S. Plastics Pact, an industry-led forum. "It won't be easy for the U.S. to reach higher levels of recycling: The necessary infrastructure and incentives are chronically underfunded, no federal mandate exists for minimum-recycled-content that would create demand and a mix of mostly unrecyclable hydrocarbons still dominates the waste stream."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Most of the plastic waste in California is about to lose the recycling symbol," writes the Washington Post's "climate coach." The "chasing arrows" symbol, created in 1970 by a college student inspired by the burgeoning environmental movement, has been stamped indiscriminately on plastic bottles, clamshell takeout containers, chip bags and more for decades. The majority of the items emblazoned with the mark have been virtually impossible to recycle for most people. California lawmakers say they want to end the charade: Under what's known as the Truth in Recycling law, plastics cannot use the symbol if they aren't collected by curbside programs serving 60% of Californians and sorted by facilities serving 60% of the state's recycling programs (with some additional requirements). If the law goes into effect as scheduled on October 4, more than half of the types of plastic packaging and products sold in the state can no longer carry the chasing arrows logo. That will affect plastic films, foam, PVC and mixed plastics... Food and packaging groups have sued the state of California, calling the law a form of censorship whose vague restrictions violate the First Amendment and due process rights.... Advocates of the law counter that corporations deliberately misled the public by turning the recycling symbol into a marketing device that masks the fact that only a small fraction of plastic packaging is ultimately recycled... The mark was originally intended to informwaste processors what polymers a plastic item was made from. But the public reasonably assumed anything stamped with the symbol was recyclable. Millions of tons of worthless plastic trash have since poured into recycling facilities unable to process it.... States are now taking action. Seven have passed laws shifting the cost of recycling onto packaging makers. Oregon and Washington have lifted requirements that plastic containers carry the chasing arrows symbol. The article notes that Norway already recovers 97% of beverage bottles, while Slovakia recycles 60% of plastic packaging. "But the U.S. only recovers about a third of its PET and HDPE bottles, and just 13% of plastic packaging, according to U.S. Plastics Pact, an industry-led forum. "It won't be easy for the U.S. to reach higher levels of recycling: The necessary infrastructure and incentives are chronically underfunded, no federal mandate exists for minimum-recycled-content that would create demand and a mix of mostly unrecyclable hydrocarbons still dominates the waste stream."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

TOM VAIL
Staff Reporter

After spring break, for many students, it feels as if the semester has finally begun to wind down a little. That is not the case for the chapters of the university’s Greek life organizations. 

Every year, the fraternities and sororities come together to celebrate Greek Week, an annual tradition celebrating the Greek life community on campus. 

Greek Week is intended to foster community and school spirit, energize the student body and create philanthropic and competitive interactions between the many different fraternities and sororities on campus. 

However, the weeks leading up to the Greek life celebration are dominated by the preparations for one contest: Airband. A dance and lip-sync competition where each group’s performance has a unique theme of their choice, the lives of many members of the Greek life community are controlled by this very competition. 

Members of the university’s fraternities and sororities spend countless hours practicing, giving it their all to see who will come out on top in the end. This year was no different. 

While the competition brings both the fraternities and sororities together, they compete in separate categories, which results in two distinct winners. 

Judging for the competition involves a variety of criteria including choreography, costumes, creativity, energy and execution of the performance in addition to each chapters’ philanthropic efforts and level of sportsmanship.

Following the performance, the points are tallied with the highest scoring fraternity and sorority announced as the winners afterward. 

Among the sororities competing, Sigma Kappa won the competition for their third year in a row. Angelina Velardi, a senior communications major, and Elise Mungovan, a junior communications major, served as co-chairs of Sigma Kappa’s Airband performance. 

“Usually I am very nervous, but this year, I felt more confident,” Velardi said. “I don’t mean to win necessarily, but just to perform, because we were proud of what we put together, and we were just so excited to show people, especially with us going last, what we’ve been working on.”

For their theme this year, Sigma Kappa chose to choreograph a routine based on the 2005 Tim Burton film, “The Corpse Bride.” Initially, the Airband co-chairs wanted to make their performance based on the second installment of the “Wicked” film series, “Wicked: For Good.”

“We wanted to make a good Broadway version of ‘Wicked,’” Mungovan said. “We were going to be Elphaba and Glinda because it made sense to us. We ended up not getting it as our theme, but ‘The Corpse Bride’ was our second option. The lead characters were cool and it had kind of an eerie story.”

In the end, Velardi said there was one thing she felt her fellow Sigma Kappa sisters had been able to learn from the experience. 

“I was talking to the new pledge class of girls,” Velardi said. “A lot of them were in the technical section this year. I saw them all talking in a little circle, and I remember saying, ‘You guys are friends.’ Like, the sorority is huge, and I feel like so many little groups happen from your dance section, and then, it becomes something much bigger. So, I feel like friendship is definitely learned throughout the process.”

Among the fraternities dancing in the competition, Sigma Phi Delta won the competition. Charlie Sizer, a senior mechanical engineering major, and Michael Romano, a sophomore leadership major, served as co-chairs of Sigma Phi Delta’s Airband performance. 

“We were just so proud of everybody, and we were just so happy that it came together so well,” Sizer said. “There was only one place to go. In the back of my mind, I was like, ‘If I don’t get first, I’m not going to be happy.’ Like, all the guys were feeling the pressure and saying, ‘The only place that we can go is up.’”

For their theme this year, Sigma Phi Delta chose to choreograph a routine based on the 1994 Disney animated film, “The Lion King.”  After a second-place finish last year with a routine based on the superhero, Superman, the brothers of Sigma Phi Delta entered this year’s competition with a desire for something a little different.

“We wanted to pick something with a bunch of different characters in it,” Sizer said. “Last year, there were just two people. We wanted to do something different, and then also something that was like a musical that everyone knows that we could take songs from.”

Once the competition was over, Romano explained that he felt the entire process had brought his chapter and fellow fraternity brothers closer than previously thought possible. 

“We scheduled so many practices, I mean we practiced roughly four to five times a week, and then leading up to the competition, we practiced twice a day,” Romano said. “We were with each other for about five to six hours every single day in that final stretch. We already are a tight-knit group of guys, but I felt it just brought us even closer together as a fraternity.”

For many, what felt like a lot of hard work and endless hours of preparation only proved to be an incredible opportunity for growth and unity. For many participants like Romano, the experience highlighted that the true value of the competition lies in the strengthening of the bonds that define the university’s Greek life community.

"The vulnerability is simple in practice," writes Tom's Hardware: "run a command as a standard user and gain root (administrator) access to the machine." And it was Mythos Preview that helped the security researchers at Palo Alto-based Calif bypass a five-year Apple security effort in just five days. The blog 9to5Mac reports: Last year, Apple introduced Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE), a hardware-assisted memory safety system designed to make memory corruption exploits much harder to execute... [The researchers note it's built into Apple all models of the iPhone 17 and iPhone Air, and some MacBooks] They explain they have a 55-page technical report on the hack, but they won't release it until Apple ships a fix for the exploit. But they do note in broad terms that Anthropic's Mythos Preview model helped them identify the bugs and assisted them throughout the entire collaborative exploit development process. "Mythos Preview is powerful: once it has learned how to attack a class of problems, it generalizes to nearly any problem in that class. Mythos discovered the bugs quickly because they belong to known bug classes. But MIE is a new best-in-class mitigation, so autonomously bypassing it can be tricky. This is where human expertise comes in. Part of our motivation was to test what's possible when the best models are paired with experts. Landing a kernel memory corruption exploit against the best protections in a week is noteworthy, and says something strong about this pairing...." [I]n a time when even small teams, with the help of AI, can make discoveries such as this one, "we're about to learn how the best mitigation technology on Earth holds up during the first AI bugmageddon."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Turnout down at second ‘unite the kingdom’ march featuring Islamophobic and ethnonationalist hate speech and flyers

The far-right activist Tommy Robinson told tens of thousands of supporters to prepare for the “battle of Britain” during a rally in London on Saturday.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, drew tens of thousands of supporters on to the streets of central London for the second year running in an event where Islamophobic and ethnonationalist hate speech and flyers were distributed to the crowds.

Man in 30s arrested over incident in Modena that left two seriously hurt

Eight people were injured, two seriously, on Saturday after a car rammed into a group of pedestrians in the northern Italian city of Modena.

Police said the driver, in his 30s, had been arrested. He is also alleged to have attempted to stab a passerby who had tried to stop him from fleeing the scene.

Genomic analysis showed the virus found aboard the MV Hondius shows no evidence of new characteristics so far.

The remains of the 4 Italians are believed to be deep inside an underwater cave.

Businesses are advised against paying – but many are prepared to deal to protect users’ privacy

After a week of outages, hundreds of millions of students’ data stolen, delayed assignment due dates and school login pages being defaced by hackers, the US tech firm Instructure – which operates the education platform Canvas, used by education providers worldwide – announced it had “reached an agreement with the unauthorised actor” behind the ransomware attack.

Experts read the careful language as a sign that a ransom has been paid. The company has not confirmed this.

Police say 11 arrested ‘for a variety of offences’ as far-right and pro-Palestine marches take place in London

Commenting on today’s policing operation in London, the Met Police said they had made two arrests near Euston station.

A statement from the force read:

Officers have made two arrests in the vicinity of Euston station.

Two men, wanted on suspicion of GBH following an incident in Birmingham where a man was run over, were spotted arriving into London to attend the UTK protest.

Variety reports: Amazon MGM Studios started auditioning actors for the part of 007 in the past few weeks, Variety has learned... The next James Bond film will be directed by Denis Villeneuve, the filmmaker behind the "Dune" franchise, "Arrival" and "Sicario." Amy Pascal of the "Spider-Man" films and David Heyman of the "Harry Potter" series will produce the picture, which will feature a script from "Peaky Blinders" creator Steven Knight. Tanya Lapointe ("Dune") is executive producing the film. The BBC notes it's been five full years since the release of the last Bond film No Time To Die, and 15 months "since Amazon MGM Studios took control of the Bond franchise." But they also offer this list of "the current bookmakers' favourites" for who will become the seventh actor to play the gadget-loving super spy in the franchise's 64-year history: Callum Turner — the 36-year-old actor is the current bookies' frontrunner. He has been in the Fantastic Beasts franchise, was nominated for a Bafta for TV drama The Capture, and starred in Apple TV's Masters of the Air... Jacob Elordi — the Australian actor, 28, made his name in TV's Euphoria and cult hit film Saltburn, and was nominated for an Oscar this year for playing the monster in Frankenstein. The Rest Is Entertainment host Marina Hyde recently said she'd heard from a number of well-placed sources that he's now "in pole position" to be Bond. Harris Dickinson — the 29-year-old is playing John Lennon in the forthcoming major Beatles biopics, and has previously appeared in Maleficent, The King's Man, Where the Crawdads Sing and Babygirl, and received a Bafta TV Award nomination for A Murder at the End of the World. Henry Cavill — the Superman, The Witcher and Mission: Impossible actor is a fan favourite and was widely regarded to have been the runner-up when Craig landed the part. But at 43, is he now too old to start a lengthy stint as 007? Aaron Taylor-Johnson — the Bafta-nominated 35-year-old, known for films like Kick-Ass, Kraven the Hunter and 28 Years Later, is a perennial contender, and would fit the bill. Theo James — the suitably suave star, 41, made his name in the Divergent films and has since built his reputation in The Time Traveler's Wife, The White Lotus and The Gentlemen. ...Or producers could well go for one of the many other names who have been touted for the role, or an unexpected choice.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Humpback had been found deceased on Friday after rescue attempt criticised as ‘pure animal cruelty’

Timmy the whale has been confirmed dead by Danish authorities two weeks after the beached humpback was transported to the North Sea in a rescue attempt criticised as “pure animal cruelty”.

Denmark’s Environmental Protection Agency said a whale had been found dead on Friday near ​the small ⁠island of Anholt in the Kattegat, a broad strait between Denmark and Sweden, and confirmed it was Timmy on Saturday.

The blog It's FOSS has an update on the Fedora AI Developer Desktop Initiative, a proposed platform for AI/machine learning workloads on Fedora. It's now been blocked "after two Fedora Council members retracted their earlier approval votes." The initiative was proposed by Red Hat engineer Gordon Messmer, aiming to deliver an Atomic Desktop with accelerated AI workload support, covering developer tools, hardware enablement, and building a community around AI on Fedora... At the May 6 council meeting, the members unanimously voted to approve this new initiative. After which a short, lazy consensus window was left open until May 8 to accommodate absent members, after which the decision was to be ratified. But that last bit never happened, as council member Justin Wheeler (Jflory7) was the first person to change their vote to -1... ["While I strongly support leveraging AI to establish Fedora as a leading platform, completely rearchitecting our kernel strategy is a massive structural shift. It requires explicit alignment with our legal and engineering stakeholders before we commit the project to this path."] Following that, fellow council member Miro HronÄok (churchyard) put in his -1, saying that he had originally assumed the proposal was purely additive and therefore uncontroversial. But seeing the community's response, he realized that he was mistaken about that. As an elected representative, he felt the need to reflect on this major proposal before signing it off. Over 180 replies have piled up in the proposal's discussion thread, with many well-known Fedora contributors pushing back on things like kernel policy, proprietary software, and project identity. Hans de Goede from the packaging team called out the proposal's emphasis on CUDA support as going against Fedora's foundational commitment to free software, arguing that open alternatives like AMD's ROCm and Intel's oneAPI should be the focus instead.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

FBI director reportedly took a snorkel excursion at site containing remains of more than 1,000 navy sailors and marines

The FBI director, Kash Patel, is facing new scrutiny following reports that he participated in a snorkeling excursion around the USS Arizona during a trip to Hawaii last summer.

The outing was first reported this week by the Associated Press, which obtained government emails describing the excursion as a “VIP snorkel” around the USS Arizona – the site that holds the remains of more than 1,000 US navy sailors and marines who died at Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Russia's Putin will travel to Beijing next week to meet China's Xi. The announcement came one day after President Trump returned from his own summit with the Chinese leader.

The work stoppage, the LIRR's first since 1994, went into effect after the MTA and five unions representing 3,500 workers failed to reach a deal on a new four-year contract.

Wes Streeting is one of several challengers who could try to unseat the U.K. prime minister.

In unprecedented self-dealing maneuver, billions of taxpayer dollars could be paid to US president and his allies

There is growing concern Donald Trump’s massive $10bn lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service may soon be settled by his own administration – an unprecedented, self-dealing maneuver for a US president, in which billions of taxpayer dollars could be transferred to the president or his allies.

Trump may agree to drop his lawsuit in exchange for the launch of a $1.7bn fund to compensate people he says were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration, according to reports by ABC News and the New York Times.

Trump said the operation killed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, whom he described as "second in command of ISIS globally." Nigeria's president said the strike took place at a compound in the Lake Chad basin.

Suspect detained at ‘unite the kingdom’ march meeting point over incident on Thursday after flags were removed from lamp-posts

A man has been arrested in London after an incident in Birmingham in which a man was run over by a van after flags were removed from lamp-posts.

Officers arrested the suspect at Euston station near the meeting point of the “unite the kingdom” march. Another man was arrested on suspicion of encouraging people to attack a police officer.

Workers at the Long Island Rail Road, serving the eastern New York metropolitan area, walked off the job on Saturday

North America’s largest commuter rail system was shut down on Saturday after unionized workers in the New York City area went on strike.

The Long Island Rail Road that serves the city’s eastern suburbs ceased operations on early Saturday morning after five unions representing about half its workforce walked off the job.

USA Today reports: Trump Mobile phones are being shipped this week, the company exclusively confirmed to USA TODAY in an email May 11.... The company's first smartphone — the T1 Phone — was originally scheduled for release in August. However, the golden gadget's release was later delayed to October before being pushed back again to this week. Now, Trump Mobile CEO Pat O'Brien told USA TODAY, pre-ordered phones will start getting sent out to customers this week... O'Brien said the company anticipates all pre-ordered phones to be delivered within the next several weeks... The company's 5G "47 Plan" is available for $47.45 a month, a nod to President Donald Trump's two presidential terms, according to the website... Customers will also have Trump(SM) displayed as the status bar in their network. The Verge reported the phone was added last week to Google's public list of devices certified for Google Play, "usually one of the final steps before an Android phone is launched." Trump Mobile may have broken radio silence partly in response to a recent wave of media coverage alleging that buyers had received emails notifying them that their preorders had been canceled, coverage that even made it onto Stephen Colbert's The Late Show... [T]here's seemingly no evidence of the alleged cancellation emails beyond unverified social media claims. In January The Verge also questioned reports that 600,000 people preordered the Trump phone with a $100 deposit. "I can't find a shred of evidence that this figure is true," calling it "a microcosm of how the modern media landscape and AI chatbots can combine to give falsities the sheen of respectability." I first saw the figure in, of all places, the Threads feed of California governor Gavin Newsom's press office, which had shared a screenshot of a tweet of a Grok summary making the claim. Trustworthy, right? The Grok post cites "reports from sources like Fortune, NPR, and The Guardian" for the 600,000 preorders, but a quick search of their recent output shows no sign of the number... India's Economic Times and Hindustan Times both reported a more specific figure of 590,000 preorders, referencing an unspecified Associated Press report as the source. [The Associated Press] VP of corporate communications, Lauren Easton, confirmed to me that "AP's original stories never contained such a number...." Hindustan Times writer Shamik Banerjee called the citation "a typo," and told me that the figure was in fact taken from The Times of India. The Times of India story, which is bylined only to the newspaper's lifestyle desk, is more transparent in its sourcing: a viral post by a meme account... It's been covered by multiple publications, now presented as fact on MSN.com and tech site Phone Arena. And that coverage has helped it to filter into the chatbots and not just Grok — Gemini and ChatGPT were both happy to confirm to me that 600,000 T1 Phones have been ordered so far, the former falsely attributing the number to the Associated Press, and the latter to Phone Arena. As for how many Trump Phone preorders have actually been placed? No one outside the company knows.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

No injuries have been reported because of the issue, the Food and Drug Administration said.

Ex-health secretary sets out fledgling policy platform – including call for new special relationship with EU

Wes Streeting has confirmed that he will run to replace Keir Starmer as prime minister if a leadership contest is triggered, and called for a “proper contest” to be held for the role.

Speaking at a conference organised by the thinktank Progress on Saturday, Streeting confirmed he would enter any possible leadership race, outlining his belief that the UK needed to pursue a “new special relationship” with the EU, signalling that he wanted to see the country rejoin the trade bloc in the future.

Two of the world’s richest people faced an airing of their dirty laundry amid their messy, bitter feud over OpenAI

A nine-person jury is set to decide whether Elon Musk’s allegations of “stealing a charity” against Sam Altman and OpenAI are legitimate, with deliberations to begin in earnest on Monday. Whatever its outcome, the case has been an illuminating, at times exhausting, look behind the scenes at the history of OpenAI and how some of the most powerful figures in the tech industry operate.

Attorneys for both sides have introduced reams of private text messages, emails and even diary entries to support their arguments. A who’s who of Silicon Valley testified in the trial, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and the mother of some of Musk’s children, Shivon Zilis. Both Altman and Musk also took the stand for hours, facing combative cross-examinations that painted them each as untrustworthy.

What's going on with the U.S. job market? "The economy is growing. Unemployment is low," notes the Washington Post. "And yet, for millions of workers, finding a job has become harder than at almost any other point in decades," with the hiring rate "well below pre-pandemic levels for more than a year." Part of the problem? "Of the net 369,000 positions added across the entire economy since the start of 2025, health care alone accounted for nearly 800,000 — meaning every other sector, taken together, shed jobs." By the end of 2025 nearly half of college graduates ages 22 to 27 were working at jobs that didn't require a degree, according to stats from New York's Federal Reserve Bank. The headline unemployment rate, at 4.2%, looks healthy. But that figure has been buoyed by a shrinking labor force: Fewer people are actively looking for work, which keeps the rate down even as hiring slows... [Some large tech companies] are trying to recalibrate after their hiring sprees of 2021 and 2022, when many had raised pay, offered flexible schedules and signed people quickly... Higher interest rates have also made expansion more expensive, pushing many firms to invest in technology rather than headcount. Another reason hiring has slowed is uncertainty about AI. Even though the technology has not yet replaced large numbers of workers, it is already shaping how companies think about hiring. "I don't think this is AI displacement," said Ben Zweig, chief executive of Revelio Labs, a workforce data company. "What we're seeing is anticipatory." Instead of rushing to bring on new workers, some firms are waiting to see how the technology evolves and which tasks it will eventually take over. A 39-year-old web developer tells the Post it took 453 job applications to get a handful of interviews and two offers. And a journalism school graduate said they'd sent hundreds of job applications but most led nowhere, and they're now couch-surfing to save money. But the problem seems even worse for young people. One 18-year-old told the Post that in a year and a half of job searching, they'd yet to even meet an employer in person. The unemployment rate for people ages 22 to 27 who recently completed college hit 5.6% in the final months of 2025 — well above the 4.2% rate for all workers, according to national data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York... At one point last summer, new workforce entrants made up a larger share of the unemployed than at any point since the late 1980s — higher even than during the Great Recession. When hiring slows, the door closes first on those without an existing foothold. For the class of 2026, the timing could hardly be worse. "It is getting increasingly clear that young people are being more affected by AI than older workers," Zweig said. Companies are not eliminating jobs at scale, but many are slow to hire junior workers. At the same time, older workers are staying in the labor force longer, leaving fewer openings for new arrivals. Even when jobs are available, the bar has shifted. Positions once considered entry level now often require several years of experience, technical expertise and familiarity with AI tools. With fewer openings and more applicants, companies are holding out for candidates who can do the job immediately and need little training... Employers are also looking for a different mix of skills. An analysis of millions of job postings by Indeed found that communication skills now appear in nearly 42% of all listings, while leadership skills feature in nearly a third — capabilities that are harder to prove on a résumé and harder still to demonstrate without an existing professional network. Christine Beck, a career coach who works with early-career job seekers, said employers are asking more of the people they do hire.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Almost exactly 21 years ago, in June 2005, at a mere 20 years old, I took over the managing editor role at OSNews from Eugenia. I had already published a few articles in the years prior, and had given Eugenia enough confidence to suggest me as her replacement. It was, and is, a great honour.

In those 21 years and more than 20000 posts, I’ve seen a lot of beautiful things. Linux grew from a curiosity among nerds into a popular desktop operating system, and often a better choice for gaming than Windows. The BSDs flourish steadily, growing into even stronger and capable alternatives to desktop Linux than they already were. On the commercial side of things, new offerings challenged the hegemony of Microsoft and Windows. While Android and Chrome OS are at best merely tolerated, the idea that a newcomer would produce not one, but two operating systems that would successfully take on Microsoft and Apple seemed unimaginable when I started in 2005.

While many alternative operating systems of the early 2000s faded away, we’ve also seen success stories there. Haiku evolved from an unusable, unstable promise on the horizon into a stable, daily-drivable operating system. The unique Genode Framework and Sculpt OS keep exploring and redefining the boundaries of what a general purpose operating system should be. Redox has exploded onto the scene, and keeps making massive strides almost every month. OS/2 is still actively updated, maintained, and sold. The Amiga will outlast us all.

Internet culture, too, is changing, and while things definitely look bleak right now, there are sparks of hope and joy. The general attitude towards the big technology companies among the general public has shifted from admiration to mistrust and dislike, corporate social media seems to be crumbling, and the youngest generations absolutely despise the latest hype, “AI”. All is certainly not lost, and sometimes I feel shimmers of hope that the pendulum may swing back to a more people-focused web, a web we’ve been part of since 1997.

In those 21 years and more than 20000 posts, I’ve also seen a lot of hypes come and go, hypes that if I didn’t embrace them, I’d surely be left behind. The “pivot to video“, the cryptocurrency mania, NFTs, virtual reality and the metaverse, “AI” – all technologies and concepts I recognised for the hypes that they were, and consequently ridiculed and ignored, much to the dismay of many believers. I’ve got the angry emails and comments to prove it.

This illustrates something about OSNews that I value and hold dear: OSNews doesn’t jump on bandwagons, doesn’t frantically try to follow the latest trends, doesn’t cave under the pressure of big money interests. OSNews is constant, stable, deliberate, patient. Since 1997, we’ve covered the technology industry with interest, excitement, and wonder – tempered by a healthy dose of skepticism. When you follow this industry for almost three decades, you learn to spot the patterns and see the threads before anyone else does.

That’s not to say we haven’t gone through changes. The most significant changes to OSNews happened in recent years, where instead of working on the site on a mostly voluntary basis with a pittance of ad revenue coming my way, I’ve turned my work for OSNews into my job. As part of this change, I removed all advertising from our website, morphing OSNews into a fully reader-funded endeavour. No ads, no corporate interests, no media network breathing down my neck. OSNews is a truly independent technology news website, a rarity these days. I don’t have to keep corporate overlords or advertisers happy, and you’d be surprised to learn just how rare that is on the modern web.

The OSNews website itself is fairly unchanging too, having gone through only a handful of redesigns since its founding in 1997. We’ve been using our current design, developed by Adam Scheinberg, for as long as I can remember (10-15 years?), and thanks to our independent, ad-free nature, any possible future redesign would only make the site simpler and even faster than it already is. There’s no redesign in the cards at the moment, but rest assured, if it ever comes, we’ll buck the trend of websites getting ever more complex and demanding and make OSNews lighter and even faster.

And yes, despite commenters making up far less than one percent of our readership, I’ll always opt to keep them. We might be a site of lurkers, but comments are a core part of OSNews. Even the annoying ones. Especially the annoying ones.

That being said, there’s going to be a small change to our design, rolling out today (it might take a few reloads for it to appear). To mark my 21 years and 20000 posts, OSNews is getting a new-ish logo, which combines the classic, intertwined beveled “O-S” from the early 2000s with the modern logo we’ve been using over the past 15 years or so. The O and S are intertwined once again, highlighting the continuity and stability I want OSNews to bring in this chaotic industry (I can write corporatese if I want to). Fun fact: this “new” logo was actually designed like 20 years ago, and we’ve had it in our back pocket ever since. Why create something new and of the times, when you’ve got something great sitting right there?

Aside from the new logo, I’ll be running a big fundraiser to mark this occasion early next week, with some silly incentives at various thresholds. If we reach the ultimate goal – a euro for every story I’ve posted – I’ll overcome some very deep-rooted fears and anxieties, and tattoo the OSNews logo on my body, as my very first tattoo. OSNews has been part of my life for more than two decades, and I have every intention to add at least another two – having such a core part of my life immortalised on my body only makes sense.

I’ve written about my anxiety disorder and how it affects me here on OSNews, and it’s been preventing me from getting various tattoos I’ve been wanting for decades (and not for the reasons you may think – it’s not the pain or the needles). No better way to get fucking over it by making a public promise to tens of thousands of people. You can start donating today, but I’ll publish a proper post about it on Monday.

Of course, OSNews wouldn’t exist without all of you, our hundreds of thousands of readers. Whether you donate or not, whether you comment or not (you probably don’t!), each and every one of you contributes to making OSNews the steady success it’s been for almost 30 years. Few websites can boast such an uninterrupted lineage, and it’s thanks to all of you who keep coming back, every day.

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. ❤️

Thai authorities say 32 others injured near Makkasan station after freight train strikes bus and fire breaks out

At least eight people were killed and 32 others were injured in Thailand after a freight train struck a bus at a rail crossing in Bangkok, rescue officials and a deputy transport minister said.

Firefighters and rescue crews were dispatched as flames engulfed the bus and nearby vehicles close to the airport rail link’s Makkasan station, officials said, adding that the collision also involved cars and motorcycles.

Commentary: Widow's Bay is a wicked smart genre mashup that delivers epic scares and laughs, and pays tribute to Stephen King, Twin Peaks and Jaws.

How U.S. concessions are quietly becoming Chinese influence.

Member of King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery received medical treatment but died at scene after sustaining serious injuries

A service person has died after falling from their horse after a display at the Royal Windsor Horse Show, police said.

The soldier, part of the King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery, fell at about 7pm on Friday after exiting the arena.

Republican said she hoped recent commutation of Tina Peters by governor would free up federal funding for clean drinking water

Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert suggested that Donald Trump blocked funds for a clean drinking water project in her state over the prosecution of election denier Tina Peters.

Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, commuted Peters’ nearly nine-year prison sentence on Friday, ordering her release on 1 June. The former Colorado county clerk had allowed unauthorized people to access voting records amid efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, in which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

• Third straight season-ending blowout for Minnesota

• San Antonio to face Oklahoma City in conference finals

• Pistons hold off Cavaliers to force Game 7

The San Antonio Spurs were well on their way to the Western Conference finals in the fourth quarter when Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards went down to their bench to briefly offer his congratulations. The young Spurs left no doubt they’re already a serious NBA title contender.

Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs romped past the Timberwolves 139-109 on Friday night in Minneapolis to finish in the second-round series in six games and reach the conference finals for the first time since 2017. Stephon Castle had 32 points and 11 rebounds in another dominant performance from the backcourt.

Iran has a long history of unconventional operations, all designed to divert, distract and destabilise current or potential enemies

The arrest by US authorities of an alleged Iraqi commander of an Iranian-backed militia group now accused of responsibility for 18 terrorist attacks in the UK, Europe and Canada since the beginning of the Iran war is an astonishing development – yet not the least bit surprising.

According to a complaint unsealed on Friday in a federal court in Manhattan, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi is allegedly responsible for organising – among other operations – a string of recent firebombings of banks and other targets in France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, an arson attack against a synagogue and a shooting at the US consulate in Toronto in March, as well as – most recently – a wave of attacks on mainly Jewish targets in the UK including places of worship and charities.

Izz al-Din al-Haddad was killed in a "precise strike in the area on the City of Gaza," the Israel Defense Forces said Saturday.

Once Upon a Time in Harlem, completed by relatives of William Greaves after his death, showcased at Cannes

In 1969, the pioneering documentarian William Greaves wrote of his fury over the racially degrading stereotypes that white film producers threw up on American screens. “It became clear to me that unless we black people began to produce information for screen and television there would always be a distortion of the ‘black image,’” he said.

Three years later, Greaves began work on what he considered the most important footage he ever shot: a feature documentary gathering surviving figures of the Harlem Renaissance to reflect on the movement they had built half a century earlier.

With Punta Marina residents loving or loathing the incomers, ‘peacock rangers’ have been appointed to defuse tensions

Federico Bruni was sitting on a bench, eating a piadina romagnola (flatbread sandwich) and minding his own business, when a peacock strutted up in the hope of a few crumbs. High-pitched squeals emanated from the direction of a disused military barracks across the road. “That would be the call to love,” Bruni said. “The male peacocks are courting the female ones – we’re in peak mating season.”

As another couple of peacocks wandered by, their iridescent trains sweeping the pavement behind them, this could be mistaken for a wildlife park. But the scene is Punta Marina, a seaside town on the Adriatic coast of Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region that has been colonised by the birds, to the delight – or despair – of its approximately 1,000 residents.

Tommy Bell thought he was in good shape. But a series of heart attacks painted a more complicated picture.

The centers are diverting much-needed resources from regular people. Local resistance has the industry playing defense

Back in 2016, Marco Gutiérrez, the Mexican-born founder of Latinos for Trump, issued an ominous warning to the US. “My culture is a very dominant culture,” he said on MSNBC. “It is imposing and it’s causing problems. If you don’t do something about it, you’re going to have taco trucks on every corner.”

A decade later, I regret to inform you there is not a taco truck on every corner. But I am here to issue my own ominous warning about the takeover of America: not by immigrant culture but by AI culture. To echo Gutiérrez: it is imposing and it’s causing problems. And if we don’t do something about it, we’re going to have datacenters on every corner.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

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.

Commentary: Trying out Google's new Gemini-powered Fitbit makes me wonder if this is the killer companion for Google's upcoming glasses. I bet it will be.

A new way to analyze pitches is changing technology and strategy in the major leagues.

As our phones become more advanced, batteries are feeling the strain. But technology improvements and shifts in our habits could help close the gap.

No swift end to the Iran war, uncertainty over Taiwan and only vague outlines of commercial deals … but the US president did get to bask in the company of Xi Jinping

It was historic, to be sure, but not as anyone had predicted. First there was Donald Trump, a self-declared teetotaler, apparently drinking champagne after Xi Jinping assured him that China’s “great rejuvenation” could go hand in hand with “Make America great again”. Then there was a Chinese military band playing a rendition of the US president’s signature campaign song, YMCA.

Beneath giant chandeliers, blue and gold balconies and a big orange backdrop with pagoda-style roofs, Thursday’s state banquet in Beijing featured characters whose presence would have been unthinkable here a decade ago: Elon Musk, the eccentric tech billionaire, Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host turned “secretary of war”, and of course Trump himself, a former reality TV star now leading the world’s biggest superpower.

Mohamed Mahudhee suffered decompression sickness after searching for scuba divers in Vaavu Atoll and died in hospital

A Maldivian military diver has died during a high-risk operation to recover the bodies of four of the Italian scuba divers who drowned while exploring a deep underwater cave in the Maldives.

The diver suffered underwater decompression sickness after searching for the bodies of the Italians who, according to Italy’s foreign ministry, had “apparently died while attempting to explore caves at a depth of 50 metres (164ft)”.

Planning inspector backs council’s rejection of development, which was ‘not exemplary, extraordinary, remarkable or distinctive, just tall’

Celebrities including Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger have defeated plans to build a 29-storey tower on the banks of the River Thames.

Jagger, along with fellow rock star Eric Clapton, actor Felicity Kendal and comic Harry Hill, fought the developer Rockwell Property for two years over its plan to erect a 100-metre tower next to Battersea Bridge. If the tower had been built on the south bank of the Thames in south-west London, it would have rivalled the heights of the famous chimneys on Battersea power station.

Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg, leader of the Food and Drug Administration division responsible for regulating prescription and over-the-counter drugs, is leaving her post, a senior FDA official confirmed.

Can the West Londoners salvage their season, or will Pep Guardiola's men claim a cup double?

After death of his father, Reed Jobs is keen for his $1bn venture capital fund Yosemite to make a difference

“I saw my dad have cancer when I was a kid, and unfortunately that happens far too often. And that really motivated me to try to transform outcomes for other people out there.”

Reed Jobs is talking about the death of his father, the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, to a rare form of pancreatic cancer in 2011 at the age of 56, the experience that underlines his mission to make cancer a non-lethal, treatable disease.

Bill Cassidy raised ire of US president for voting to impeach after January 6 – so Trump is backing Julia Letlow

The power of Donald Trump’s endorsement will be put to its latest test on Saturday, when Louisiana holds primary elections in which the US senator Bill Cassidy, who voted to impeach the president following the January 6 insurrection, then tried to make amends by casting the pivotal vote to confirm Robert F Kennedy Jr as health secretary, stands a chance of losing his party’s nomination.

An incumbent Republican running for a third term representing a deeply Republican state, Cassidy would normally be a shoo-in for re-election. But in January, Trump abruptly said that the US representative Julia Letlow should run against Cassidy and offered his endorsement, underscoring his continued willingness to seek revenge against anyone in the Republican party who has crossed him.

Some activists believe protesting against ICE is ineffective, instead appealing to agents’ morality through both guilt and compassion. But are ICE agents capable of remorse?

In November 2025, a TV ad began running in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Palm Beach, Florida.

In it, a little girl with blond hair in a ponytail lies on her belly, working on a coloring book. A nearby TV blares with images of immigrants being brutalized by ICE agents. The front door opens and the girl bounces up, rushing over to hug her father and asks: “Daddy, how was your day?” while the camera reveals ICE insignia on his shirtsleeve. The voiceover begins: “A mask can’t hide you from your neighbors, your children and God. You can walk away, before the shame follows you home.”

The Hills’ antagonist has made the city’s response to the 2025 wildfires the central tenet of his campaign

Los Angeles is no stranger to drama. But the rapid ascension of a former reality TV bad boy turned political candidate taking on an incumbent mayor is a plot twist that has broken through far beyond the hills of Hollywood.

Spencer Pratt, best known for his role on the 2006 reality TV hit The Hills, is seeking to tap into the deep frustration of many Angelenos over a searing cost-of-living crisis and the slow pace of recovery following last year’s deadly wildfires.

Officials warn of potentially fatal coming months after six people were found dead inside a railway car in Texas

As questions still swirl about the six people found dead inside a baking-hot railway car in Texas, immigration advocates warn that the US is about to enter the most dangerous season of the year for immigrants making the perilous journey over the southern border.

Early results shared by the Webb county medical examiner indicate that at least one of the six people found dead in the city of Laredo died from hyperthermia, which occurs when the body is overwhelmed by extreme heat. The same cause of death is likely true for the five others.

G. Robert Blakey has died at 90. He drafted RICO, led a government investigation into the Kennedy assassination and later criticized the CIA.

The Linux 7.1 kernel has added new documentation clarifying what qualifies as a security bug and how AI-assisted vulnerability reports should be handled. Phoronix reports: Stemming from the recent influx of security bugs to the Linux kernel as well as an uptick in bug and security reports from discoveries made in full or in part with AI, additional documentation was warranted. Longtime Linux developer Willy Tarreau took to authoring the additional documentation around kernel bugs. To summarize (since the documentation is a bit too lengthy for a Slashdot story), the AI-assisted vulnerability reports should "be treated as public" because such findings "systematically surface simultaneously across multiple researchers, often on the same day." It adds that reporters should avoid posting a reproducer openly, instead "just mention that one is available" and provide it privately if maintainers request it. The guidance also tells AI-assisted reporters to keep submissions concise and plain-text, focus on verifiable impact rather than speculative consequences, include a thoroughly tested reproducer, and, where possible, propose and test a fix. As for what qualifies as a security bug, the documentation says the private security list is for "urgent bugs that grant an attacker a capability they are not supposed to have on a correctly configured production system" and are easy to exploit, creating an imminent threat to many users. Reporters are told to consider whether the issue "actually crosses a trust boundary," since many bugs submitted privately are really ordinary defects that belong in the normal public reporting process. All the new documentation can be read via this commit.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With layoffs widely expected and editorial tensions deepening, correspondents await a post-season shakeup

At a time when viewers are fleeing traditional television shows, the CBS Sunday newsmagazine 60 Minutes remains in a class of its own. The 12 April episode, which featured Pope Leo and a story on great white sharks, drew an astounding 10.1 million total viewers. The show is trending as the most-watched news program for the current broadcast season. So, as the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, why fix it?

That’s what some CBS News employees and veterans are wondering, amid persistent rumors that the show’s 59th season will look very different than the 58th, which ends on 17 May.

I cannot think of one thing that a cruise offers that isn’t available in the safe bosom of dry land

I don’t swim. This is a fairly crucial element of my backstory, something that defines me even if I don’t want it to and have begged people to stop asking me about it. Water and I simply have nothing in common. I’m a 41-year-old writer, and water is, well … wet. My son swims like a fish, and as soon as I dunk my head under the surface, I start wondering what it would be like to suffocate, how soon I can come back up, and what I’m even doing down there in the first place. As bad as a pool is, the ocean is even worse. It’s not just water. It’s water with living creatures in it. What’s down there? I don’t care to find out. Things are bad enough up here.

My general lack of interest in swimming, perhaps better described as a horrible fear, is one of the reasons I’ve never been on a cruise. God forbid I have to escape because of some kind of Steven Seagal/Under Siege situation. I’d jump on the edge of the boat, desperately attempt to doggy-paddle and end up at the bottom of the Mariana trench.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

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.

A foreign face is often thought to add prestige to a product or business – what’s behind this unregulated economy?

Piers had been in China for all of two days in 2009 when he was used as a “white monkey” for the first time. He had travelled to a village in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, to attend a friend’s wedding and had stopped in the village to try a special crab dish at a small restaurant. Weeks later, a Chinese guest who had been at the wedding told him the restaurant had had an uptick in business because the locals had heard that a laowai, a foreigner, had been seen dining there, so people had assumed this restaurant must be good. Piers realised the boss had deliberately seated him in a way to attract attention: “I knew we were sitting outside in a premium spot, but I didn’t pick up on what was going on.”

When foreigners in China are used this way, they are called a baihouzi, a white monkey. They’re hired to help Chinese businesses appear more desirable, the foreigner association conveying prestige and a sense that your product is universally regarded. The industry is unregulated in China, operating in a legal grey area. White monkey positions are advertised on job boards and can fall into different categories, from acting and modelling for Chinese films and products to pretending to be the foreign CEO of a Chinese company to lend it credibility. They might be seat warmers or go-go dancers in Chinese nightclubs to draw in customers, or English teachers in language centres to make Chinese parents feel their children are being taught by legitimate native English speakers (even if a Chinese person is actually a better qualified teacher). These businesses believe that having the “foreign look” will give them an edge over other Chinese companies offering the same service. The phenomenon of recruiting foreigners for this performative purpose can be traced to the concept of mianzi, having “face” in Chinese society, which denotes bestowing and receiving respect for each other.

President Trump announced Friday evening that U.S. and Nigerian military forces had killed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, a leader in the Islamic State group.

Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito found themselves in the minority on Thursday, when the court ruled that telehealth access to the abortion drug mifepristone could continue, leaving the dissenting conservatives to foreshadow a future showdown over abortion rights.

Both justices railed against the decision, with Alito calling it a “scheme” to get around their ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson that eliminated the nationwide right to an abortion in 2022. Abortions have increased since their decision, Alito lamented, largely due to telehealth access. 

In 2025, far more residents of states with total abortion bans received telehealth provisions of medication abortion than traveled out of state to receive care in places with fewer restrictions. And roughly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. in 2023 were medication abortions. But advocates warn that the dissents from Thomas and Alito highlight that the threat to abortion access still looms large.

“We’re breathing a sigh of relief. I would say that the immediate threat to mifepristone is over,” said Claire Teylouni, interim co-executive director of Reproductive Equity Now, “But it’s certainly clear from reading those dissents that the threat … is far from over.” 

In his dissent, Thomas argues that the Comstock Act, an anti-obscenity law passed in 1873 that remains on the books but has not been enforced in decades, prohibits the mailing of abortion medication. “The Comstock Act bans using ‘the mails’ to ship any ‘drug … for producing abortion,’” Thomas wrote. “Applicants are not entitled to a stay of an adverse court order based on lost profits from their criminal enterprise.”

The Comstock Act originally prohibited the mailing of “obscene” materials, such as pornography, contraceptives, and any drug or device that can be used to produce an abortion. But legal scholars have argued that the law is unenforceable and unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds and other modern case law. 

In 2022, a Department of Justice memo clarified that the law does not prohibit the mailing of drugs that could be used to perform an abortion because there is “an insufficient basis for concluding that the sender intends them to be used unlawfully.” 

Related

Texas Judge Cosplaying as Medical Expert Has Consequences Beyond the Abortion Pill

Despite the memo and the fact that the Comstock Act has not been enforced in decades, conservatives, including Thomas and Alito, have been eager to use the law to push a national abortion ban.

“Enforcement of the Comstock Act has the potential to threaten the broader supply chain with regard to the reproductive health care system as a whole,” warned Teylouni. Arguably if enforced, the law could even jam up access to surgical tools used in abortion care and the shipping of abortion medication to states without bans.

Republican lawmakers have argued that the Comstock Act should be enforced by the courts to “prosecute those who obtain mifepristone through the mail.” In Project 2025, policy analysts similarly argue that the Department of Justice should enforce federal laws like Comstock to prohibit the mailing of abortion medication writ large.  

President Donald Trump has previously claimed that he would not enforce the Comstock Act in this way, but advocates have seen troubling signs out of the administration about how they might eliminate access to mifepristone in other ways.

Related

GOP States Double Down on Fighting Medication Abortion After Supreme Court Keeps It Legal

“We’re focusing on some pressing threats that are already ongoing,” said Anna Bernstein, principal federal policy adviser at the reproductive and sexual health research organization Guttmacher Institute.

In late 2025, the Food and Drug Administration began a safety review of mifepristone, despite over 20 years of evidence that it’s a safe medication. Bernstein said her organization is keeping a close eye on the “politically motivated” review at the FDA, which she argues flies in the face of the science.

The combined regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol, the drug typically used in tandem with mifepristone to induce a medication abortion, carries a less than 1 percent risk of serious adverse events. Comparatively, the risk of maternal death associated with childbirth is roughly 14 times higher than the risk associated with abortion care.

But despite medical evidence of its safety, the threat to mifepristone from the FDA has increased in recent days. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary resigned earlier this week, and he was replaced by Kyle Diamantas, a former lawyer.

Within hours of his appointment on Tuesday, Diamantas was reportedly on the phone with anti-abortion advocates reassuring them of his moral opposition to abortion. According to a press release sent from an anti-abortion advocate, regarding her conversation with Diamantas, she said that he promised that reviewing mifepristone would be a “top priority” and that he was “pro-life.”

“We continue to have concerns that the [review is] going to be politicized and not based in science and medicine,” said Teylouni.  

The Thursday ruling allows providers to continue to send mifepristone through the mail or to retail pharmacies, while the case plays out in the lower courts. Earlier this month, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had reinstated previous FDA requirements that mifepristone be dispensed in person, threatening telehealth access, a critical lifeline for abortion access for people in states with and without abortion bans. 

The Supreme Court issued an initial ruling staying the appeals court decision earlier this month, which they extended on Monday, before making their final decision on Thursday to allow access to continue while the Louisiana v. FDA case plays out in court.

But a looming concern for advocates is that both the courts’ more politically attuned conservatives and members of the Trump administration could be waiting to make a move on abortion access until after the midterms in a ploy to avoid the disasters of the post-Dobbs elections.

“We’re definitely concerned, because we know that the Trump administration understands that it’s politically unfavorable to restrict access to abortion and to mifepristone,” said Guttmacher Institute’s Bernstein. “We’ve all seen the reports of them slow-walking to the midterms, and we know why politically they might want to do so.” 

Related

Drug-Sniffing Police Dogs Are Intercepting Abortion Pills in the Mail

While the Comstock Act serves as a significant threat to abortion access, advocates note that if mifepristone is no longer able to be sent through the mail, people can still access medication abortion care. 

Mifepristone works by stopping the pregnancy from growing and initiates the separation of the embryo from the uterine lining. The other drug, misoprostol, causes contractions which expel the contents of the uterus.

Misoprostol can be safely and effectively used on its own to induce an abortion. However, the process of abortion “is prolonged when it’s with a misoprostol-alone protocol,” explained Dr. Ushma Upadhyay, a public health scientist at the University of California, San Francisco’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health research coalition. “And patients report higher levels of side effects, so a lot of cramping and a lot more bleeding.”

Despite the small victory yesterday, Teylouni said that abortion advocates cannot afford to be “complacent” right now. 

“This decision could have been the biggest blow to abortion access since the Dobbs decision,” she said. “Anti-abortion extremists are not going to stop attempting to ban abortion, and they want to see the Comstock Act invoked and enforced to limit telehealth prescribing again.” 

The post A “Scheme” Against Dobbs: SCOTUS Dissent Hints at Next Phase of Abortion Rights Fight appeared first on The Intercept.

• Kareem’s Daily Quote: Another writer, because we’re on a roll

• The Two-Track System: What Ghislaine Maxwell’s prison life tells us about America

• Don't Pop the Champagne Just Yet: The latest Supreme Court "win"

• The Reset Button is Broken: Why "diplomatic cotton candy" won’t save us

• What I’m Watching: A doc on the great Pelé

• Jukebox Playlist: The lady is…

Kareem’s Daily Quote

"[Humanity] is not made for defeat. Man may be destroyed but not defeated." Ernest Hemingway

In his novel “The Old Man and the Sea,” Ernest Hemingway wrote the lines above, and they might ring false at first, but if you live long enough, they become true.

It’s that balance of the words “destroyed” and “defeated,” which seem like the same thing but aren’t. “Destroyed” refers to physical ruin, exhaustion, maybe even death. Whereas “defeated” refers to the surrender of spirit or dignity. If you’ve seen enough sunsets, you’ve seen this idea in action. Yes, darkness comes, but in the fading light is a certain nobility that survives total collapse.

This type of destruction without defeat also reflects what critics often call Hemingway’s ideal of a hero: one who faces suffering directly. One who maintains composure under pressure. One who accepts mortality without self-pity. One who continues despite inevitable loss.

I’ve met a handful of people who have managed them all…and will keep their names to myself for now, for fear of offending others. But many of us have been “heroic” in one or two of the ways above, and we know exactly how it feels to overcome certain destruction.

Life isn’t a game you can win by playing it safe or being “good” enough to avoid the hits. Eventually, the world will stick a finger in your seams and pull until something rips. It might be a loss that leaves a hole in your chest, a failure that makes you question your own intelligence, or just the slow, grinding wear-and-tear of getting through the day. We all have a breaking point.

But think about the most resilient person you know. I’ll bet anything they haven’t sailed through life on calm waters. Usually, the people with the most gravity, the ones who seem unshakeable, are the ones who have been shattered and had to put themselves back together, somehow.

We’re not made—not created—for defeat. What a lovely thought that is.

Pain, on its own, isn’t a teacher: it’s just pain. The strength comes from understanding that we’re made of sterner stuff: that even if we’re “destroyed,” we can go into that final battle with our heads lifted up.

There’s a Japanese art called Kintsugi, where craftsmen take broken pottery and repair the cracks with gold. They don’t try to hide the damage; they highlight it. They acknowledge that the piece is more beautiful and more valuable because it was broken and repaired.

When one faces destruction with dignity, one loses the naive idea that we are invincible—which, oddly enough, makes us much harder to defeat. Once we’ve seen the worst that the world can throw at us and we’ve managed to stand back up or possibly even go out with our “self” intact, the world loses a bit of its power over us.

We aren’t afraid of the dark anymore.

Read more

Ryan Nichols is the latest such person to face charges after he allegedly brandished a gun during an argument

The number of president’s supporters accused of committing new crimes after Donald Trump pardoned them for their roles in the 6 January 2021 US Capitol attack recently increased to at least five.

Ryan Nichols, 35, became the latest such Capitol attacker on 10 May, when authorities in Harleton, Texas, say he threateningly displayed a handgun to a person with whom he was arguing in a church parking lot.

Move follows upsetting viral video of ray being manhandled into unmarked boat in Florida waters last year

Wildlife officials in Florida will continue to allow threatened giant manta rays to be taken from the ocean, but have tightened their policies after a viral video showed a captured ray in severe distress, and a bipartisan group of politicians called for an end to the controversial practice.

Members of the Florida fish and wildlife conservation commission (FWC) voted on Wednesday to adopt an amended final rule reserving the right to say when and where rays can be captured for “responsible exhibition” in the US.

Congressman Thomas Massie, chastized by the US president as a ‘lowlife’, will soon face the ballot box – setting up a crucial test of Trump’s political strength

At Pee Wee’s Place, a bar and restaurant in Crescent Springs, northern Kentucky, biscuits and gravy go for $6 and liver and onions for $14.75. The walls are adorned with US flags, sports memorabilia, amusement machines, a TV showing Fox News and a poster that proclaims: “Let the gays get married. Let the rednecks have their guns. Let the atheists be atheists. Let the Christians be Christians. America is about FREEDOM.”

Sitting at the bar, John Johnson, 78, and his son Lance, 47, are discussing an upcoming election in which Thomas Massie, a maverick congressman, is aiming to prove that a Republican can defy Donald Trump and survive. “I’m leaning to Massie because I like his attitude when it comes to being straight up on issues,” says John, a contractor who voted for Trump in 2024. “Him and Trump beat off each other every now and then, but he’s a constitutionalist, he speaks his piece and he’s right a lot of times.”

A year ago, Trump promised a new era during the first major foreign trip of his second term. On his recent visit to Beijing, the war with Iran and economic strain clouded his diplomacy.

As Keir Starmer endures a slow ousting, his predecessor recalls the day in 2016 when colleagues tried to force him out – and assesses who might come next

“Yeah, I do feel [sorry for him],” said Jeremy Corbyn, with only a little hesitation. “On a personal level it must be devastating. It is a horrible feeling. You suddenly realise that this person doesn’t trust you at all and really doesn’t wish you well at all, and you suddenly realise that any trust that was there actually disappears.”

There are few in politics who have had the experience of being the subject of a Labour party-style coup, the British equivalent of being dragged from your office to be put up against a wall. Letters of resignations from so-called political friends, condemnatory statements on social media, all dripped out for maximum effect with the end goal of pushing the target, once the subject of standing ovations and gushing plaudits, out on their tail.

‘Polyclass’ of 6 million people consider themselves to belong to more than one social category, researchers say

More than a third of Britons say they have changed social class, with upper-middle and upper-class people most likely to identify as belonging to more than one class, according to a survey.

Working-class people were the least likely to say they had changed class or identified with more than one, with 70% saying they were in the same social category they were born into, the study by research firm Attest found.

If there’s no proof of aliens, the president can blame the deep state. If there’s proof, he’s a hero. Either way, it helps his popularity

The US Department of Defense released the first batch of its UFO files last week at the direction of the president, Donald Trump, who promised to make them public “based on the tremendous interest shown”.

Trump’s right, of course. Nearly half of Americans believe aliens have visited Earth, and many believe that the government is hoarding the evidence in some shadowy laboratory or military base. This conspiracy began in 1947 at Roswell, New Mexico, when the Roswell army airfield issued a news release about the crash of a “flying disc”, and has never truly gone away.

Japan's worsening bear problem has created a shortage of handmade "Monster Wolf" robots, which are $4,000 solar-powered scarecrow-like devices with glowing eyes, sensors, and blaring sounds designed to frighten the animals away. "We make them by hand. We cannot make them fast enough now. We are asking our customers to wait two to three months," company president Yuji Ohta recently told the AFP. Popular Science reports: First released in 2016 by the manufacturer Ohta, Monster Wolf was originally designed to ward off the agricultural foes like boars, deer, and the island nation's Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus) and brown bear (Ursus arctos) populations. The creative solution quickly went viral for its red LED eyes and menacing fangs -- as well as its admittedly odd, furry pipe frame. Starting at around $4,000, each bespoke Monster Wolf is now equipped with battery power, solar panels, and detection sensors. Its speakers are programmed with over 50 audio clips including human voices and sirens audible over half a mile away. These aren't assembly line products, however. Each Monster Wolf is custom made, and Ohta simply can't keep up with the current demand. [...] Ohta told the AFP that amid the ongoing crisis, there has been "growing recognition" that Monster Wolf is "effective in dealing with bears." The main customer base remains farmers, but orders are also coming from golf courses and rural workers. Upgraded versions will soon include wheels to actually chase animals and patrol preset routes. There are also plans to release a handheld version for outdoor enthusiasts and schoolchildren. Until Ohta catches up with its orders, residents and visitors are encouraged to review the Japanese government's own bear safety tips.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Firms do not offer cover for some models, or charge more than for equivalent petrol cars, research finds

• ‘Temu Range Rover’: what the Jaecoo 7 says about China’s electric car ascendancy

UK insurers are more hesitant to cover some hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs) from China than cars from other countries, research suggests.

While some drivers can save money by buying cars made in China, they may have more limited options to get insurance than those buying electric, hybrid and petrol cars from Europe, the US and South Korea.

As continent faces tough headwinds, leaders are bearing brunt of delivering bad news to frustrated electorates

“People hate you,” the adviser informed his leader. A think-piece in a daily newspaper noted that “almost everyone agrees on one thing: they don’t like him”.

The recent disastrous set of local election results in the UK built on Keir Starmer’s longstanding reputational problem: only 11% of Britons believe he has been a good or great prime minister, and nearly 60% believe he has been poor or terrible, according to polling by YouGov.

US president calls Abu-Bilal al-Minuki ‘most active terrorist in the world’ and says he was eliminated in ‘very complex mission’

Donald Trump has said US and Nigerian forces killed the “second in command” global leader of the Islamic State.

“Tonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield,” the US president said on his Truth Social platform on Friday.

The US supreme court dealt a devastating blow to the 1965 Voting Rights Act when it ruled in Louisiana v Callais in April that states cannot consider race in redistricting. Southern states from Tennessee to Alabama have rushed to erase majority-Black districts, sparking chaos for the midterm elections. Kai Wright talks to Stacey Abrams, a voting rights activist and former Georgia house minority leader, about the fallout from the decision, and why, despite it all, she still believes the way forward lies in engaging more voters to participate in democracy. ‘They have fractured communities and said we’re going to scatter these seeds. Our job is to grow,’ she says

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

Dr Tracy Beth Høeg, the Food and Drug Administration’s top drug regulator, says she was fired from agency after declining to resign

In a major shake-up at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), top regulators left on Friday – including Tracy Beth Høeg, the acting drug chief, who says she was fired, and Katherine Szarama, the acting vaccines chief who has only been in the position for days. Jim Traficant, the chief of staff, has also been ousted.

The FDA now has no permanent commissioner or deputy commissioner and no permanent leaders of two major centers, after the resignation of Marty Makary on Tuesday and other high-profile departures.

A New York doctor who contracted and survived Ebola more than a decade ago says he is worried for healthcare workers who are at the center of treating the latest outbreak.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Wood heating is reintroducing lead into the air of local communities and homes, a systematic investigation by academics has found. Overwhelming evidence of lead's neurotoxicity meant the metal was banned as an additive in petrol more than 25 years ago. The research by academics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst began by analysing samples of particle pollution from five suburban and rural towns in the north-east US. They looked for tiny particles of potassium that are given off when wood is burned and also particles containing lead. Samples from seven winters revealed associations between potassium and lead. When there were more wood burning particles in a daily sample, there was more lead in the air, with clear straight-line relationships in four of the five towns. The project was extended to 22 other towns across the US. The relationships between lead and potassium varied from place to place, being strongest in the Rocky Mountains. By factoring in the effects of temperature, moderate to strong associations in their analysis strengthened the conclusion that the extra lead came from wood burning. The lead concentrations were less than the US legal limits, but any exposure to the metal is harmful. [...] Although less than legal limits, lead particles are routinely measured in UK cities in winter when people are also burning wood. This is normally attributed to waste wood covered with old lead paint, but the Umass Amherst study suggests the metal is coming from the wood itself. This means that any wood burning could increase exposure in neighborhoods and at home. Tricia Henegan, a PhD student at Umass Amherst and the first author on the research, said: "The most logical answer [to the question of how lead ends up in wood] is that it comes from uptake in the soil, probably riding along with the nutrients and water that trees need. Once in the tree, it deposits in the tree's tissues and remains until that tree is burned." Other research has found that it can then become part of the smoke. "The use of wood as an energy source is a relic of the past, one that should not be relived if given a choice. Although wood fuel use can feel nostalgic, it does have negative consequences on air quality, and therefore public health."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Family and supporters had hoped the US president could help free the 78-year-old British citizen during summit talks in Beijing

Donald Trump raised the case of jailed Hong Kong democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai in talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping but was told it “is a tough one”.

Family and supporters of the 78-year-old British citizen had hoped the US president could help secure his release.

Gov. Jared Polis announced he is commuting the sentence of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who was facing more than eight years in state prison for allowing unauthorized access to voting machines following the 2020 presidential election.

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for May 16.

This live blog is now closed.

• Colorado governor commutes sentence of election denier Tina Peters

• Sign up for the Breaking News US email

Jamieson Greer also said US export controls on semiconductor chips were not a major topic of discussions with Chinese officials in Beijing.

The US trade representative’s comments to Bloomberg on Friday suggest a breakthrough on selling Nvidia’s advanced H200 chips to China remains far away, Reuters is reporting, despite Nvidia chief Jensen Huang’s last-minute invitation to Donald Trump’s Beijing trip this week.

This was not a major topic of discussion at the bilateral meeting. We did not talk about chip export controls at the meeting.”

First of all, it’s really important for China to have the strait of Hormuz open – no tolling, no military control. That was clear from the meeting, so we welcome that.

With respect to Chinese involvement with Iran, our view is the Chinese are being very pragmatic – they don’t want to be on the wrong side of this. They want to see peace in that area, President Trump wants to see peace in that area, so we have a lot of confidence that they will do what they can to limit any kind of material support for Iran.”

David White retired as the longtime principal at the Burgess-Peterson Academy in Atlanta, and then returned to the school as its handyman.

Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for May 16, No. 1,792.

An Iraqi national allegedly plotted to carry out terror attacks in the U.S., including at a prominent synagogue in New York, prosecutors said Friday.

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a bid by Virginia Democrats to revive its new voter-approved congressional map that was drawn to advantage the party for the upcoming midterm elections.

• Alex Smalley and Maverick McNealy lead on four under

• Rory McIlroy makes progress after poor opening day

“Golf should be a pleasure,” wrote Donald Ross, the man who designed Aronimink, “not a penance.” And a fine sentiment it is, too, even if it wasn’t immediately clear that any of the many men competing here for the PGA Championship were having very much fun doing it. Shane Lowry didn’t seem to be when he shanked the ball into the water at 17, nor did Scottie Scheffler when he threatened to slam down his wedge after hitting one thick on the 6th, and Justin Thomas and Keegan Bradley didn’t look too enthused when they were busy ranting at the rules officials who put them on the clock for slow play.

The pleasure, such as it was, seemed to be mostly in purists’ appreciation of the high standard of lag putting on show, and everyone else’s schadenfreude at watching the world’s best golfers endure the same sort of frustrations amateur hackers suffer every weekend.

Maverick McNealy and Alex Smalley share the lead on halfway at the US PGA Championship at Aronimink

Scottie Scheffler’s third at 10, from 44 yards, is no good. It’s 20 feet shy of the flag. He can’t make the par saver, and that’s an immediate backwards step for the world number one and tournament favourite. Matt Fitzpatrick bogeys too, and it’s a double for Justin Rose. They’re -2, +1 and +2 respectively. Meanwhile on Sky, Laura Davies asks Wayne Riley what he thinks the leader will be on at the end of the day. Five under, he answers, without a beat of hesitation. In other words, good luck trying to go low, gentlemen. It’s going to be another hugely entertaining day!

Rose gathers himself and sends a decent wedge into 10, from 77 yards to 16 feet. He’ll have a look at a damage-limiting bogey. Meanwhile Scottie’s lie in the rough on the left isn’t great, and he’s forced to take his medicine, punching back out onto the fairway. Even the strongest hitters in the business aren’t of a mind to take liberties with this rough. To think everyone was talking about bringing Aronimink to its knees with some bomb and gouge at the start of the week! A textbook study in hubris, and that’s before we get around to the subjects of Rory and Bryson.

President Trump told reporters he made "no commitment either way" to China's Xi Jinping regarding U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan.

President Trump's trip to China could bolster economic relations, but failed to deliver a breakthrough deal, some trade and energy experts said.

Order, issued without any noted dissent, is the latest twist in the nation’s mid-decade redistricting competition

The supreme court on Friday rejected Virginia’s bid to restore a congressional map that would have given Democrats a chance to pick up four seats in the closely divided House of Representatives.

The court’s order, issued without any noted dissent, is the latest twist in the nation’s mid-decade redistricting competition . It was kicked off last year by Donald Trump urging Republican-controlled states to redraw their lines and was supercharged by a recent supreme court ruling severely weakening the Voting Rights Act that opened up even more winnable seats for the Republican party.

Firefighters responded to a fire at Robbins Lumber in Searsmont, Maine, about 95 miles from Portland.

SuperFlux will fit stock axle blocks but the notch inside the block needs to be removed. Can be done with a Dremel and a milling bit then use the axle bolts that the SuperFlux comes with.

Face ID isn't just for your phone. SwitchBot's new smart lock line uses facial recognition to unlock your deadbolt.

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle No. 804 for Saturday, May 16.

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for May 16, No. 1,070.

The International Space Station-bound SpaceX Cargo Dragon is loaded with 6,500 pounds of needed equipment, research gear and crew supplies.

Change reflects both transformation of US in Trump era and China’s increasing confidence on world stage

Asked before he departed for Beijing if he would raise with the Chinese president the case of Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy activist jailed in Hong Kong, Donald Trump said: “I’ll bring him up.”

But, the US president added: “It’s like saying to me, ‘If Comey ever went to jail, would you let him out?’ It might be a hard one for me.” Trump was referring to James B Comey, a former FBI director and a frequent target of Trump’s ire.

All 46 Council of Europe members sign agreement ‘deplored’ by human rights organisations

The UK and 45 other European countries have signed an agreement that explicitly endorses plans to send unwanted asylum seekers to third country hubs.

A political declaration from the 46 members of the Council of Europe, the body that oversees the European convention on human rights (ECHR), said states had an “undeniable sovereign right” to control their borders.

Chaotic week in which enforcer of ‘war on drugs’ flees senate building leaves government looking ‘incompetent’

The wanted man outran security agents, rallied protesters and even serenaded the media with a military hymn. Then, after a sudden exchange of gunfire, the Philippines’ most controversial lawmaker slipped out of the heavily guarded senate building in the middle of the night.

Senator Ronald dela Rosa, who is wanted by the international criminal court for crimes against humanity, is now nowhere to be seen.

BrianFagioli writes: Kioxia and Dell Technologies say they have built a 2U server configuration capable of scaling to 9.8PB of flash storage, which is the sort of density that would have sounded impossible just a few years ago. The setup combines a Dell PowerEdge R7725xd Server with 40 Kioxia LC9 Series 245.76TB NVMe SSDs and AMD EPYC processors. According to Kioxia, matching the same capacity with more common 30.72TB SSDs would require seven additional servers and another 280 drives. The companies are pitching the hardware squarely at AI and hyperscale workloads, where storage is rapidly becoming a bottleneck alongside compute. Kioxia claims the denser configuration can dramatically reduce power consumption and rack space requirements while remaining air cooled. The announcement also highlights how quickly enterprise storage capacities are escalating as organizations race to support larger AI models, massive datasets, and increasingly demanding data pipelines.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Oscillating fans are a nice idea to spread air around the room, but what if you just want to cool yourself? Dyson's Find+Follow uses AI tracking to do it.

The state’s governor commuted Peters’ sentence after a White House pressure campaign against Colorado

Tina Peters, a Colorado election clerk, had her prison sentence commuted on Friday by Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, after months of pressure from Donald Trump and other conservatives.

The move drew immediate rebuke from Colorado Democrats, including the US senator and former governor John Hickenlooper.

Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi appeared in US federal court to face six terrorism-related charges

The US justice department has arrested and charged an Iraqi national accused of involvement in nearly 20 alleged terror attacks and attempted attacks across the US and Europe.

The wave of violence attributed to Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi has caused huge concern in many European countries but especially the UK, where Jewish community centres, charities, synagogues and other sites have been targeted in recent weeks.

You'll never escape your vibe coding projects as long as you have your phone with you.

AMD says FSR 4.1 will finally bring its newer hardware-accelerated upscaling technology to older Radeon GPUs. "The rollout will begin in July with RDNA3- and 3.5-based GPUs, which include the Radeon RX 7000 series, as well as integrated GPUs like the Radeon 890M and Radeon 8060S," reports Ars Technica. "In 'early 2027,' support will also be extended to the RDNA2 architecture, which includes the Radeon RX 6000 series, integrated GPUs like the Radeon 680M, and the Steam Deck's GPU. This would also open the door to supporting FSR 4 on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, all of which also use RDNA2-based GPUs." From the report: [AMD Computing and Graphics SVP Jack Huynh's] short video presentation didn't get into performance comparisons, but did mention that AMD had to work to get FSR 4's superior hardware-backed upscaling working on its older graphics architectures. RDNA4 includes AI accelerators that support the FP8 data format in the hardware, and porting FSR 4 to older GPUs meant getting it running on the integer-based INT8 hardware in the RDNA3 and RDNA2-based GPUs. This may mean that FSR 4.1 running on an RDNA3 or RDNA2-based GPU may come with a larger performance hit relative to RDNA4 cards, or that image quality may differ slightly. Modders have already worked to get FSR4 working on INT8-supporting GPUs, and the older GPUs reportedly see a 10 to 20 percent performance hit relative to FSR 3.1 running on the same hardware. AMD's official implementation may or may not improve on these numbers. [...] Any games that support FSR 4 should be able to support FSR 4.1 running on Radeon 7000-series cards; users will presumably be able to install a driver update in July that enables the new feature. Games that support the older FSR 3.1 can also be forced to use FSR 4 in the Radeon graphics driver.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

One of the largest pediatric hospitals in the US will pay state $10m and stop offering gender-affirming care to youth

One of the largest pediatric hospitals in the US is creating a clinic that officials say will be a place for transgender youth to detransition to the sex they were assigned at birth.

The news came on Friday, when Texas children’s hospital reached a settlement agreement with the state’s attorney general and the US justice department over allegations that the Houston-based medical center billed Texas Medicaid to cover gender-affirming care under false diagnosis codes, among other claims.

Trump administration accused of cutting military’s civilian harm program in light of US strike on girls school in Iran

IThe Pentagon has quietly dismantled a program it is legally required to operate to prevent and respond to civilian deaths in US military operations, according to its internal watchdog.

A report released by the department’s inspector general concluded the US military no longer has the people, tools or infrastructure needed to comply with two federal statutes requiring it to maintain a functioning civilian casualty policy, and operate a Civilian Protection Center of Excellence (CP CoE).

The Pentagon’s top watchdog says cuts to civilian harm mitigation and response efforts have been so severe under War Secretary Pete Hegseth that the United States cannot adequately protect civilians in conflict zones. 

Thursday’s scathing analysis by the Department of War’s inspector general came on the same day that the top U.S. commander overseeing the war in Iran dismissed reports of civilian casualties and said the U.S. had no means to corroborate reports of strikes on hospitals and schools. The inspector general specifically notes that the military stopped funding a database that tracks civilian harm that could be used for such verification.

While damning, the former chief of harm assessments at the Pentagon’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence nonetheless called the new report a “whitewash” that downplays the evisceration of the Center and the entire enterprise devoted to reducing civilian casualties.

The report focuses on the implementation of the Pentagon’s 2022 Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan, or CHMR‑AP, which was mandated by the department to take full effect by the end of 2025. The inspector general found serious deficiencies and a chronic failure to meet timelines for 11 objectives consisting of 133 incomplete “implementing actions” by the end of last year. The inspector general found that the Department of War “did not fully implement any of the CHMR-AP objectives by the end of FY 2025.”

“This is a crisis of the Trump Administration’s own making: They slashed the staffing and funding for civilian harm mitigation, and now they can’t adequately follow the law and implement the CHMR-AP, leaving civilians and our own military personnel at risk,” Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the co-chair of the Protection of Civilians in Conflict Caucus, told The Intercept. “The Inspector General’s report is clear about what that means: wasted munitions, failed strikes, damaged alliances, and propaganda wins for our adversaries. The Trump Administration needs to reverse course immediately so we can save lives and protect our national security.”

Related

“We Will Find You and We Will Kill You”

The Intercept has previously reported on Hegseth’s gutting of CHMR efforts. More than a year ago, five current and former Defense Department officials described Pentagon efforts to eliminate or downsize offices, programs, and positions focused on preventing civilian casualties.

The 43-page inspector general report details continuing efforts to hamstring protections for civilians in war zones, noting that “DoW Components ended funding for the CHMR data management platform, stopped holding Steering Committee meetings, lost or reassigned many of the personnel dedicated to CHMR, and lost personnel and leadership” at the Center of Excellence, which is focused on training and employing tools for preventing civilian casualties.

Wes Bryant, who until last year served as the chief of civilian harm assessments and senior analyst and adviser on precision warfare, targeting, and civilian harm mitigation at the Center of Excellence, is one of those “lost personnel,” having been forced out of his job after blowing the whistle on efforts to dismantle CHMR efforts.

“It is completely whitewashed of the truth,” Bryant said of the report. “It reads as if the IG is completely deliberately ignoring the fact that the center and the entire CHMR enterprise was targeted for immediate shutdown, that 90 percent of billets were either terminated or forced out, and that what exists of the Center of Excellence since March 2025 is a shell on paper with no budget, no mandate or real mission, no authority and is completely locked out of visibility and oversight on all investigations and operations.”

The watchdog’s evaluation noted that Hegseth’s War Department “may not comply with its civilian casualties and harm policy” — which is required under federal law. The investigation also found that eliminating CHMR funding and personnel also “decreases readiness and increases risk to DoW personnel, mission success, and military objectives,” according to officials at the Joint Staff, which is headed by Gen. Dan Caine, and at geographic combatant commands, which oversee U.S. operations in various corners of the world.

While couched in stilted language, the report details dangers to civilians due to cuts to CHMR efforts. It makes note of deficiencies in “personnel and capabilities” to protect civilians under Pentagon regulations that are mandated by federal law. And it mentions a lack of necessary “tools” at the Center of Excellence, including a “data management platform” meant to track civilian harm incidents. The report notes that “according to Joint Staff and [combatant command] officials, eliminating CHMR funding and personnel makes mitigating or responding to civilian harm more difficult.” Such officials also noted that “eliminating CHMR funding and personnel reduces battle space awareness and increases the risk of civilian casualties, damaged coalitions and alliances, loss of legitimacy, increased local resistance, propaganda opportunities for adversaries, prolonged conflicts, and failed strikes.”

“This report makes it clear that the DoD is not complying with the law, nor its own policies, both of which were built on a bipartisan basis upon years of hard-learned lessons from wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria,” Madison Hunke, the U.S. program manager of the Center for Civilians in Conflict, told The Intercept. “As Congress develops the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, they must ensure that it not only provides the DoD with the resources it needs to comply with law and policy but also conduct rigorous oversight to keep the DoD accountable for implementing these critical programs.”

Related

U.S. Military Command That Attacked Venezuela Gutted Its Civilian Harm Team

Reporting by The Intercept found a combatant command that has gone from a military backwater to one engaged in regular kinetic activity — U.S. Southern Command — is unable to cope with the volume of civilian casualty reports. After the U.S. attacked Venezuela in January , the U.K.-based watchdog group Airwars attempted to submit documentation of civilian casualties to SOUTHCOM, which oversees military operations in Latin America. The organization learned that SOUTHCOM has no mechanism for submitting these reports. After reaching out to the Pentagon, Airwars was told to submit documentation to the Center of Excellence.

The report specifically mentions the Center’s “support for organizations such as the U.S. Southern Command,” despite the fact that the Center “lost large numbers of personnel and leaders,” does not have “the tools designed to meet its statutory roles and duties,” and that the Army had developed plans, early last year, to euthanize it.

The report notes that an official from an unnamed combatant command “stated that they largely divested their CHMR personnel, functions, and responsibilities as of March 2025.” Another said that they did not “want to spend resources on actions or make future commitments for a program that may be significantly changed.”

As the Pentagon has starved the CHMR enterprise, the U.S. has killed more than 2,000 civilians across the world — from Latin America to Africa to the Middle East — during Trump’s second term. “This is unprecedented in terms of the sheer number of theaters where harm to civilians has been reported within such a short space of time,” Megan Karlshoej-Pedersen, a policy specialist with Airwars, told The Intercept, referencing attacks in the Caribbean Sea, the Pacific Ocean, Iran, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen.

Airwars tracked reports of at least 224 civilians in Yemen killed during the Trump administration’s campaign of air and naval strikes — codenamed Operation Rough Rider — against Yemen’s Houthi government in the spring of 2025. This nearly doubled the civilian casualty toll in Yemen from U.S. attacks since 2002, meaning that almost as many civilians were reportedly killed in 52 days as the previous 23 years of airstrikes and commando raids.

Related

Hegseth Asks for More Money as Iran War Costs Skyrocket

The preliminary findings of a U.S. military investigation revealed by The Intercept and other outlets determined that the United States conducted an attack on the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab, Iran, in February, contradicting assertions by President Donald Trump that Iran struck the school. More than 150 civilians were killed, most of them children.

Almost 115,200 civilian homes, commercial properties, and other civilian sites have been damaged in the U.S.–Israel war on Iran, according to a report from the Iranian Red Crescent Society last month; this includes 763 schools. The Red Crescent also reported that more than 334 medical, health, pharmaceutical, and emergency centers have been damaged, including 18 of its own centers. Twenty-four health workers have been killed and 116 injured, according to Iran’s Ministry of Health and Medical Education.

“U.S.–Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 2,362 civilians, including 383 children, and injured over 32,314 civilians, according to official figures,” Raha Bahreini, a regional researcher with Amnesty International’s Iran Team told The Intercept and other journalists during a press briefing late last month.

On Thursday, Adm. Brad Cooper — the senior officer overseeing U.S. combat operations in Iran — told senators that the strike on the school in Minab was the only civilian casualty incident he knew of after more than 13,600 U.S. strikes.

Airwars has chronicled more than 300 civilian casualty incidents in Iran since the start of the conflict.

“How do you explain the publicly available information that 22 schools have been hit and multiple hospitals?” asked Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., citing a New York Times report. “There’s no way we can corroborate that,” Cooper replied.

The inspector general’s report specifically says that a database used for tracking civilian harm — which could be used in verification efforts — was abandoned. The “Army stopped funding the data management platform,” it notes.

Cooper said that preventing civilian harm is “a matter that I’m passionate about.”

Related

U.S. Military Killed Boat Strike Survivors for Not Surrendering Correctly

Hegseth has launched overlapping efforts to weaken transparency, scuttle accountability, hobble military justice, and undercut protections for civilians in conflict — from replacing the Pentagon press corps with pro-administration sycophants and firing the top legal authorities of the Army and the Air Force last year, reportedly pursuing changes that would encourage lawyers to approve more aggressive tactics and take a more lenient approach to those who violate the laws of war.

Late last month, Hegseth repeatedly dismissed congressional concerns about civilian harm and respect for the laws of war in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. “The Department of War fights to win,” Hegseth replied when asked if he stood by his statement that the U.S. would afford enemies “no quarter” — a war crime.

While the U.S. has been clinging to a rickety ceasefire with Iran for more than a month, Trump has previously threatened to commit genocide there. “We’ll go back and finish them off. And, by the way, more than that,” he said on Friday.

Bryant believes that efforts by congressional Democrats and press coverage of civilian casualties — and the ensuing pressure on Hegseth — has kept the lights on at what remains of the Center of Excellence and held CHMR on life support. “Given all the controversy and heat that Hegseth and the administration have since received for civilian casualties, it has behooved them to be able to technically say that some semblance of the program still exists,” he told The Intercept. “However, I can tell you with 100 percent confidence that it exists at this point entirely on paper and as a legal CYA,” or cover your ass.

The post Internal Pentagon Report Reveals Hegseth Is Willfully Putting Civilians in Danger appeared first on The Intercept.

Paul Edwin Overby Jr. vanished in May 2014 while researching a book in Khost province, Afghanistan, the FBI said.

A conversation with Orville Schell.

Politicians and other X users shared a manipulated clip appearing to show U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, the leading Republican candidate in the Florida gubernatorial race, supporting insider trading as a way to live with luxury.

Chris Nelson, a conservative activist and writer, shared the video on X with the caption, "Byron Donalds says insider trading should ABSOLUTELY BE ALLOWED for members of Congress." The post got thousands of shares.

In the video, Donalds appeared to say:

"Insider trading should absolutely be allowed for members of Congress. Look, the salary, it doesn’t cut it anymore. If I happen to make millions because I’m privy to sensitive government information, well, that’s called initiative. The American people want leaders who know how to capitalize on opportunity. That’s leadership. I want a bigger house. I want to drive a Bentley. I want investment properties in Miami and Aspen."

Former Florida state Sen. Paula Dockery, who left the Republican Party in 2017 and Democratic Tennessee state Sen. Heidi Campbell shared it. Campbell’s post is now unavailable.

But Donalds didn’t say that. It’s a fake video, altered from a real CBN News interview on May 8. 

A Donalds spokesperson said the video involved artificial intelligence and did not reflect the congressman’s words.

This is what Donalds really said:

"You know, my mother, she has three children. I’m the middle child. My parents never married, just, they ain’t come together, whatever happened between my parents. But my mom just did everything that she could. She really believed in me, believed in, really, my abilities, thought education was gonna be key for my success. And so for her, there was no stone that was to be left unturned for me to be successful in life."

The first instance of the video that PolitiFact found came from an X account with 21 followers that regularly posts deepfakes of Donalds. Within minutes of the account sharing the deepfake of Donalds talking about insider trading, Nelson re-shared it. 

When we contacted Nelson about our findings, he said, "It looks real to me and it rings true about Byron’s beliefs on insider trading."

When people commented on Nelson’s post that the video involved AI, he replied with what read like sarcasm, saying, "No way!!" and "Byron would never be this honest in real life." Nelson ran for Fort Lauderdale mayor in 2024 and dropped out.

Donalds spoke about insider trading in 2025, saying he doesn’t trade securities, but has a broker with trading authority. He said he supports banning Congress members and their families from initiating trades, but members should be allowed to have brokers who trade on their behalf. He made similar comments in December 2025, saying he has always opposed congressional trading, adding, "I think you do have to make an allowance for members who give third-party authorization to a financial professional."

In 2024, the Campaign Legal Center filed an ethics complaint alleging that Donalds violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act by failing to properly disclose stock trades amounting to $1.6 million. A spokesperson told Business Insider that Donalds did not directly make those trades, and that he was "working to reconcile any outstanding infractions."

The video doesn’t show Donalds saying "insider trading should absolutely be allowed for members of Congress" because he wants to own a bigger house and a Bentley. We rate that claim Pants on Fire! ​

Former election clerk who allowed unauthorized access to voting systems was convicted and sentenced to nine years

• US politics – live updates

• Sign up for the Breaking News US email

The Colorado governor, Jared Polis, commuted the nearly nine-year prison sentence of a former Colorado clerk who allowed unauthorized people to access her county’s voting systems in a case that had been an intense focus of Donald Trump and other allies who sought to overturn the 2020 election.

Tina Peters, who is currently incarcerated, will be released on parole on 1 June after Polis reduced her sentence from eight and a half years in prison to about four and a half. “This is an extremely unusual and lengthy sentence for a first time offender who committed non-violent crimes,” Polis wrote in a clemency letter to Peters.

With third-highest number of books banned, state removes renowned work about slave trade from library shelves

A Tennessee school district has banned Roots, the author Alex Haley’s groundbreaking novel and one of the most renowned and influential works about the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade.

Knox county schools (KCS) took that step under a state law that has disappeared hundreds of titles from school libraries and alarmed advocates of free expression.

Bitwarden appears to be undergoing a quiet shift in leadership and messaging. Its longtime CEO and CFO have stepped down, while the company has removed "Always free" from a prominent password-manager page and replaced "Inclusion" and "Transparency" in its GRIT values with "Innovation" and "Trust." Fast Company reports: In February, longtime CEO Michael Crandell moved to an advisory role, according to LinkedIn, with no announcement from the company. His replacement, Michael Sullivan, former CEO of both Acquia and Insightsoftware, touts his experience with "all facets of mergers and acquisitions" on his own LinkedIn page, including experience working with leading private equity firms. CFO Stephen Morrison also left Bitwarden in April, replaced by former InVision CEO Michael Shenkman. Both Crandell and Morrison joined the company in 2019. Kyle Spearrin, who started Bitwarden as a fun hobby project in 2015, remains the company's CTO. Meanwhile, Bitwarden has made some subtle tweaks to its website. The page for its personal password manager no longer includes the phrase "Always free." Previously this appeared under the "Pick a plan" section partway down the page, but that section no longer mentions the free plan, though it remains available elsewhere on the page. Bitwarden made this change in mid-April, according to the Internet Archive. Bitwarden has also stopped listing "Inclusion" and "Transparency" as tentpole values on its careers page. The company has long defined its values with the acronym "GRIT," which used to stand for "Gratitude, Responsibility, Inclusion, and Transparency." After May 4, it changed the acronym to stand for "Gratitude, Responsibility, Innovation, and Trust." The phrase "inclusive environment" still appears under a description of Gratitude, while "transparency" is mentioned under the Trust heading. They're just no longer the focus.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A report suggests that Google's 15GB free tier is at risk as the company tests a lower 5GB cap for new sign-ups.

Google recently launched something called Health Coach, an “AI” thing that’s part of the company’s new Fitbit products. Let’s check in with how that’s going.

Put simply, Google’s paid replacement for Fitbit Premium immediately began hallucinating, even admitting to having made up the data before asking if, you know, maybe I’m the one who actually forgot to input a run. Remember, this is my very first report from this thing, making for an awful first impression. Even after this correction, the run data continues to exist within the AI-powered home screen layout, despite no record actually appearing within my account. It’s not exactly a great advertisement for a platform that costs $10 per month or $100 annually.

↫ Will Sattelberg at 9To5Google

The entire US’ – and thus much of the world’s – economic growth is built on this trash. What could possibly go wrong?

In June 2025, Christian Cerna went to a protest in his neighborhood against ICE raids and allegedly punched a border patrol agent. He later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault, but denies that he ever hit the officer. Days after the protest, Christian was violently arrested in front of his family by ICE officers, who filmed the whole operation and later posted it to social media. Christian tells Carter Sherman how the experience took a "heavy toll" on him and Sam Levin reveals the reporting behind the story

A newly discovered vulnerability circumvents even always-on VPNs for Android users.

One of the top pieces of customer feedback in the graphics driver area is clear: “Windows Update downgrades my drivers.” Today, we are announcing a policy change to how display drivers are published through Windows Update — allowing 2-Part HWID + Computer Hardware ID (CHID) targeting for new devices. This change gives customers more control over their display driver of choice while preserving OEM control over the devices they ship.

↫ Garrettd at Microsoft’s Hardware Dev Center

Windows Update randomly downgrading your graphics drivers seems to be a common enough occurrence that its supposed fix deserves its own feature announcement and blog post. This is a real operating system that runs on most of the world’s PCs.

A Manhattan resident who was on the cruise ship at the center of the hantavirus outbreak traveled freely after leaving the ship, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not warn public health authorities in New York of her potential exposure to the deadly virus, according to New York City and state officials.

The woman, a dual citizen of New Zealand and the United States with residences in Manhattan and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was one of 30 passengers who left the MV Hondius expedition cruise ship while it docked at Saint Helena island, in the South Atlantic, in late April after one passenger had already died of a lethal strain of hantavirus. A second and third passenger died days later, one on board and one in a hospital in South Africa, but by the time the ship had become a focus of headlines worldwide, the woman was well on her way on a globe-hopping itinerary.

The CDC informed health officials in various states of other Americans potentially exposed to the virus, but failed to alert New York health officials about the Manhattan woman.

There is no indication that the woman intended to come back to the United States or to New York any time soon. Instead, she continued on a multi-continental trip around the world. Her ability to continue traveling — and the lack of notice issued to authorities in the location to which she might eventually return — raise worrying questions about the potential spread of the disease, said Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease specialist at Stanford University.

“If she’s on the loose, then we need to be aware of where she might come back to,” Karan said. “So the New York Department of Health, and officials at the port of entry, they need to make sure this person is flagged when they return.”

The traveler, a 75-year-old former pharmaceutical executive, matches the description of a former ship passenger who is now in quarantine in Taiwan, according to local news reports there. Her peregrinations first came to light in reporting by Intercept contributor Jacqueline Sweet, who published a report on the traveler on her personal Substack.

The woman’s dual nationality and connection to addresses in multiple states appears to have muddied the lines of communication.

A spokesperson for the New York State Department of Health told The Intercept that after raising the issue with the CDC, they learned that the agency had notified a different state of the woman’s possible exposure to the virus. The spokesperson did not identify the state in question, but public records show the woman is registered to vote at an apartment in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Despite her voter registration in Florida, she has referred in social media posts to the co-op she owns in Manhattan as her home.

Representatives of the CDC and the Florida Department of Health did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment. Florida has not reported that it is monitoring any residents for possible exposure to hantavirus.

New York and other states — including California, Arizona, Washington, Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina — have reported residents with possible exposures, with some states indicating they received notice from the CDC and others saying cruise passengers self-reported. All 18 U.S. citizens who returned to the country directly from the cruise are currently in quarantine in Omaha, Nebraska, and Atlanta, Georgia, while another 16 citizens who shared a plane with a woman evacuated to Johannesburg are being monitored.

From the South Atlantic to a Global Conference

The outbreak took place aboard the MV Hondius, an “expedition” cruise ship that takes adventurous passengers on a monthlong specialized polar tour, stopping at hard-to-reach islands in the South Atlantic. The cruise attracted wildlife enthusiasts, biologists, and extreme travelers attempting to visit as many countries and territories as possible, willing to shell out tens of thousands of dollars for the trip.

On April 6, one of those travelers, a 70-year-old Dutch man who prior to the sea voyage had spent more than three months traveling in South America, became ill. He died onboard on April 11, and on April 24, the victim’s 69-year-old wife disembarked at Saint Helena; the next day, she flew to Johannesburg, South Africa, where she died soon after. A third passenger died on May 2 — the same day that the World Health Organization declared an outbreak of hantavirus as the culprit.

The CDC has been accused of a slow response to the outbreak, holding its first briefing on the crisis on May 9, a week after WHO announced that the deaths were caused by the rare Andes strain of hantavirus, which is spread in South America by the pygmy rice rat and which can be transmitted among humans via close physical contact with someone already showing signs of infection. Because the early symptoms of the virus, including fever, fatigue, and muscle aches, are common in many other viral infections, the disease can be hard to identify before the rapid onset of more serious symptoms like pneumonia and respiratory distress.

In the case of the hantavirus outbreak, as with other public health crises, officials need to walk a careful line between ensuring safety and avoiding panic, Karan said. And the key to keeping a lid on the outbreak is ensuring proper quarantine for anyone with a potential exposure.

“Because this took place on a cruise ship, it actually helped us detect this quickly, and for now it appears to be decently contained,” Karan said. “But the problem is that, it’s not like you have a camera on these people to know if they’re not going out or seeing other people. So you don’t definitely know unless they’re quarantining at a monitored center.”

Related

Amid Hantavirus Panic, the Ivermectin Super Fans Are Back

Compounding the trouble, however, is that many of the passengers on the cruise are part of an “extreme travel” subculture whose lifestyle centers around relentless jetsetting. Even with the international attention being paid to the ship and its passengers, a number of people have been found to have trekked globe-spanning itineraries since the outbreak was revealed. 

The itinerary of the Manhattan woman after she left the MV Hondius showed a complexity typical of such “extreme travelers.” In a social media post on April 28, the traveler said she had flown from Saint Helena to Johannesburg, where she stayed in a hotel before flying on to Hong Kong and then to Bangkok, Thailand. In Bangkok, she wrote that she took a shuttle across the city to its second airport and flew to Trang, in southern Thailand, where she stayed in a hotel overnight before taking a boat to the island of Ko Ngai. Her most recent social media post was from Hanoi, Vietnam, several days before reports surfaced of the former ship passenger matching her description under quarantine in Taiwan.

She was just one of 30 travelers who left the ship while it docked at Saint Helena, prior to the declaration of an outbreak — setting off a scramble by global public health officials to identify everyone who might have been exposed.

The profile of the passengers themselves complicated the picture, according to Alina Chan, a molecular biologist and co-author of “VIRAL: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19” who advocated for more scrutiny of a possible lab origin for the virus that caused the Covid pandemic.

“The cruise selected for these extreme travelers, and you cannot ask for a potentially better superspreader,” Chan said. “And if one of the passengers presented to an international hospital with symptoms without the hospital being aware of their exposure on the ship, by the time the hospital would know, healthcare workers could have already been exposed.”

Most public health officials agree the hantavirus outbreak is unlikely to transform into a pandemic. But the incubation period for the Andes virus is anywhere from four to 42 days, raising concerns that the traveler and others who left the ship prior to the outbreak becoming known could transmit the virus to others if they become sick. That’s led global health officials to scramble to identify passengers and notify their home countries. But the timing of these communications, and how they unfolded, are unclear, as the case of this woman reveals.

While the CDC alerted a number of states, including New York, to the fact that residents with potential exposures could be coming home, the Manhattan-based traveler appears to have slipped through the cracks, and state health officials there only learned of her connection to the state after receiving inquiries from Sweet.

It appears that the MV Hondius’s parent company first reported that this passenger was a New Zealand national to New Zealand health authorities. After The Intercept began making inquiries with the New Zealand Ministry of Health in conjunction with reporters from news outlet Radio New Zealand, as well as to the woman and other conference attendees, the Ministry of Health told Radio New Zealand that although the woman had ignored their previous attempts to contact and assist her, on Tuesday she suddenly contacted them. The Ministry of Health said they had alerted the United States last week that she was in fact a resident of the U.S., and not New Zealand, and on Tuesday, they also alerted health officials in the country she is in currently, which is unknown.

On Monday, news from New Zealand broke that an American woman, since reported as being from California, had turned up in remote Pitcairn Island, a tiny South Pacific island with less than 50 residents. She had flown from Saint Helena after departing the MV Hondius early to San Francisco, before flying to Tahiti and then taking a boat voyage to Pitcairn. It’s unknown if any health authorities contacted her before her travels. She is now being quarantined on the island.

Reached by The Intercept, a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health pointed to an existing press release about monitoring hantavirus exposures and added: “When we have new information to share, we will do so.”

Chan advised that “the WHO should make a list of all passengers available to all countries so they can be aware of visitors with exposure, rather than rely on each country.” Communication between the WHO and the United States was delayed in the days of the MV Hondius outbreak, since the Trump administration left the global health alliance, but the CDC and the WHO have reportedly been working together for the past week. 

“In a best-case scenario there are no more waves, but this shows the WHO and the CDC are not prepared. This was the best-case scenario, with the passengers all known from the cruise,” Chan said. “When you can mess up with this controlled of a scenario, what will happen next time?”

The post CDC Didn’t Tell New York About Resident on Hantavirus-Plagued Cruise appeared first on The Intercept.

In an interview with "Face the Nation," Gates said another mass exodus from Cuba is the "biggest risk."

Google has confirmed it is testing a 5GB storage limit for some new Gmail accounts, with users able to unlock the standard 15GB by adding a phone number. Android Authority reports: While the company didn't mention which regions are impacted, user reports from yesterday were mostly from African countries. That said, if Google's tests prove successful, this could possibly become the norm for new sign-ups in more regions. The company could be testing ways to discourage users from creating multiple Gmail accounts to access free cloud storage. However, if you already have a Gmail account with 15GB free storage, it shouldn't be impacted by this change. The language on Google's support page mentions "up to 15GB of storage." However, it's a recent change. An archived version of the support page from February did not use the words "up to." Whether the test has been running since early March or Google updated its language before it ever started the test, it's evident that the company could roll out the change globally as well.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Prosecutors have described fatal shooting outside of DC’s Capital Jewish Museum last year as calculated and planned

The US justice department will seek the death penalty for the man accused of fatally shooting two staff members of the Israeli embassy in Washington outside a Jewish museum, prosecutors said in a court filing on Friday.

Elias Rodriguez faces federal hate crime and murder charges in the killings of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim as they left an event at the museum last May. Rodriguez shouted “free Palestine” during the shooting and later told police, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza,” according to his indictment.

Officials of Social Circle, population 5,000, file lawsuit over plan to turn warehouse into 10,000-capacity facility

Officials in the small Georgia town of Social Circle have filed a lawsuit against federal immigration agencies over plans for a huge immigration detention facility, arguing the project threatens to overburden local services and damage the environment.

The complaint, filed on Wednesday in US district court for the middle district of Georgia, accuses US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of moving ahead with the project without completing mandatory environmental assessments.

You're the weakest link in your own cybersecurity. And scam calls and emails are the biggest threat.

Statement following ‘productive’ talks in Washington comes as Israel launches strikes on southern city of Tyre

Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a 45-day extension of their ceasefire after another round of talks in Washington, the US state department has said.

It came after two “productive” days of talks, and more negotiations would be held from 2-3 June, the department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said.

KAYLA BELFONT
Staff Reporter

The Trump administration subpoenaed the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in June and Nemours Children’s Health in Wilmington in July. The July subpoena, which was served to over 20 hospitals nationwide and came to light in a court filing in August, demanded patients’ medical records — including dates of birth, Social Security numbers and addresses — as well as years’ worth of physician communications. 

Nemours Children’s Health is facing continuous scrutiny from the Trump administration, and officially stopped accepting new patients into its gender-affirming care clinic. A federal judge in Philadelphia sided with CHOP in Nov., quashing the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) demands and finding that the government lacked the authority to conduct what the court called a sweeping exploration of the hospital’s files. 

The Trump administration appealed the ruling and has since escalated pressure on both hospitals, referring them to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for investigation.

At the center of the legal battle is the hospitals’ provision of gender-affirming care to minors.

The term “gender-affirming care” encompasses more procedures and medical treatment than many typically assume. HHS states that gender-affirming care is anything that makes you feel more like your gender — despite age, ethnicity, nationality or sex. However, this definition of gender-affirming care is no longer supported by the Trump administration.

Professor Eric Layland in the university’s Department of Human Development and Family Sciences explains the breadth of gender-affirming care.

“Gender-affirming care is a broad area of both medical, mental and other care that allows someone to feel like their sense of their gender and self is affirmed through those medical health and social services that are offered to them,” Layland said. “Gender-affirming care can also include things like getting a haircut that allows you to express your gender in the way you want to.”

Concern over the age of those seeking gender-affirming care has become a primary political issue, with 767 bills proposed nationally in 2026 to limit access to such care. According to a student at the university, who wishes to remain anonymous for their protection, age should not be a limitation when it comes to access to care.

“Hormone blockers, which is a form of gender-affirming care, comes at 12 to 13 years of age,” the student said.

Hormone blockers can be used to delay puberty changes by stopping the production of sex hormones. Finn Thornton, the assistant director of communications for the Lavender Programming Board (LPB), a registered student organization (RSO) for LGTBTQ+ students on campus, mentions that hormone blockers are much safer than many people assume them to be.

“Hormone blockers for young trans people are actual life-saving medical care, and there is so much stigma around them right now that just is untrue,” Thornton, who is a transgender senior at the university, said. “They’re not nearly as unsafe as people seem to think they are, and they’re not nearly as permanent as people think they are.”

Thornton had similar beliefs when asked what age is too soon for treatment.

“Having an age cutoff for gender-affirming care is a ridiculous concept to me,” Thornton said. “It’s purely a way to try to control people, and it doesn’t have anything to do with trying to keep people safe.”

Thorton explained that enforcing federal policies to get rid of gender-affirming care will not stop people from seeking support. Instead, it would likely make such care less accessible and potentially less safe.

“That leads to increased suicide rates for trans people, especially young trans people,” Thornton said. “It leads to people trying to, kind of, DIY their own gender-affirming care, which can be extremely dangerous.”

Layland explained that because of these subpoenas and recent political decisions, many patients around the nation have been unable to receive care.

“For patients who are currently in treatment or were on the way to receiving treatment, many of them have had their treatment withdrawn or stopped,” Layland said. “Across the country, health centers have cut programming that is focused on gender-affirming care in those services.”

The student who wished to remain anonymous argued that correlations between suicide rates are crucial to take note of.

“Look at the studies, look at the statistics,” the student said. “Gender-affirming care helps people way more than it hurts them.” 

Thornton also highlighted the impact of these policies and legal battles for kids.

“I think kids are always super aware of what’s going on, more than what most people think,” Thornton said. “They’re going to know that it’s less safe for them to speak about their gender identities.”

In light of political disagreement over the issue, transgender people are looking for ways to move forward.

“I think it’s just about being as informed and educated as you can, and knowing there are ways to get around it,” the anonymous student said. “There are resources, there is access, but it’s true that it is being limited, it is being censored and there is a lot of fear around it.”

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A bill focused on maintaining long-term playable access to online games has passed out of the California Assembly's appropriations committee, setting up a floor vote by the full legislative body. The advancement is a major win for Stop Killing Games' grassroots game preservation movement and comes over the objections of industry lobbyists at the Entertainment Software Association. California's Protect Our Games Act, as currently written, would require digital game publishers who cut off support for an online game to either provide a full refund to players or offer an updated version of the game "that enables its continued use independent of services controlled by the operator." The act would also require publishers to notify players 60 days before the cessation of "services necessary for the ordinary use of the digital game." As currently amended, the act would not apply to completely free games and games offered "solely for the duration of [a] subscription. Any other game offered for sale in California on or after January 1, 2027, would be subject to the law if it passes. [...] In a formal statement of support for the bill sent to the California legislature, SKG wrote that "there is no other medium in which a product can be marketed and sold to a consumer and then ripped away without notice As live service games rise in popularity for game developers and gamers alike, end-of-life procedures are essential tools to ensure prolonged access to the games consumers pay to enjoy." The Entertainment Software Association, which helps represent the interests of major game publishers, publicly told the California Assembly last month that the bill misrepresents how modern game distribution actually works. "Consumers receive a license to access and use a game, not an unrestricted ownership interest in the underlying work," the ESA wrote. The eventual shutdown of outdated or obsolete games is "a natural feature of modern software," the group added, especially when that software requires online infrastructure maintenance. The ESA also said the bill would impose unreasonable expectations on publishers regarding licensing rights for music or IP rights, which are often negotiated on a time-limited basis. "A legal requirement to keep games playable indefinitely could place publishers in an impossible position -- forcing them to renegotiate licenses indefinitely or alter games in ways that may not be legally or technically feasible," they wrote.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Which scheduler should you use for AI workloads, Slurm or Kubernetes? It’s a debate that generates passionate arguments on both sides. Both schedulers have their strong suits, and there’s no single universal answer that’s always correct. But Slurm and Kubernetes are not equal at all stages of AI, and choosing the wrong one could have a big impact on your AI deployment. A new project called Slinky could change that.

Slurm, which stands for Simple Linux Utility for Resource Management, came out of Lawrence Livermore Lab in 2002 as a way to manage HPC resources, as well as a way to grant users access to supercomputers. The software works by managing a queue of HPC jobs; allocating requested compute resources, such as nodes, CPUs, memory, or GPUs to those jobs for specific durations; and then executing them on compute nodes, typically using MPI. It also provides monitoring functions.

Today, Slurm is the most popular scheduling software in the HPC community, and is used on about 60% of the supercomputers on the Top500 list. According to 2024 data from Intersect360 Research, it has a 20% share of the overall supercomputer market, and is dominant in academic settings. The open source technology has been managed primarily by a company called SchedMD, which Nvidia acquired in late 2025.

Kubernetes is also a workload manager, but it works in a different way. The software (which is often shortened to K8s) works by defining a set of core building blocks that are used to deploy, maintain, and scale applications. Users tells K8s what kind of cluster they want, according to the number and type of processors and memory, and the workload manager automatically builds and maintains the environment.

Kubernetes emerged in 2014 out of Google, as many modern computing constructs have. Google developed Kubernetes internally as a way to manage its humongous fleet of servers, and it donated K8s to the open source community to foster its continued development, as it has done with many other technologies, such as PageRank, MapReduce, Bigtable, Android, TensorFlow, and Transformers, which gave us large language models.

Exposing Tribal Faultlines

(Manik-shah/Shutterstock)

The Slurm vs. Kubernetes question exposes deep-seated tribal faultlines within the technological community, said Stephen Watt, a Red Hat distinguished engineer and VP of the Office of the CTO.

“It’s partially technological, partially cultural. I think it’s quite interesting,” Watt said of the Slurm vs. Kubernetes divide. “We have sort of a pragmatic view.”

While Red Hat does sell an enterprise distribution of Kubernetes, that doesn’t mean it advocates for Kubernetes in all situation. In some situations, K8s makes the most sense, while in others, Slurm brings capabilities that Kubernetes just can’t match.

“If you are dealing with the standard operations tribe that are ensuring that applications that run….that’s a pretty simple conversation because they’ve got our enterprise Kubernetes distribution, which is OpenShift,” Watt told HPCwire in a recent interview.

“When you deal with a different tribe, which I’d call maybe the PyTorch tribe…it’s primarily a research-focused community, with research and frontier model providers,” he continued. “And those teams are typically supported by research IT infrastructures that have been running Slurm for decades.”

Slurm: Strong for Scale, Batch, and Training

The two tribes have widely different perceptions of how the two workload schedulers work. The research and HPC community likes Slurm because it’s familiar and it just works. If you need to efficiently schedule a large number of batch on a massive supercomputer, it’s hard to beat Slurm, Watt said.

“There is this perception that, well, Slurm just works. And that’s true,” Watt said. “I would say if you’re doing model pre-training [Slurm] is what we would recommend you use, not Kubernetes. It scales to 30,000 nodes. Kubernetes scales to around 5,000. So while there are people using Kubernetes for pre-training, Slurm is quite a lot simpler to use.”

Watt, who cut his teeth on distributed tech such as Hadoop and Spark, recalls how eBay would use Slurm to manage 12-hour training runs every night to update their machine learning model. The model updates would improve the transaction processing for the online auction site.

“Slurm is super good for that,” Watt said. “But that’s different than saying, hey, somebody is depending on this thing every second of every hour. And if it goes down, there’s a business continuity problem and there’s revenue that gets lost. And that’s where Kubernetes guarantees that 100%, or 99.9% uptime. And that’s what’s different on inference.”

Kubernetes: Strong for Uptime, Real-Time, and Inference

While Slurm holds advantages in scale and simplicity, Kubernetes holds advantages when it comes to guaranteeing uptime, which is critical for real-time workloads like AI inference.

Watt admits that Kubernetes is much more complicated, especially if you’re trying to trace performance problems through the K8s layer (good luck with that). However, the way that Google designed and built Kubernetes helps the software eliminate a lot of the management complexity that would otherwise be required to ensure resiliency in the event of cluster failures.

“Kubernetes was specifically designed for ephemeral service. There’s no mean time between failure,” Watt said. “When [a node] goes down, you have a system that just handles that without the end-user knowing. The way that works is that Kubernetes has this simple proxy for inbound requests, and it has the same application running on a number of different servers. So if you lose one, it just routes round robins to a different one.”

Slurm cannot match this built-in simplicity, which is why Watt does not recommend using it for user-facing workloads, such as AI inference. If there’s downtime with a batch workload, like model training, the customer can recover the work with checkpointing, but it doesn’t impact the end user. To try and get five-nine availability with Slurm for a real-time, user-facing application like AI inference would be very difficult.

“The problem is if [a node under Slurm] goes down, there’s no inherent failover mechanism that’s as elegant or sophisticated as Kubernetes is,” Watt said. “So you end up doing unnatural things around the Slurm environment to try and get that. If you were just using the right tool, then you wouldn’t have to kind of build a Rube Goldberg machine to keep that thing running.”

Slinky: The Best of Both Worlds?

Some folks in the HPC and AI communities are seeking ways to run Kubernetes and Slurm together. While there are discussion about running Kubernetes under Slurm, most discussions go the other way: Running Slurm under Kubernetes (which would allow Slurm to gain the availability benefit of its host).

SchedMD developed a project called Slinky that seeks to run Slurm within Kubernetes. The project allows Slurm components to be packaged as container images, as well as a Kubernetes an operator that handles deployment, scaling, and lifecycle management of Slurm components.

Nvidia engineers discussed Slinky in a blog post last month. In tests, the Nvidia engineers say Slinky has proven itself on clusters with up to 8,000 GPUs, running both AI training and inference workloads. They say benchmark tests show that the Slinky environment “matches the performance of noncontainerized Slurm deployments, with no measurable impact from the Kubernetes layer Slinky runs on.”

The Red Hat folks are also interested in Slinky. While it’s just an open source project on GitHub today, continued commercial interest could pave the way for potential commercial support down the road.

The post Slurm vs. Kubernetes in the Age of AI appeared first on HPCwire.

The safety specialist's warning appeared in a memo describing how a mini-drone had detonated and injured an Army Special Forces soldier.

At one stage the northern mayor looked to be locked out of parliament, again, but he is still only one step along the road to his No 10 ambitions

For weeks, Andy Burnham’s supporters had told MPs to “hold the line”, that he had a seat in parliament in his sights and that he would be a contender in any leadership contest. That was never the full truth.

His path to No 10 – if he makes it – is littered with more failed attempts than almost any other politician. Two leadership contests, a block on a return in Gorton and Denton, and quite a few aggrieved MPs in the north west who have had to spend weeks batting off suggestions they will give their seats up for him.

Russian drone attacks on Kyiv, Israeli strikes in Lebanon, Trump in Beijing and a mural of Lamine Yamal – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Police investigate incident on Thursday after witness claims seeing Raise the Colours logo on side of vehicle

Police are investigating an incident where a man was run over by a van after a group of people were taking down union flags put up by Raise the Colours campaigners in Birmingham.

A man, in his 30s, suffered a broken leg that required surgery. He remains in hospital after the incident on Thursday evening in the Birmingham suburb of Stirchley, police said.

Uganda also reports outbreak and health officials say cases were caused by Bundibugyo strain of virus

An outbreak of Ebola has killed 65 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, health officials said.

There have been 246 suspected cases of the haemorrhagic fever reported so far in the conflict-hit Ituri province, which shares borders with Uganda and South Sudan.

A larger multinational security force will have broader authority to combat rising gang violence than its predecessor but could face similar funding challenges.

Weinstein has been convicted of other crimes in the US and is already behind bars but move leaves rape charge in limbo

Harvey Weinstein’s retrial in New York on a rape charge ended in a mistrial on Friday after the jury deadlocked in the closely watched criminal case that another jury had already failed to decide last year.

The disgraced former Hollywood mogul has been convicted of other sex crimes on the US east and west coasts and is already in jail. But Friday’s declaration of another mistrial leaves the New York rape charge in limbo after three trials.

Leon Botstein announced his retirement on the day the results of the inquiry into his connections with Epstein were released

Bard College’s board of trustees “voted to end” the 51-year tenure of Leon Botstein, the school’s president, last month after board members were presented with the results of an independent review of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, according to emails seen by the Guardian. Botstein framed his departure as a long-planned retirement in a statement on 1 May.

The move appears to have created a rift within the liberal arts college’s board of trustees.

Female muntjac given nickname of ‘lucky’ Lucy after being freed from department store’s moving staircase

“There’s a deer trapped in an escalator” was not a phrase anyone at Hillside Animal Sanctuary in Norfolk was expecting to hear when staff at a Marks & Spencer department store in central Norwich called last Tuesday.

“In Norfolk, deers often get themselves in trouble,” said the sanctuary’s founder, Wendy Valentine. “They get stuck between walls and sheds, and in gates. It’s quite common for deer to get trapped … but ‘trapped in an escalator’ was a first.”

OpenAI is previewing a feature that lets ChatGPT Pro users connect bank and investment accounts through Plaid, allowing the chatbot to analyze spending, subscriptions, balances, portfolios, debt, and major financial decisions. "More than 200 million people are already going to ChatGPT every month with finance questions -- from budgeting to tips on how to cut back on spending," OpenAI said in its announcement. "Now, users can securely connect their financial accounts with Plaid to get the full view of their financial picture in the context of their personal goals, lifestyle, and priorities that they've shared with ChatGPT, powered by OpenAI's advanced reasoning capabilities." The Verge reports: When financial accounts are connected, OpenAI says that ChatGPT users can view a dashboard that details their spending history, including any active subscriptions. Users can also ask it to help with financial decisions like buying a house or signing up for credit cards and flag any changes in spending habits. This financial feature will be initially available to users in the US who subscribe to ChatGPT's $200-per-month Pro tier. "We'll learn and improve from early use before rolling it out to Plus, with the goal of making it available to everyone," says OpenAI. To assuage concerns, OpenAI promises users "control over their data," including the ability to disconnect their bank accounts from ChatGPT at any time, though the company has up to 30 days to delete your data from its systems. You can also view and delete "financial memories" like goals or financial obligations saved by the chatbot. User control extends to whether your data is fed back into AI models -- users can enable the option to "Improve the model for everyone" to allow financial data in their ChatGPT conversations to be used for training AI, for example. OpenAI also says ChatGPT can't make any changes to your bank accounts or see "full account numbers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Keir Starmer accuses Robinson of ‘peddling hatred and division’ and archbishop of Canterbury urges people to ‘choose hope’

Eleven foreign far-right activists have been blocked from entering the UK before a rally by Tommy Robinson supporters as Keir Starmer accused Robinson of “peddling hatred and division”.

The archbishop of Canterbury urged people to “choose hope” and faith leaders spoke out before the rally on Saturday, the second of its kind, after more than 100,000 attended one last year.

May 15, 2026 — The Workflows and Distributed Computing team at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) has released dislib 1.0.0 (Distributed Computing Library), which provides ready-to-use distributed algorithms, with a strong focus on machine learning and, more recently, distributed neural network training. Its main objective is to facilitate the execution of big data analytics workflows on distributed platforms such as clusters, clouds, and supercomputers. dislib is implemented on top of the PyCOMPSs programming model, the Python binding of COMPSs.

Credit: BSC

dislib is built around a distributed data structure, the ds-array, which enables parallel and distributed execution of machine learning methods. The library is implemented as a PyCOMPSs application, where methods are defined as tasks and executed transparently in parallel. As a result, users can write simple Python scripts, without dealing with parallelization details, through an interface closely aligned with scikit-learn. dislib provides methods for clustering, classification, regression, decomposition, model selection, neural network training, and data management.

Since its creation, dislib has been applied to several real-world use cases, including astrophysics (DBSCAN with GAIA mission data), molecular dynamics workflows (Daura and PCA within the BioExcel CoE), and multiple applications in the eFlows4HPC project, such as urgent computing for natural hazards, digital twins for manufacturing, and distributed neural network training. In the AI-SPRINT project, it has also been used for personalized healthcare in atrial fibrillation detection using Random Forest models.

“Reaching version 1.0.0 means that dislib is no longer just a research prototype, but a mature library, and seeing it already powering real applications, from earthquake impact estimation to personalized healthcare and digital twins, is the best confirmation that we are on the right track. With this release, we are opening the door to a new generation of converged HPC and AI workflows,” stated Eduardo Iraola, maintainer of the library and researcher at BSC.

Another success case is in its use with the MLESmap (ML-based EStimator for ground-shaking maps) which exploits the Random Forest implementation to generate regional ML-based models that accurately estimate impact metrics within a few seconds of an earthquake occurrence given its location and magnitude. It has also been used for Design of Experiments (DoE) exploration and inference in the Aerospace and Natural hazards fields (CAELESTIS and DT-Geo projects, respectively).

The 1.0.0 release marks a major milestone, establishing a stable and robust API suitable for advanced research and large-scale distributed environments. It introduces significant improvements in compatibility, usability, and ecosystem support. It adds support for distributed neural network training with PyTorch and PyEDDL and ensures compatibility with COMPSs 3.4 and NumPy 2.x. Array handling and type naming have been updated to comply with stricter coercion rules. The Docker images have been reorganized into separate flavors (base and torch), with a reduced image size, and the documentation has been improved to enable cleaner builds with an updated Sphinx theme.

The dislib developments are partially funded by the Horizon Europe CyclOps, CAELESTIS and DT-Geo projects, contract numbers 101135513, 101056886 and 101058129. The developments have also been supported by the projects CEX2021-001148-S, and PID2023-147979NB-C21 from the MCIN/AEI and MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by FEDER, UE, by the Departament de Recerca i Universitats de la Generalitat de Catalunya, research group MPiEDist (2021 SGR 00412).

dislib 1.0.0 also includes additional refinements, updated examples, and a new user guide. The code is open source and available for download.

About the Workflows and Distributed Computing Group

The Workflows and Distributed Computing group at BSC aims to offer tools and mechanisms that enable the sharing, selection, and aggregation of a wide variety of geographically distributed computational resources in a transparent way. The research done in this team is based on the former expertise of the group, and extending it towards the aspects of distributed computing that can benefit from this expertise. The team at BSC has a strong focus on programming models and resource management and scheduling in distributed computing environments.

Source: BSC-CNS

The post BSC Releases New Tool to Simplify Machine Learning and Big Data Analytics on Distributed Platforms appeared first on HPCwire.

Autumn conference in Liverpool targeted for victorious homecoming but Reform UK to fight hard in byelection

Andy Burnham will push to become prime minister in time to address Labour’s autumn party conference in Liverpool, his supporters have said.

The Greater Manchester mayor cleared his first hurdle to becoming the candidate in the Makerfield byelection on Friday when Labour’s ruling body gave him permission to stand for the seat.

PROVIDENCE, R.I., May 15, 2026 — Artificial intelligence is poised to enable new scientific breakthroughs and technologies in fields spanning energy, materials science, supercomputing and more. The U.S. Department of Energy’s 17 National Laboratories operate at the frontier of applied AI research.

Faculty and students showcase their work at a poster session in the Engineering Research Center. Photo credit: Sherri Miles.

On Thursday, May 14, top researchers from those national labs met with faculty, staff and students from Brown University to discuss the future of AI-enabled scientific research. The daylong conference — Brown’s second National Labs Day — aimed to highlight current collaborations between University researchers and the national labs, and identify emerging opportunities for future scientific partnerships.

“Brown’s vision is using our research excellence to try to solve today’s most pressing problems, and collaborations with national labs are really critical for that,” said Greg Hirth, vice president for research at Brown, in his opening remarks. “And today, we’re going to be hearing about the cutting edge of AI, which, of course, is on everyone’s mind.”

In total, 18 staff scientists from the Brookhaven, Fermilab, Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories took part in the program. From Brown, more than 150 community members signed up to attend topical sessions aimed at showing how shared AI tools and datasets can accelerate scientific breakthroughs. Sessions focused on AI in energy technologies, basic science research, national security and workforce development. In a late-day session at Brown’s Engineering Research Center, more than 40 posters showcased research happening at Brown in physics, chemistry, engineering, computer science and other fields.

Brown researchers have a long history of working with national laboratories. Current and recent collaborations have aimed to develop better batteries, energy-abundant hydrogen fuel cells and next-generation solar cells. In addition to highly applied research, Brown physicists work with national labs to address fundamental questions of the universe — probing the nature of dark matter, understanding the dynamics of high-energy plasmas and uncovering the behavior of fundamental particles of forces.

Working with researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Brendan Keith, an assistant professor of applied math, is pushing the frontiers of computer-driven material and structural design. George Karniadakis, a professor of engineering and applied mathematics, is the director of SEA-CROGS, a partnership with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories that aims to develop new computational capability to analyze and predict the behavior of complex systems.

Thursday’s conference was hosted by Brown’s Division of Research and School of Engineering. In the keynote address, James Ang, chief data scientist for computing at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, discussed collaboration across the national labs on the Genesis Mission, an initiative aimed at harnessing AI to accelerate discovery science.

“The structure includes AI for science, AI for energy and AI for security,” Ang said. “And those are really the focus points for [the Department of Energy]. These are our application drivers for the development of new technology for AI.”

Sara Mason, a senior scientist at Brookhaven National Lab, encouraged her fellow scientists to approach the AI era without fear.

“I’m thinking about how we’re just living through this exciting time… where there’s this fundamental shift in how science is even being done,” Mason said. “We keep moving through it. When I say moving, I don’t mean flailing our arms. I mean, we’re still ‘sciencing,’ we’re still innovating, and we’re figuring out ways to use these tools and… find new ways to engage with our science.”

Hirth said he’s hopeful that the event will spur new partnerships and create new opportunities for Brown students at the national labs. The event already has a good track record. After the inaugural National Labs Day in 2024, Hirth and a student were part of a group from Brown that paid a visit to Brookhaven National Lab in Upton, New York. As a result of the visit, the student got involved in a research project related to high-pressure phenomena involved in earthquakes.

“That’s an area where AI is super important,” Hirth said. “You can imagine the Earth makes lots and lots of noise, and analyzing those data is a really hard problem. In what used to be thought of as just random background noise, people can now find discrete events, which is helping us understand the phenomena that lead to earthquakes.”

A groundbreaking research partnership to be sure.

Source: Brown University

The post Brown University Hosts DOE National Labs Day Focused on AI for Science Collaboration appeared first on HPCwire.

Google should be ready to tell us more about a whole range of smart glasses to compete with Meta. Here's what we know already.

Trump administration move echoes indictment of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro as fuel crisis racks Cuba

Tensions between Cuba and US seem set to rise further amid reports that
Raúl Castro, the country’s 94-year-old former president, may soon face the type of indictment that led to the US abduction of the Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, in January.

Although Raúl is officially retired, he remains the most potent figure in Cuban politics following the death of his brother Fidel in 2016, and by targeting him Washington appears to be heaping pressure on Cuba’s communist leadership at the end of an already extraordinarily intense week.

SAN JOSE, Calif., May 15, 2026 — KIOXIA America, Inc. has announced it is collaborating with Dell Technologies to deliver a 2U server configuration capable of scaling to 9.8 petabytes (PB) of flash storage. By combining the Dell PowerEdge R7725xd server with AMD EPYC processors and 40 KIOXIA LC9 Series E3.L form factor 245.76 terabyte (TB) NVMe SSDs, the companies are enabling a new class of storage-optimized platforms built to meet the demands of AI, large-scale data lakes, and data-intensive enterprise workloads.

Credit: KIOXIA

Together, Dell Technologies and Kioxia have a long history of enabling scalable infrastructure for data-driven applications. This latest milestone underscores a shared commitment to advancing high-density architectures that improve performance, reduce energy consumption, and maximize data center efficiency.

“As AI workloads grow more demanding, the infrastructure supporting them must keep pace,” said Arun Narayanan, senior vice president, Compute and Networking, Dell Technologies. “The Dell PowerEdge R7725xd combined with KIOXIA’s high-capacity enterprise SSDs delivers the storage density and power efficiency our customers need to scale AI infrastructure without sacrificing performance.”

Dell PowerEdge R7725xd servers are built for modern AI and data-centric workloads, combining dense storage with powerful compute. These flexible air-cooled storage configurations complement GPU-enabled servers, supporting AI data management and model training by delivering massive storage capacity across the AI lifecycle. These systems support up to 5x 400 Gbps NICs, allowing users to fill and move data through pipelines more efficiently – ultimately making the most of their data. Paired with KIOXIA LC9 Series 245.76 TB SSDs, these systems provide high-capacity, power-efficient solutions that reduce TCO and data center footprint.

KIOXIA LC9 Series SSDs deliver up to 245.76 TB of flash-based storage with PCIe 5.0 performance in a range of form factors, including 2.5-inch, E3.S, and E3.L2. As the industry’s first3 NVMe SSD at this capacity built for the demands of generative AI environments, the KIOXIA LC9 Series offers a compelling alternative to more commonly used 30.72 TB capacity SSDs. A comparable 9.8 PB configuration would require seven more servers carrying 280 additional drives, resulting in 8x the power consumption4, as well as utilizing more rack space. This results in a more efficient use of space and power, enabling organizations to scale AI infrastructure without expanding their physical footprint or energy consumption.

“Our KIOXIA LC9 Series 245 TB QLC SSD isn’t just higher density, it’s a shift in how we architect AI infrastructures,” noted Neville Ichhaporia, senior vice president and general manager of the SSD business unit at KIOXIA America, Inc. “With the Dell PowerEdge R7725xd server accommodating 40 drives, a whopping 9.8 PB in a single 2U system can be achieved. Customers can deploy massive ingestion streams, scale data lakes effortlessly, and handle large backups in a fraction of the footprint, improving TCO to new levels.”

The solution highlights how tightly integrated compute and storage innovations can unlock new efficiencies for enterprise and hyperscale environments. By delivering extreme density without compromising performance or energy efficiency, Kioxia and Dell Technologies are helping organizations modernize infrastructure to keep pace with accelerating data growth and AI adoption.

About KIOXIA America, Inc.

KIOXIA America, Inc. is the U.S.-based subsidiary of Kioxia Corporation, a leading worldwide supplier of flash memory and solid-state drives (SSDs). From the invention of flash memory to today’s breakthrough BiCS FLASH 3D technology, Kioxia continues to pioneer innovative memory, SSD and software solutions that enrich people’s lives and expand society’s horizons. The company’s innovative 3D flash memory technology, BiCS FLASH, is shaping the future of storage in high-density applications, including advanced smartphones, PCs, automotive systems, data centers and generative AI systems.

Source: KIOXIA

The post KIOXIA and Dell Showcase 9.8 PB Flash Storage Configuration in 2U Server appeared first on HPCwire.

New map reshapes representative Steve Cohen’s majority-Black Memphis district and gives advantage to Republicans

Democratic representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee on Friday announced that he is ending his bid for re-election, his career upended by the redistricting battles that are sweeping the country after last month’s supreme court decision.

Republicans in Tennessee this month enacted a new US House map that carves up Cohen’s majority-Black district, reshaping it to the GOP’s advantage as part of Donald Trump’s strategy to hold on to a slim majority in the November midterm elections.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., May 15, 2026 — GridCARE has announced the closing of its $64 million oversubscribed Series A financing, representing a significant step-up in valuation from its previous round less than a year ago. The round was led by Sutter Hill Ventures, one of Silicon Valley’s most storied firms and a defining force behind the modern compute era as an original investor in category-defining companies such as NVIDIA, Snowflake, and Astera Labs.

“A year ago, few people were talking about power as a bottleneck for AI – today it’s the rate-limiting step for the entire industry. GridCARE is directly addressing that bottleneck, with an unmatched team, deep domain expertise, and overwhelming customer demand,” said Vic Miller, Managing Director at Sutter Hill Ventures. “Power sits beneath every other layer of the AI stack, and we believe Power Acceleration will be the key technology that enables the AI economy to scale.”

The round also includes John Doerr – the legendary investor behind companies such as Amazon, Google, and Netscape – bringing unparalleled perspectives from every major wave of the internet and AI economy.

“While AI is accelerating breakthroughs in medicine, science, and climate, power remains a bottleneck,” said John Doerr, investor and author of Speed & Scale. “GridCARE delivers affordable, sustainable energy by unlocking capacity in the grid we’ve already built.”

Additional participants include utility strategics National Grid Partners and Future Energy Ventures; Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective; Stanford University; and existing investors Xora, Aina Ventures, Overture, Acclimate Ventures, and Clearvision Ventures, alongside several prominent individuals and family offices deeply involved in the AI infrastructure buildout.

The investment brings together some of the earliest investors in the AI era around a single conviction: the next critical frontier is no longer compute, but power.

The Time-to-Energize Crisis

An analysis from Stanford shows that grid utilization is approximately 30%, meaning the majority of existing power infrastructure remains unused under current operating conditions, except in rare and unlikely scenarios. Yet despite this available capacity, delivering power to new large-scale projects, such as AI factories, takes six to 10 years and costs hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades, paid for by customers.

“This gap between when power is needed and when it can be delivered is emerging as one of the most significant constraints on growth in the AI economy,” said Amit Narayan, co-founder and CEO of GridCARE. “We call this the Time-to-Energize Crisis. It’s leaving AI factories waiting for power when they should be driving progress, slowing critical innovation across health, education, and climate, and putting national security and competitiveness at risk.”

Introducing Power Acceleration

The new capital will establish Power Acceleration as a new category for delivering power to the AI economy, anchored by continued expansion of GridCARE Energize, the company’s physics-based AI platform for data center energy activation and operations. GridCare Energize evaluates quadrillions of grid conditions in real time, modeling congestion, outages, weather, and demand variability simultaneously to identify capacity that traditional interconnection processes cannot see. The platform compresses interconnection timelines from years to months, enabling AI factories, utilities, and energy providers to bring gigawatts of new power online and operate it reliably at the speed and resilience the AI economy demands.

“The largest source of new power for the AI economy isn’t waiting to be built. It’s already in the ground, hidden in the grid we already have,” said Ram Rajagopal, co-founder and CTO of GridCARE, and a tenured Stanford professor on leave to build the company. “Our job is to make it visible and put it to work in months, not years.”

Built In Alignment With Utilities

Power Acceleration is only possible in a deep collaboration with the utilities that operate the grid. GridCARE is built to align with utilities, not work around them. Utilities face the same urgency as AI factories: meeting unprecedented load growth from data centers, electrification, and re-industrialization without compromising reliability or affordability for the customers they already serve.

“The fastest and least-expensive way to add capacity to the grid is to unlock the megawatts already hidden inside it,” said Steve Smith, President of National Grid Partners and Group Chief Strategy Officer at National Grid. “Our work with GridCARE earlier this year supports the approach. We are deepening that commitment by joining this round as an investor and extending the collaboration into additional markets. By responsibly activating latent capacity, utilities can support economic growth, strengthen reliability, and protect affordability for the customers and communities we serve.”

In October 2025, a joint project with Portland General Electric validated the model in a top U.S. data center market – unlocking a path to over 400 MW of capacity in Hillsboro, Oregon, with the first 80 MW arriving in 2026.

GridCARE is now engaged in AI factory power acceleration projects spanning more than a dozen markets and over 2 GW of new AI compute capacity.

The Inaugural GridCARE Power Acceleration Summit

To address this growing challenge, GridCARE will host the inaugural GridCARE Power Acceleration Summit in September 2026, convening leaders from across the AI and energy ecosystems to define the new category of Power Acceleration for AI: the coordinated effort to unlock grid capacity, accelerate interconnections, and deliver AI infrastructure in the timelines required.

About GridCARE

GridCARE is the pioneer of Power Acceleration, a new system for delivering power in the AI economy. Founded at Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability, GridCARE’s Energize platform uses physics-based AI to identify and activate near-term capacity on today’s grid, enabling AI factories, utilities, and energy providers to unlock underutilized capacity and accelerate the delivery of large-scale AI infrastructure. To date, GridCARE has unlocked more than $10 billion in economic value for data center developers by bringing hundreds of megawatts online years ahead of schedule.

Source: GridCARE

The post GridCARE Raises $64M Series A to Accelerate Power Delivery for AI Infrastructure appeared first on HPCwire.

May 15, 2026 — JetCool, a Flex company and provider of advanced cooling for AI and high-density computing, has announced the launch of its SmartPlate System for Dell PowerEdge R770 and R7725 servers. Designed to help enterprises and edge operators achieve more compute density per rack, the direct-to-chip solution supports next-generation platforms powered by next-generation processors.

Credit: Flex

SmartPlate systems are proven to deliver an average 13% IT power reduction, helping maximize power and floor space in new builds and existing facilities. Fully sealed and ready to install, the system improves thermal performance without facility water or data center retrofits, providing a fast, low-disruption way to adopt direct-to-chip cooling in enterprise data centers and distributed edge locations.

“SmartPlate Systems deliver real results at scale,” said Dr. Bernie Malouin, Founder of JetCool and Vice President at Flex. “By bringing SmartPlate support to Dell PowerEdge R770 and R7725 servers, we’re giving enterprises and edge operators a faster path to higher rack density and better efficiency, without requiring changes to existing facilities.”

“With firsthand experience deploying the SmartPlate System, we’ve seen how it enables direct-to-chip liquid cooling within traditional air-cooled data centers,“ said John Sasser, Chief Technology Officer at JetCool partner Sabey Data Centers, one of the largest privately owned data center providers in the United States. “Using a closed-loop design, it integrates directly into the server, allowing fast, phased deployment. SmartPlate System helps improve server performance and reduce power consumption, giving customers a practical way to increase compute density and maximize their electricity and space budgets.”

Availability and Live Demo Locations

Available today, SmartPlate Systems for PowerEdge R770 and R7725 servers are helping organizations increase capacity, reduce energy costs, and advance sustainability goals without reworking facility infrastructure. Live demos are available at Dell Customer Solution Centers in Round Rock, Texas, and Singapore, as well as at Equinix facilities, Sabey Data Centers, and Telehouse London. JetCool will also showcase its latest solutions at booth 407 during Dell Technologies World, May 18–21, 2026, at the Venetian Expo in Las Vegas. Additional information is available at jetcool.com/dell.

About Flex

Flex (Reg. No. 199002645H) is the manufacturing partner of choice that helps leading brands design, build, and manage products that improve the world. With a global footprint spanning 30 countries, Flex delivers advanced manufacturing and supply chain solutions, innovative products and technology, and lifecycle services that support customers from concept to scale. In the AI era, Flex is helping customers accelerate data center deployment by solving power, heat, and scale challenges through cutting-edge power and cooling technology and scalable IT infrastructure solutions.

About JetCool

JetCool, a Flex company, is a global leader in advanced thermal management for compute-intensive applications. Trusted by top chipmakers, OEMs, and data centers, JetCool delivers a portfolio of liquid cooling solutions that enhance performance, increase energy efficiency, and support sustainability goals. Engineered for the demands of artificial intelligence (AI) and next-generation computing, JetCool’s technologies deliver reliable, scalable performance for data centers around the world.

Source: Flex

The post JetCool Expands SmartPlate System Portfolio with Closed-Loop Cooling for Next-Gen Compute appeared first on HPCwire.

ArXiv says it will ban authors for one year if they submit papers containing AI-generated slop, such as hallucinated citations, placeholder text, or chatbot meta-comments left in the manuscript. "If generative AI tools generate inappropriate language, plagiarized content, biased content, errors, mistakes, incorrect references, or misleading content, and that output is included in scientific works, it is the responsibility of the author(s)," said Thomas Dietterich, chair of the computer science section of ArXiv, on X. "We have recently clarified our penalties for this. If a submission contains incontrovertible evidence that the authors did not check the results of LLM generation, this means we can't trust anything in the paper." 404 Media reports: Examples of incontrovertible evidence, he wrote, include "hallucinated references, meta-comments from the LLM ('here is a 200 word summary; would you like me to make any changes?'; 'the data in this table is illustrative, fill it in with the real numbers from your experiments.'" "The penalty is a 1-year ban from arXiv followed by the requirement that subsequent arXiv submissions must first be accepted at a reputable peer-reviewed venue," Dietterich wrote. Dietterich told [404 Media] in an email on Friday morning that this is a one-strike rule -- meaning authors caught just once including AI slop in submissions will be banned -- but that decisions will be open to appeal. "I want to emphasize that we only apply this to cases of incontrovertible evidence," he said. "I should also add that our internal process requires first a moderator to document the problem and then for the Section Chair to confirm before imposing the penalty."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The president’s meeting with Xi Jinping was superficially cordial, extending a truce borne of necessity

“American strength back on the world stage,” crowed the White House social media post: a curious remark, when the attached video showed the stars and stripes fluttering beneath a long row of Chinese flags, and People’s Liberation Army soldiers marching in unison.

This week’s visit to Beijing offered the kind of style that Donald Trump enjoys – parading troops, a banquet and a polite if not markedly enthusiastic welcome from a strongman he called “really a friend” – but little apparent substance. The public account of the encounter will be partial: Mr Trump’s former adviser John Bolton has claimed that in previous conversations the US president begged Xi Jinping for help to win re-election and urged him to “go ahead” with internment camps for Uyghurs in Xinjiang. But this meeting appears to have been about stabilising the relationship, not shifting it.

The long-necked herbivore is the largest ever found in Southeast Asia, researchers said.

In a move aimed at curbing the growing problem of "teen takeovers," D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is threatening to bring charges against parents if their teens violate the local curfew.

The film-maker, who won the Grand Prix for A Hero in 2021, condemned both the killing of protesters and the conflict’s bombing campaigns during a Cannes press conference

Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has described the deaths of civilians in Iran as “extremely cruel and tragic” during a press conference at the Cannes film festival.

Farhadi, whose new Paris-set drama Parallel Tales premiered on the Croisette on Thursday night, was asked about working free from censorship in France, the war involving Iran, the US and Israel, and the repression of protesters in his native country.

Chancellor says he no longer views US as land of opportunity amid ‘deeply polarising’ social climate

Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, already embroiled in a row with Donald Trump over the Iran war, has said he would not advise his children to study or work in the US in the current climate.

Speaking to a conference of young Catholics in Würzburg, the conservative leader, viewed by many as a transatlanticist, said he no longer saw the US as the land of opportunity.

This blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here

Meanwhile, the Latvian president, Edgars Rinkēvičs, has begun political consultations aimed at finding a parliamentary majority capable of forming a new government after the collapse of prime minister Evika Siliņa’s administration.

Rinkēvičs’s office posted a short video from the meeting on its social media.

"Sunday Morning" presents its annual edition touching on all aspects of design, hosted by Jane Pauley.

A new Ebola outbreak in a remote province in Congo has caused 65 deaths and 246 suspected cases so far, Africa CDC says.

There are already some early Memorial Day deals starting, and you don't want to miss us sending you the best of the sales.

Muscat silent about plans – opposed by US – to charge fee and demand details on nationality of all transiting ships

Oman has been caught in geopolitical crossfire after Iran said it was coordinating with the Gulf state over the future management of the strait of Hormuz, including Tehran’s plans to impose fees on commercial shipping.

The Omani exclave of Musandam lies to the south of the contested waterway, which normally carries a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil traffic but has been blockaded for 10 weeks since the US-Israeli attack on Iran in February.

Establishing a collaborative research cluster for practical quantum education and quantum-HPC fusion

TOKYO and KAWASAKI, Japan, May 15, 2026 — Fujitsu Limited and Institute of Science Tokyo (Science Tokyo) today announced the establishment of the “Fujitsu Quantum and HPC Infrastructure Collaborative Research Cluster” at Science Tokyo. This collaborative research cluster aims to systematically and practically develop human resources with quantum hardware technology in Japan. The initiative is part of Fujitsu’s “Fujitsu Small Research Lab” program and utilizes the Science Tokyo Collaborative Research Cluster System, with support from Open Innovation Office of the Center for Innovation Management. The new cluster will operate as a collaborative research cluster, expanding beyond traditional High Performance Computing (HPC) to include the quantum hardware field.

Credit: Sergiy Palamarchuk/Shutterstock

Through this collaborative research cluster, both parties will strengthen their technological capabilities by researching quantum hardware design, manufacturing, control, and evaluation technologies essential for realizing practical quantum computers. They will also foster talent to support next-generation quantum computing platforms and initiate efforts to pioneer new research areas that integrate HPC and quantum technologies.

Background

Quantum computers are expected to be a foundational technology that will transform society and industry across diverse fields such as materials development, drug discovery, finance, and manufacturing. However, realizing practical quantum computers requires implementing a large number of quantum bits that can be operated with high precision. Their development necessitates the continuous cultivation of highly specialized personnel capable of handling quantum hardware design, manufacturing, control, and evaluation. Furthermore, research and development in quantum hardware faces high barriers due to the need for a wide range of research infrastructure, including advanced facilities for quantum bit chips and manufacturing technology, large-scale cryocoolers for maintaining extremely low temperatures, and quantum bit control devices. Consequently, the number of personnel engaged in this field’s R&D is limited, not only in Japan but globally.

Fujitsu and Science Tokyo have previously collaborated on establishing next-generation computing platforms beyond Science Tokyo’s supercomputer “TSUBAME” and expanding the social application of such technologies through the “Fujitsu Next-Generation Computing Infrastructure Collaborative Research Cluster,” a Fujitsu Small Research Lab. This new collaborative research cluster expands upon that research by incorporating quantum hardware research and talent development initiatives, aiming to pioneer new research areas that fuse HPC and quantum technologies.

Features of the Fujitsu Quantum and HPC Infrastructure Collaborative Research Cluster:

• Locations(1) Quantum Theme Hub:
  Location: Room 1017, South Building 3, Ookayama Campus, Institute of Science Tokyo, 2-12-1 Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo
  Research Content: Research on quantum computer control technology
  Period of Establishment: April 1, 2026, to March 31, 2027 (continuation to be considered thereafter)
  (2) HPC Theme Hub:
  Location: Rooms 310 and 312, G2 Building, Yokohama Campus, Institute of Science Tokyo, 4259 Nagatsuta-cho, Midori-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa
  Research Content: Research on next-generation computing platform technologies for accelerating AI and HPC applications
  Period of Establishment: October 20, 2022, to March 31, 2027 (continuation to be considered thereafter)
• Overview of Initiatives– This collaborative research cluster will undertake the following new initiatives:(1) Joint research on quantum computer control and calibration technologies:
  The aim is to establish control technologies that achieve high quantum operation fidelity and to promote the development of more efficient quantum gate calibration technologies utilizing AI. This will lead to the advancement and efficiency of technologies required for increasingly complex control and calibration as the number of quantum bits in quantum computers increases.
  (2) Practical talent development in quantum hardware technology:
  The cluster will provide theoretical education on quantum computers in conjunction with joint research. It will also offer students practical training opportunities that align with the actual research and development processes, including quantum bit chip design, manufacturing, control, and measurement. This aims to foster talent with systematic and practical expertise in quantum hardware technology.

Future Plans

Fujitsu and Science Tokyo will continue to promote talent development and research and development in quantum hardware technology through this collaborative research cluster. Furthermore, by combining Science Tokyo’s HPC technology with quantum technology, they aim to create new fusion research areas and establish next-generation computing platform technologies that integrate classical and quantum computing.

Both parties will also contribute to strengthening Japan’s competitiveness in quantum technology by accelerating the social implementation and industrial application of quantum computing through industry-academia collaboration in talent development and technology creation.

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu’s purpose is to make the world more sustainable by building trust in society through innovation. As the digital transformation partner of choice for customers around the globe, our 100,000 employees work to resolve some of the greatest challenges facing humanity. Our range of services and solutions draw on five key technologies: AI, Computing, Networks, Data & Security, and Converging Technologies, which we bring together to deliver sustainability transformation. Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 3.5 trillion yen (US$23 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026 and remains the top digital services company in Japan by market share.

About Science Tokyo

Institute of Science Tokyo (Science Tokyo) was established on October 1, 2024, following the merger between Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) and Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), with the mission of “Advancing science and human wellbeing to create value for and with society.”

Source: Fujitsu

The post Fujitsu and Science Tokyo Launch Research Hub for Quantum Hardware Advancement and Talent Development appeared first on HPCwire.

Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee announced Friday that he's retiring from Congress at the end of this term after his district in Memphis was redrawn.

Longtime Slashdot reader sinij shares a report from Car and Driver: A group of Michigan lawmakers has introduced a bill in Congress that would effectively place a permanent ban on Chinese connected vehicles from being sold in the United States. While an executive order signed by Joe Biden in early 2025 already imposed heavy restrictions, the new bill would codify and expand on the ban, as first reported by Autoweek and explained in a release by the House of Representatives Select Committee on China. The bill, titled the Connected Vehicle Security Act, was co-signed by John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, and Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat. It joins a companion version of the same Connected Vehicle Security Act introduced last month to the Senate by Sen. Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican, and Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat. While the wording is similar to that found in former President Biden's January 2025 executive order, the new bill would codify the language into law, as well as determine rules for compliance and enforcement. Specifically, the new bill would restrict Chinese automakers from selling passenger cars in the United States if those vehicles contain any China-developed connectivity software. Officially, the bill covers the sale of vehicles from states deemed "foreign adversary countries," which include China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. The proposed legislation arrives as Chinese automakers including Chery, Geely, and BYD (maker of the 2026 BYD Dolphin Surf, shown above), continue to rise in prominence in foreign markets around the world. "Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons," comments sinij. "Connected cars that spy on consumers are not a uniquely Chinese problem and should be addressed for all vehicles."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's a key clash at Villa Park in the race for UEFA Champions League qualification.

Statement follows speculation party would not field candidate in Makerfield or barely fight seat

• UK politics live – latest updates

The Greens are going to campaign for the Makerfield byelection, complicating Andy Burnham’s potential route back to parliament against what is expected to be a strong Reform UK challenge.

A statement from the Greens said candidate selection was in process and that the party had learned from its win in another Greater Manchester seat in February, when it overcame a 13,000 Labour majority in Gorton and Denton.

Losing a debt lawsuit doesn't always mean your Social Security benefits are at risk — but there are exceptions.

• Colorado coach blasts negative reporting over draft fall

• Cleveland QB made seven starts, earned Pro Bowl invite

Shedeur Sanders “went through hell” during the draft process and his 2025 rookie season with the Browns, his father Deion Sanders has said.

The Colorado head coach blamed what he said was untruthful reporting during his interview with “The Barbershop” posted on YouTube on Thursday.

Researchers expected to find "a gradual increase in artificial light at night," but instead saw "much more nuanced patterns," NASA said.

Canada’s Intact Financial Corp is said to be exploring offer, as London-listed Tate & Lyle attracts US suitor

Shares in Hiscox surged to record highs on Friday as it became the latest UK takeover target after a flurry of overseas bids for British businesses this week.

Canada’s Intact Financial Corp, which provides property and casualty insurance, is said to be exploring a potential takeover of Lloyd’s of London insurer Hiscox, according to a report by the Insurance Post.

I recently opened my repair shop and also offer repair shop software through RepairFlow.dev that’s free to use/start!

RepairFlow PEV Repair

Union leaders say veto from Democrat Abigail Spanberger is an about-face from promises she made on campaign trail

Virginia’s Democratic governor, Abigail Spanberger, vetoed a bill on Thursday that would have restored collective bargaining rights for 50,000 public sector workers in the state. Union leaders say the veto is a “betrayal” and “slap in the face” after the governor campaigned last year on promises to restore collective bargaining rights.

Though majorities in both chambers of Virginia’s general assembly passed legislation that would restore bargaining rights to most public sector workers, Spanberger introduced an amended version of the bill last month that was eventually rejected by the assembly.

Self-deprecating It Only Takes One Lion is partly inspired by team’s current song, Yes Sir, I Can Boogie

The lyrics came to Stuart Murdoch in the hazy aftermath of Scotland’s dramatic qualification for the World Cup.

The Belle and Sebastian frontman had watched his side’s playoff victory over Denmark through his fingers before deciding to write his own anthem to a team he has followed for more than 50 years. “Most people recognised instantly the next day that they’d witnessed the most important Scottish game ever,” says Murdoch. “That was our magic moment.”

A DIY approach to debt settlement can backfire if you don't understand the legal, financial and tax risks involved.

Group of MPs and peers in effect accuse government of failing to comply with parliament’s will over release of files

A powerful parliamentary committee tasked with reviewing files relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador has revealed that the government is withholding his vetting file despite not having the authority to do so.

In an extraordinary intervention, the intelligence and security committee (ISC) has criticised the government over its handling of the release of Mandelson-related papers and in effect accused ministers failing to comply with parliament’s will.

Man arrested after admitting to taking relic from church and planning to throw it in river, say police

An 800-year-old relic believed to be the skull of Saint Zdislava, stolen this week from a Czech church, has been recovered encased in concrete as experts work to extract it, police have said.

A suspect has been arrested, who allegedly confessed to taking the skull of Saint Zdislava of Lemberk from a glass shrine in the basilica of St Lawrence and St Zdislava in the town of Jablonné v Podještědí on Tuesday.

The Manchester City striker will feature in Viqueens, an animated film by director Harald Zwart, who described him as ‘powerful, fearless and uniquely Norwegian’

Manchester City striker Erling Haaland is to make his feature acting debut, in an animated film as the voice of a Viking – called Haaland.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Norwegian international is to play “an animated version of himself” in Viqueens, directed and co-written by Harald Zwart, the Dutch-Norwegian director of The Karate Kid and Agent Cody Banks.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Honda is waving the white flag. The Japanese automaker previewed two new hybrids set to launch by 2028 after taking an over $9 billion hit over its failed EV bet, leading to its biggest loss in company history. Honda admitted it was "unable to deliver products that offer value for money better than that of new EV manufacturers, resulting in a decline in competitiveness," after suddenly announcing plans to cancel three new EVs in the US in March, warning restructuring costs could reach 2.5 trillion yen ($15.7 billion). After posting its first annual loss since it became a publicly traded company in 1957 on Thursday, Honda's CEO Toshihiro Mibe revealed the company's comeback plans. Honda is no longer planning to phase out gas-powered vehicles by 2040. Instead, Honda now aims "to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050," including a mix of EVs, hybrids, carbon-neutral fuels, and carbon-offset tech. Starting next year, Honda plans to begin introducing its next-gen hybrids, underpinned by a new hybrid system and platform. Honda said it aims to improve fuel economy by over 10% in its upcoming hybrids. The new system is expected to help cut costs by over 30% compared to Honda's current hybrid system. By the end of the decade, Honda plans to launch 15 new hybrid models globally. In North America, its most important market, the company will introduce larger hybrids in the D-segment or above. Honda previewed two of the new hybrids during the business update: the Honda Hybrid Sedan Prototype and the Acura Hybrid SUV Prototype, which the company said will go on sale within the next two years.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Army supported by Russian mercenaries launches airstrikes after offensive by coalition of Islamist extremists and Tuareg separatists

Mali’s armed forces, supported by Russian mercenaries, have launched airstrikes targeting a rebel alliance of Islamist extremists and Tuareg separatists as the ruling junta struggles to maintain its hold on power in the unstable west African country.

Earlier this week warplanes targeted the key northern town of Kidal, which was lost when the rebels launched a surprise offensive across much of Mali in late April.

Experts don't expect military action soon. But actual regime change is complicated.

A Russian airstrike on a Kyiv apartment complex that killed at least 24 people and a Ukrainian strike on residential buildings and an oil refinery in Ryazan, Russia, suggested no end is in sight to the war.

The global memory chip supply shortage has skyrocketed the prices of electronics, including phones and computers. Here's what to know about it.

AI on smartphones makes it hard for students to catch each other cheating, and social media makes them less likely to report it.

An ARM may get you a lower rate, but it's not the right move for everyone in today's economic environment.

Representative Samantha Sencer-Mura leads action after Republican speaker rescinds promise to bring bill to vote

Democratic state representatives in Minnesota staged an overnight sit-in in their house chamber on Thursday after the Republican speaker failed to put a gun violence prevention bill up for a vote.

Samantha Sencer-Mura, a Democratic representative from Minneapolis, first announced the plan on Wednesday from the floor of the state’s house of representatives, giving the speaker, Lisa Demuth, a candidate for governor, 24 hours to give the bill a vote before the sit-in would start.

Framework will establish commercial and operational terms for deployment of one of India’s most powerful AI compute clusters, built on Cerebras CS-3 systems

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, May 15, 2026 — G42, the Abu Dhabi-based global technology group, and the Government of India, formalized the framework and the commercial terms for the deployment of Condor Galaxy India, an 8-exaflop AI supercomputing cluster comprising 64 Cerebras CS-3 systems.

H.H. Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding Cerebras’ Wafer Scale Chip.

His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates, and Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, witnessed the exchange between H.E. Mansoor Al Mansoori, CEO of G42 International, and Mr. Vikram Misri, Foreign Secretary of India, during Prime Minister Modi’s official state visit to Abu Dhabi, marking a milestone in the deepening UAE-India strategic and technology partnership.

“India is one of the world’s great innovation economies. Deploying an instance of G42’s Intelligence Grid at this scale in such an important geography is what AI-native transformation looks like in practice. We are delivering infrastructure that converts energy and compute into sovereign governed nation-scale intelligence,” said His Excellency Mansoor Al Mansoori.

The Condor Galaxy India supercomputer will be one of the largest AI compute clusters in India and a foundational asset for the country’s sovereign AI ambitions. Under the framework, G42 in partnership with India’s Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) will be responsible for the installation, deployment, operations, and maintenance of the system.

The AI compute cluster will underpin a new era of joint R&D across sectors such as health and genomics, energy, and geospatial analytics, enabling researchers, institutions from both countries, and India’s emerging innovators to advance frontier science and address some of the most consequential challenges of our time.

The Condor Galaxy India AI supercomputer will be powered by Cerebras CS-3 systems, built on the company’s wafer-scale engine technology. Cerebras recently completed one of the most significant IPOs in the AI sector, listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker CBRS, reflecting strong market confidence in the AI infrastructure sector. The deployment of Condor Galaxy India represents a continuation of the strategic partnership between G42 and Cerebras, which together operate several clusters of supercomputing capacity across the United States through the Condor Galaxy network, with this India deployment extending that footprint into one of the world’s most consequential emerging markets.

About G42

G42 is a technology holding group and a global leader in creating visionary artificial intelligence for a better tomorrow. Born in Abu Dhabi and operating worldwide, G42 champions AI as a powerful force for good across industries. From molecular biology to space exploration and everything in between, G42 realizes exponential possibilities today. To learn more, visit www.g42.ai.

About Cerebras Systems

Cerebras Systems builds the fastest AI infrastructure in the world. We are a team of pioneering computer architects, computer scientists, AI researchers, and engineers of all types. We have come together to make AI blisteringly fast through innovation and invention because we believe that when AI is fast it will change the world. Our flagship technology, the Wafer Scale Engine 3 (WSE-3) is the world’s largest and fastest AI processor.56 times larger than the largest GPU, the WSE uses a fraction of the power per unit compute while delivering inference and training more than 20 times faster than the competition. Leading corporations, research institutes and governments on four continents chose Cerebras to run their AI workloads. Cerebras solutions are available on premise and in the cloud, for further information, visit cerebras.ai.

Source: G42

The post G42 and Government of India Formalize Commercial Framework for Condor Galaxy India AI Supercomputer appeared first on HPCwire.

The crew of the Tahoma, a 270-foot Coast Guard cutter, made the interdictions about 90 miles off the coast of Cartagena, Colombia.

Mississippi politicians are threatening to redraw the district of Bennie Thompson, the state’s lone Democrat in Congress

The supreme court decision that effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act (VRA) “was red meat to the Republican legislators of the south” the US House representative Bennie Thompson said.

Conservative lawmakers in Mississippi, where Thompson is both the state’s lone Black and only Democratic congressional representative, have used the opportunity to explicitly target him, threatening to redraw the second congressional district, that he represents.

The last time an El Niño pattern occurred was in 2023, when the Eastern Pacific hurricane season produced 20 tropical systems.

After a much-hyped US-China summit, the leaders of the world’s two biggest powers made no real breakthroughs on big issues, such as Iran, Taiwan and trade. The Guardian's senior China correspondent, Amy Hawkins, breaks down how Donald Trump and Xi Jinping focused on growing their personal rapport instead

• Trump leaves China without breakthroughs on Iran, Taiwan or AI

Malcolm Turnbull: AUKUS is ‘a huge wealth transfer from the Australian government to the US and the UK’ News release jon.wallace 15 May 2026

Speaking at Chatham House, the former Australian prime minister strongly criticized the joint Australia–US–UK submarine project.

Malcolm Turnbull, former Australian prime minister, visited Chatham House on 11 May to discuss Australia’s foreign policy, its US alliance, and the role of middle powers in the context of US–China rivalry. 

Asked about the AUKUS trilateral security partnership between Australia, the US and UK, which is meant to provide Australia with nuclear attack submarines, Mr Turnbull said it was a ‘huge wealth transfer from the Australian government to the US and the UK’.

‘It’s a submarine deal with no submarines…It was a terribly bad deal, a really stupid deal,’ he said, adding that US naval yards are not producing submarines at sufficient scale and speed to meet AUKUS needs.

Addressing the UK part of the deal, which would see joint development of a new nuclear submarine class, he said that ‘the UK shipbuilding industry, particularly the submarine industry, is in complete disarray…We shouldn’t have cancelled the deal with France’.

He said that it would be better for the UK to go into partnership with France to design a new nuclear submarine class, with the aim of developing common defence platforms for Europe. 

During the event Mr Turnbull also discussed the summit between Chinese President Xi and US President Trump, Australian relations with the Trump administration, and Australia’s role in Pacific security.

May 15, 2026 — Equal1 has announced the global release of RacQ. RacQ, the next generation evolution of Equal1’s Bell-1 Server, is a rack-mounted silicon-spin quantum computing designed for deployment within a standard 19-inch data center rack.

The Equal1 RacQ

Hybrid Quantum-Classical Computing (HQCC) Integration

HQCC enables high-impact applications, including investment risk analysis, materials simulation and supply chain optimization.

In these workflows, classical and quantum workloads operate as a single system. Intensive subroutines are offloaded to the RacQ quantum processor, while pre- and post-processing remain on the classical compute server.

This integration allows organizations to prioritize high-impact use cases and move hybrid systems directly into production.

Experience RacQ and HQCC In Action

Equal1 and Dell Technologies are demonstrating how HQCC could be deployed in a data center next week at Dell Technologies World in the Modern Data Center area of the Solutions Expo. In this experimental prototype, Equal1’s RacQ integrates a silicon quantum computer with a Dell PowerEdge R770 server, a PowerSwitch networking environment and Dell’s Quantum Intelligent Orchestrator – a prototype created to manage and schedule workloads across heterogeneous compute resources – all within a standard data center rack design.

While the demonstration is a research collaboration, it shows how HQCC is indeed possible in HPC environments and sets a practical benchmark for low-disruption QPU integration.

RacQ Highlights

• Standard Power: It plugs into a standard single-phase electrical socket, consuming only 1600 W – comparable to a high-end classical server.
• Advanced Cooling: It features an integrated, self-contained, closed-cycle cryocooler that maintains an internal temperature of 0.3 Kelvin without external infrastructure.
• Compact Footprint: Weighing 400 kg, the hybrid quantum classical compute device fits perfectly into a standard Dell 42U frame.

For too long, quantum computing has remained isolated in specialist environments, custom-built and disconnected from standard infrastructure. Equal1 is changing this by delivering quantum compute in a familiar footprint, accessible to every data center operator.

Building on the foundation of the Bell-1, the new Equal1 RacQ translates that same quantum power into a deployable, rack-mounted form factor. The Equal1 RacQ is designed to integrate seamlessly with any classical compute hardware, enabling hybrid quantum classical compute all within the same data center rack form factor.

Whether an organization utilizes existing server stacks or specialized high-performance computing (HPC) nodes, RacQ functions as a peer-level resource within the rack.

“For nearly every organization, quantum computing remains out of reach, confined to labs,” said Jason Lynch, CEO of Equal1. “We’re changing that. We are putting quantum inside the rack so customers can roll it in, plug it in and begin running hybrid quantum–classical workloads in days, using the infrastructure they already own.”

Powered by UnityQ: Silicon-Scale Innovation

The Equal1 RacQ is powered by UnityQ, a breakthrough quantum system-on-chip that will integrate the complete quantum system onto a single silicon package.

• Standard CMOS: Built using standard semiconductor processes, allowing it to scale on the cadence of global chip progress.
• Efficient Power: Runs at approximately 1.6kW from a single-phase electrical socket.
• Self-Contained Cooling: An integrated, closed-cycle cryocooler maintains an internal temperature of 0.3 Kelvin without requiring external cryogenic infrastructure.
• Data Center Ready: The full system weighs 400 kg and fits within a standard rack footprint.

More from HPCwire

• Bull and Equal1 Partner to Accelerate Hybrid Quantum-HPC Integration in Europe
• Kvantify and Equal1 Form Alliance to Integrate Quantum Hardware and Software for Life Sciences
• Equal1 and Q-CTRL Partner to Deliver Fully Autonomous, Data Center-Ready Quantum Computing
• Equal1 Raises $60M to Accelerate Quantum Computing Using Existing Semiconductor Manufacturing

About Equal1

Equal1 is a global leader in silicon-powered quantum computing technology. Equal1’s first generation quantum machine, the Bell-1 Quantum Server, is now available and shipping to customers.

Source: Equal1

The post Equal1 Debuts Silicon-Spin Quantum Computer Designed for Standard 19-Inch Server Racks appeared first on HPCwire.

US president has said he and Chinese leader ‘settled a lot of different problems’ but has given little detail on solutions

Donald Trump’s whirlwind trip to Beijing – the first US presidential visit in nearly a decade – wrapped up with much fanfare but little clarity about what was actually achieved.

Trump said on Friday he and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, “settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve”. But he didn’t provide much detail on what those solutions were.

Guest column: If you're building the most powerful technology ever, you're going to need to learn to activate your principles.

With the primary election less than three weeks away, the gubernatorial and mayoral races have taken a fiery turn

Sparring on the debate stage, well-timed statements addressing the slightest misstep by an opponent and countless social media jabs: election season is heating up in California’s major primaries.

With the primary election less than three weeks away, the gubernatorial and mayoral races have taken a fiery turn as candidates undergo last-ditch efforts to convince voters of their governance chops.

Pennsylvania’s third district, a Democratic bastion, will see a face-off between party’s traditional wing and insurgents

Democrats have been consumed for the better part of two years by the same question: what went wrong in 2024? Next week, voters in the country’s bluest district will render a verdict when they choose a candidate for the 2026 midterm elections.

Nearly every faultline currently running through Democratic politics – from Gaza and healthcare to immigration enforcement and the role of corporate money in politics – is at the heart of the party’s race for Pennsylvania’s third district.

If you want the best picture quality you can buy, you have to go OLED. Here are the best TVs I've tested.

US president hails ‘fantastic’ deals, but details remain scarce after pageantry and little progress at much-hyped summit with Xi

• Trump in China – latest updates

Donald Trump left China on Friday after a much-hyped summit of the world’s two major powers that was rich in pageantry and promises of stability, but offered little by way of tangible progress.

The US president had gone into the two-day talks with China’s Xi Jinping weakened by his prolonged war in Iran, and did little to change the perception that he and his nation are diminished on the global stage.

Media regulator announces commitments by Elon Musk’s platform to crack down on terrorist and hate content

Elon Musk’s X platform has promised to block UK access to accounts linked to banned terrorist groups under an agreement with the communications regulator to crack down on terrorist and hate content.

X will also review suspected illegal terrorist and hate content within 48 hours and seek expert advice on how to handle user reports of such content.

US president offers no news of any breakthrough on Iran. Plus, how renters’ rights could be key issue in midterms

• Don’t already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up here

Good morning.

On his visit to China, Donald Trump has seemed to revel in Chinese hospitality and flattery. Walking in the Zhongnanhai garden, in Beijing, the US president was overheard saying that his counterpart, Xi Jinping, was giving him roses for the White House rose garden, according to a pool report.

What has China said on Iran? On Friday, China’s foreign ministry again called for a ceasefire in Iran and said the strait of Hormuz should be opened “as soon as possible”. Before the summit, there was speculation the US might appeal to China, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, to use its leverage to encourage the country to reopen the strait. But that was walked back on Thursday by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who said: “We don’t need their help.”

What about talks over Taiwan? They weren’t mentioned much. Xi took a firm tone, declaring that “Taiwan independence” and peace in the Taiwan strait were “incompatible”. Trump sidestepped questions on Taiwan, and a White House readout of the meeting published later omitted any mention of the country.

What do Russia’s renewed heavy attacks tell us? Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, said on Thursday that Russia’s heavy bombardment of Kyiv showed Moscow was “banking on escalation rather than negotiation. Kyiv and its partners are ready for negotiations aimed at a just peace,” Merz said. “Russia, for its part, is continuing the war.”

Spotlight Delaware education reporter Julia Merola joins the “Beyond the Headlines” podcast to discuss the outcomes of this year’s statewide school board elections, the issues that were in play with them and what they might mean for the future of districts around Delaware.

The podcast was hosted by Editor-in-Chief Jacob Owens.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

So before we get into the actual horse races of who won what races and why around the state, I thought we should maybe start with explaining the role that our school boards play in Delaware.

Can you fill the listeners in on what powers and responsibilities these public servants have?

To start, I would say that Delaware is a really heavily focused local control state, meaning that the meat and potatoes of decisions are being made within school districts rather than at the Delaware Department of Education’s level or in the General Assembly.

So if you’re thinking about approving a budget or hiring a superintendent or holding referendums, those decisions are all made by board of education members.

Are these paid positions? Are these typically teachers or people with experience in education? Who are these school boards that we have around the state?

They’re volunteers. They’re not paid positions. Some of them are retired educators, some of them are parents, some of them are neither and are just community members who are looking to help the students in their area in whatever way they can.

I would say it’s really a mix of everything of the above.

School board elections in particular have long suffered from low turnout. But this year’s contest seemed to have really defied that trend. What did we see, and what might you attribute that change to?

I would start to say that it was certain school districts that defied that trend. Maybe it’s just where I was, but I went to Christina’s two Wilmington polls at the Maurice Pritchard Academy and the Pulaski Early Education Center, and those polls were pretty dead. I was not seeing a lot of people.

It was very quiet. But then, over in Red Clay and Appo there were definitely a lot more people and the polls were more lively.

I think that’s attributed to the fact that districts like Red Clay and Appo had a bit more going on, a little bit more controversy brewing, whereas in Christina, this was a calmer year.

Let’s maybe start with perhaps the biggest race of the day in the Appoquinimink School District that covers the Middletown-Odessa-Townsend area, where two incumbents were being challenged by four different opponents.

What happened there, and what might have caused so many residents to come out to the polls?

I think with Appo in particular, the reason why so many people came to the polls was really because of what happened last spring, which was when the district revealed that it’d failed to properly track millions of dollars that it thought were in reserves.

After that, there were calls for the superintendent and for other board members to step down. We know that they didn’t step down, and then residents saw two of those incumbent board members were running for re-election. I don’t think that they wanted them to run for re-election, hence why they were not re-elected.

I think a lot of that tension stayed there with the residents. And, at a board meeting you can really only give public comments, so the way to really make your point is at the polls, which is what they did.

So who won that Appo election?

The two winners were Britney Mumford and Elena Brenner. 

Elena is a retired educator, and Britney is the executive director of DelawareKidsCAN, which is an education advocacy organization. 

Among the losers – which I hate to call them but that is unfortunately the reality of a race —  was Richard Forsten, who was the president of the Appoquinimink School District board.

There was also Nichelle DeWitt, who was another incumbent board member.

Then there was also Mark Heck, who was looking to take one of those seats. He’s a veteran and an ROTC instructor at the Christina School District.

He came up short in getting a seat too.

 It was an interesting race all around. The incumbents actually came in dead last out of the six candidates running, so it was really a display of some of the anger that was reflected at the polls in one of the largest school districts in the state.

Turning to the largest school district in the state, up in the Red Clay Consolidated School District, which covers the greater Wilmington area, along with Pike Creek and Hockessin, the board president there faced a challenger. What happened in that race?

It was a continuation of the trend of incumbents seeing their way out and new faces coming in.

Vic Leonard, the current president of the Red Clay Board of Education, lost his race to Jenny Howard, who is a mother of four and a former educator. 

There was a big conversation in the district over what would happen to McKean High School, which is where I was yesterday.

The first voter who I talked to told me that she was voting for Jenny Howard because she didn’t want to see her alma mater close and become an innovation center. The voter added that she understood the purpose of an innovation center in general, but just felt that the way the board had handled it was very rushed.

She appreciated how Jenny Howard had spoken out during public comment against the innovation center, and just felt that a lot of what Jenny Howard was saying was resonating.

So this is an example of a resident who, willingly or unwillingly, became the face of opposition to the incumbency by showing up to a meeting and making her point heard during public comment. 

Give us the rundown on that McKean Innovation Center project and where it stands today.

It’s at a standstill. and that’s because last month the Red Clay Board of Education voted to postpone the Innovation Center, which would transform McKean.

They made that decision because of a large pushback from community members who were concerned about this program that currently exists at McKean called the Meadowood program. It’s a program for students who have intellectual and developmental disabilities.

It’s something I’ve heard from parents about. Parents have called it a really good program that has been really helpful for their kids. And I think that there was a lot of confusion about what would happen to that program if it were to be moved to A.I. duPont High School, w

It seemed like there were a lot of families who felt that their concerns weren’t taken into consideration, and instead the process was kind of rushed through. Then, here comes Jenny Howard, a parent who agrees with those sentiments.

She told me she wasn’t originally planning to run, and then when all of this happened, she was like, “Well, maybe, I can help change things and make sure that the board is actually listening to people.”

School boards around the state, but I think Red Clay in particular, are kind of in this difficult spot, where they have a lot of school buildings that maybe aren’t filling the capacity needs. And so Jenny is now going to be joining a school board where she’s gonna have to make some tough decisions about what to do with buildings that aren’t full of students.

I’ll note to our Spotlight Delaware readers that I’m working on a story about capacity rates, so keep an eye out for that exact topic. 

But yeah, it’s definitely an ongoing conversation, especially in Red Clay, and I think it’s one that a lot of district leaders want to really tackle before any possible consolidation decision with the Redding Consortium is reached between the four districts.

You mentioned Redding. Did it feel like Redding was on the minds of voters or school board candidates? 

It wasn’t something that I necessarily heard about at the polls, but some candidates brought it up on their own. Others responded after I asked them about it. I think it is a bit of an unknown.

Board of education leaders are not necessarily on the front lines of the Redding Consortium meetings. They’re welcome to attend just like everybody else, and I see plenty of board members there all the time, but they’re not on the front end of the decision-making. 

I think that it’s something the board needs to at least be talking about and making a plan for students. That was a sentiment I heard a few times.

Down south in the Delmar School District, which sits along Delaware’s southernmost border, another well-known member was facing two challengers for two open seats. What happened there?

Shawn Brittingham was last sitting on the State Board of Education. He has previously served on the Delmar Board of Education, but he did not win the Tuesday race against Neil Baker and Jordan Johnson.

I honestly thought it was interesting because Shawn has a lot of experience on the Delmar Board of Education, and then almost a decade of experience on the State Board of Education.

In that district, there was a decent amount of talk about referendums and what could potentially happen with two new candidates on the board. I think it’ll be interesting to see what that board decides to do next in terms of whether they’ll have a referendum.

Fill us in again on what a referendum is, why a school district might go out for one, and how that works for the public.

A referendum is when the district comes to the voters in a community and says, “Hey, we’re looking to raise X amount of money to do things like better retaining teachers, providing better pay, maintaining programs, building schools and things like that.”

That’s where the residents come in to be able to vote on whether to raise their property tax rate to fund the money for these things.

So in Delmar specifically, there’s been this ongoing issue of there being limited capacity in their buildings with a growing number of students.

You need to be able to retain teachers who are comfortable working in these often tight spaces. There were conversations this past fall of a possible referendum in Delmar to help alleviate some of those concerns.

Ultimately, the Board of Education announced that they were not going to hold a referendum this year. Maybe in 2027, we’ll see.

I think that it was something that was on the minds of some voters, maybe not everyone per se, but I think when anyone hears that their taxes could potentially go up, it’s definitely something that they’re gonna be listening to.

Referendums have been increasingly difficult to get passed in the state of Delaware in recent years, because it’s one of the few times we get to vote on our own, on our own taxes. Is that right?

Yeah.

This is a little bit of a case where you’re farther up the food chain, voting for the people who may or may not propose such a referendum down the line. Of the two winners in the Delmar election down there, do you get a sense of whether they might support a future referendum?

It’s hard to say. We spoke to Jordan Johnson on Tuesday, and he told us, “If I feel that it’s right and we need it, then I’ll vote for it. If I feel it’s not right and we don’t need it, then I won’t vote for it.”  It’s literally a 50-50, so we’ll see. 

I didn’t have the chance to speak with the other elected board member, Neil Baker, but he had said that a strategic review was necessary. So again, it’s kind of like a 50-50

I know Shawn Brittingham was very pro-referendum, but as far as I know, he’s the only person who has outright said, “Yeah, I would support a referendum for these reasons.”

So perhaps the non-committal answers may have assisted in some of these races?

Possibly.

When you really look at the 2026 school board elections, do you think there will be any lessons or lasting trends?

I don’t know if I would necessarily call this a lesson, but a realization of just how much people feel that they needed pretty big changes in their schools.

If you look at Appo, Forsten has been on that board for nearly two decades.

So for people to really say, “No, we do not want you there anymore,” I think that really shows people in that district, in particular, were craving new faces. 

I think the same can be said in other districts, like Red Clay. Vic Leonard wasn’t on the board for an extremely long time but, again, he was the board president.

That’s a pretty big role to play on a board. And for 60% of voters to say, like, “Nope, we prefer the other candidate,” it just shows that people really want big changes.

 It’s starting to feel like at least a small but growing number of residents are really starting to pay attention to how their school districts are being governed and who is involved in that decision-making process. As we look to the future, do you think school board elections will be able to keep up this rate of engagement, or was this maybe just a reaction to an isolated incident in time?

I think it was probably a reaction.

I don’t want to think that. I want to think that we’re all gonna be more civically engaged because that is your one opportunity to actually change things.You can make a public comment, but the board doesn’t respond to that. 

Who knows if they hear every single word said. They’re only human. 

So really your only chance to make an actual difference is to go to the polls and vote. I would like to say Delaware is on an upward swing, but when I was at the two Wilmington polls it was really quiet, so I can’t confidently say that this is a positive trend.

I really do unfortunately think it’s just a matter of circumstance.

Well, Julia, thank you for covering Delaware’s public education system – a very challenging task with 19 different districts – and great job covering the varied races up and down the state this week.

Thank you.

The post ‘Beyond the Headlines’ podcast: Delaware voters seek school board changes appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

The Greater Manchester mayor is hoping to return to parliament after a Labour MP stepped down, triggering a byelection

Labour’s deputy leader, Lucy Powell, has backed Andy Burnham’s efforts to return to parliament, saying there will be no attempt to stop the Greater Manchester mayor from fighting an upcoming byelection in Makerfield.

Speaking at a Fire Brigades Union conference in Coventry, she said

We could have further to fall as a party and we absolutely need to come back together as one team, because we’ve got to take the fight to [Nigel] Farage. We are at real risk of Nigel Farage walking up Downing Street in a few years time, and we can’t let that happen.

But we’ve got to do our politics differently. We’ve got to end the factionalism. We’ve got to embrace all the different traditions of the Labour party, all the different voices, and bring one team back together.

ICE has released the wife of an active-duty U.S. soldier after a month in detention, her husband told CBS News.

President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded their summit in Beijing on Friday with both countries looking to claim the visit as a win.

Sens. Tammy Duckworth​ of Illinois and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin say their concern is there may be more emergency exit doors than flight attendants in the event of an evacuation.

As Powell steps down after more than eight years leading the Federal Reserve, economists say he helped steer the U.S. through historic shocks but misread inflation.

Commentary: I hope Apple gives us something more relatable for its next version of Siri.

Negotiating with your mortgage lender could lead to a lower rate, but is that an effective path in this market?

No one has more at stake than Kamala Harris – who has ‘signaled’ support for its release without saying so publicly

After several months of heated arguments over whether the Democratic National Committee (DNC) should release its autopsy report on the 2024 election, the dispute has neared a boiling point. With one recent media appearance after another, the DNC chair, Ken Martin, has set off fierce criticism and even derision, while offering notably illogical explanations for keeping the autopsy secret.

As the controversy simmers, no one has more at stake than the party’s latest standard-bearer. Kamala Harris, apparently preparing for another run, leads in polls for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. One of the last things she needs is a widely publicized narrative from the DNC about failures of her 2024 campaign. A maxim from George Orwell applies: “who controls the past controls the future” and “who controls the present controls the past”.

Mirroring of each other’s attire may signal alignment – though the look wasn’t a huge departure for either leader

When Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met for a welcome ceremony in Tiananmen Square this week with the world’s gaze on them, they mirrored one another in strikingly similar suits.

Both were blue, single-breasted with flap pockets. Both had two buttons with only the top one done up. Both wore red ties.

When you want seamless phone coverage in countries outside the US, these plans give you the best international options.

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, gave the US president, Donald Trump, a tour of Beijing’s walled-off Zhongnanhai compound in the concluding hours of their summit on Friday. Among the notable ancient trees Xi showed Trump was the 'Lianli Bai', two cypress trees whose trunks have grown together. A hot mic captured the leaders' remarks, in which Trump asked Xi if other foreign leaders were also received in the compound. 'Very rarely,' Xi responded.

Tech workers say AI-driven restructurings are eroding mentorship, support and paths to promotion across Silicon Valley

As tech companies pour billions into artificial intelligence bets and slash their workforces, middle managers are squarely in the crosshairs.

A trend is emerging: when tech CEOs announce that AI is making it possible to do more with fewer workers, they promise to flatten their structures by cutting away what they call unnecessary management layers and bureaucracy. Just last week, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase laid off 14% of its workforce while gesturing to the thrill of AI-fueled, minimal-management efficiency. In doing so, it joined companies including Amazon, Block and Meta that in the last year have laid off tens of thousands of employees with a specific focus on removing management layers.

IN 16 pages, the Trump administration’s new official counterterrorism strategy outlines in broad terms who it views as terrorist threats and priority targets, ranging from anti-fascist activists to ISIS and so-called narco-terrorists. The line “We will find you, and we will kill you” appears in the memo.

“[The] strategy brings together Trump’s war on the wider world, which stretches from interventions and wars in Yemen and Somalia to Venezuela and the Caribbean Sea,” says Intercept senior reporter Nick Turse. “It combines it with the administration’s war on dissent at home which has also been lethal, as we saw on the streets of Minneapolis. … We can consider this strategy a new declaration of war by the Trump administration on its enemies both foreign and domestic, both real and imagined.”

Related

How Trump’s New Counterterrorism Strategy Puts You at Risk

This week on The Intercept Briefing, host Jessica Washington and colleagues Turse and Noah Hurowitz, who covers federal law enforcement, dissect how the Trump administration is painting anyone it wants to go after — state and non-state actors — as terrorists.  “Fundamentally, this document is a list of the administration’s enemies and a promise of what they’re going to do to them,” says Hurowitz. “This anti-terror imperative makes for a very flexible and useful means of tamping down on dissent.”

“We’re not just talking about rhetoric here,” says Washington. “We’ve seen the administration actually use these terms in action when it comes to the boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific that killed nearly 200 people as of early May.” 

“The actual legal justification for the strikes is, like so much else, secret,” says Turse, who has been covering the attacks on so-called narco-terrorists. “We’re talking about a fake war in which the enemies aren’t even read into the fact that they’re in an armed conflict with the United States.” He adds, “It’s really built on a quarter-century of executive overreach and targeted killings around the world. It’s the price of Congress allowing Presidents Bush, Obama, Biden, and Trump to hunt and kill people by drone from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and Somalia. It took this legally dubious, at best, post-9/11 drone war and laid the groundwork for a completely illegal one in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean.”

“Say what you will about the people around President Trump,” Hurowitz notes, “but they have proved very adept at finding levers of power and levers of pain to go after their enemies.”

For more, listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen.

Transcript

Jessica Washington: Welcome to the Intercept Briefing. I’m Jessica Washington, politics reporter at The Intercept.

Maia Hibbett: And I’m Maia Hibbett, managing editor at The Intercept. 

Last week, we talked about the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act, and the news on that subject has been moving really fast. I was wondering if first you could just give us a quick update on what else is happening since that last conversation.

Related

Tennessee GOP Moves to Decimate Black Voting Power After Supreme Court’s Blessing of Jim Crow

JW: There’s been a lot happening since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act last month, well, gutted it again further, I should say. In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee signed into law a new congressional map eliminating the only majority-Black district. Then in Alabama, House primaries are next week, but the Republican governor is planning to hold a special vote in four districts in August after the state redraws a more GOP-friendly map. Republican leaders like Speaker Mike Johnson are excited about it. Here he is talking about it on “Fox and Friends.”

[Clip]

Brian Kilmeade: There’s Tennessee, Alabama. How many more? 

Rep. Mike Johnson: Potentially South Carolina, maybe Missouri, Mississippi. There are other states who are similarly situated. And we think the analysis is, by the end of all this, when you correct all that, Republicans’ll probably pick up between seven and eight seats and maybe double digits, depending on how many states get involved. That’s obviously a good thing for the outcome.

[Clip ends]

JW: My only reaction to hearing that is that Republicans are clearly hiding the ball here. They’re saying that this is about fairer representation, but in Mississippi, they’re clearly trying to eliminate representation for Black Americans. The governor has called to redraw a map that would eliminate Rep. Bennie Thompson’s district. He is the only Black representative representing Mississippi, a state that is nearly 40 percent Black.

Maia, did anything strike you in that clip or just anything about this redistricting effort at all?

Related

The Supreme Court Ends Multiracial Democracy as We Know It 

MH: I just keep getting struck by the way Republicans are framing this as some sort of anti-racist effort, that the way congressional districts are drawn sometimes to take into account the racial diversity or lack thereof of an area is inherently anti-democratic. And as you’ve pointed out before, in reality, that’s a disingenuous framing of what they’re doing.

JW: Yeah. We’re going to continue to watch the fallout from the Supreme Court. But I want to talk about some other news. 

There’s been talk online that we might be facing a new pandemic. Maia, what can you tell us about the hantavirus, and do I need to start stockpiling toilet paper?

MH: No, please, no one go buy a lot of toilet paper. Never helpful. 

There’s definitely a lot of chatter and panic online, but I don’t think there’s any sign that this is going to be a new pandemic. A pandemic is when there is this uncontrolled disease spread on a global scale, and there’s really no sign that’s going to be the case here.

It is, however, really fascinating. This is a wild example of a group of people who have been traveling all over the world, who are all on a ship together, and then a very rare infectious disease breaks out. People are certainly freaked out and worried about this when they’re reading about it online, and I think there’s a lot of information on Twitter, on Instagram, everywhere. There’s a lot of panic. 

What the general scientific consensus says is still that this strain of the virus, which is known to spread between people, is still more likely to spread animal to human, not human to human. And when it does spread between humans, it typically requires close contact. So you’re having a conversation with someone and your faces are close together, you’re exchanging saliva, there’s some sort of large droplet transfer, something like that, is the most likely way for this to spread between people.

We don’t know everything about it, and of course, viruses do change, but that is still the overall scientific consensus. It’s not known to spread the way Covid does, where it’s aerosolized and someone in the room has it and anyone else in the room could get it.

The most well-known vector for this disease to spread is from people actually inhaling particles from the feces or urine of rodents, especially rats. So really the people, I think, who are at the highest risk are anyone who might be in a setting where they’re cleaning that up or otherwise really directly exposed.

JW: Gross, but I do feel a little bit safer. [Laughter.]

But one thing, I do have some concerns about — we know who’s in charge of HHS, we know who’s in charge of the FDA. Do we have the public health infrastructure to deal with something like this?

MH: We know that since the Trump administration came back into office and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was appointed to be in charge of Health and Human Services, the CDC has been pretty dramatically gutted. And the Trump administration just doesn’t have the kind of infrastructure the U.S. government used to maintain in order to keep an eye on pandemics and other disease outbreaks. So that certainly is concerning.

Related

Amid Hantavirus Panic, the Ivermectin Super Fans Are Back

For example, there was a lot of chatter last week. Marjorie Taylor Greene was spreading claims that ivermectin was going to be helpful for keeping this virus at bay, and Intercept contributor Austin Campbell reached out to the CDC and asked what they thought of that, and he just never heard back. They never had a stance on it. 

Another Intercept contributor, Jackie Sweet, tracked down for a piece this past week on her Substack the case of a 75-year-old cruise ship passenger who had dual residency in both the U.S. and New Zealand. She had managed to totally evade the supervision of public health authorities, which is staggering because there were fewer than 150 people on that ship. So it’s a little bit wild that they couldn’t keep track of them all.

JW: So what I’m hearing from you is that we’re lucky that it’s this kind of virus and not something that is easier to transmit person to person?

MH: I would say that’s right, yeah.

JW: I want to talk about some other reporting that we published this week. On Tuesday, my co-host Akela Lacy published a story about Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student and Palestinian rights activist who was detained by ICE for protesting in support of Palestinians as a part of the Trump administration’s targeting of student protesters. So I know the story goes into a little bit more detail about that targeting. Maia, what can you tell us about the story?

MH: I think a lot of our listeners probably remember this moment last spring when he was detained, and he was one of the first of this group of students that the Trump administration was targeting. What Akela’s story found was that two days before ICE arrested Mahmoud Khalil, the FBI had gotten an anonymous tip which accused him of calling for, and this is a quote from the tip, “violence on behalf of Hamas.”

Now, we don’t really have any detail in this document on what the tip is. It came in via a FOIA request that his legal team received and passed on to Akela, and the document is mostly redacted. But what we do know is that less than two weeks after they got the tip, the FBI closed this investigation, and they found that the tip did not warrant further investigation.

But by then, he was already in ICE detention in Louisiana, and the Trump administration was already calling him a “Hamas supporter” and accusing him of being a supporter of terrorism. At this point, we now know that the FBI at least had found that allegation was not worth looking into.

JW: That’s really interesting. It feels like we’re going to be unraveling what actually went behind the Trump administration’s targeting of these students. This really fits into broader efforts from the Trump administration to target any of the president’s perceived political enemies, both abroad and in the United States.

MH: Exactly. And this week, everyone in the newsroom has really been focused on this project that you’ve been working on with our colleagues, Nick Turse and Noah Hurowitz, about how the Trump administration is taking that political targeting apparatus to the next level, and what the next phase of it will look like. Could you tell us a little bit more about that project?

JW: We’ve been poring through this new counterterrorism strategy that’s been handed down from the Trump administration. I know that sounds incredibly boring, but this is a document laying out the president’s strategy for coming after his political enemies in the United States and abroad, and potentially giving him the authority to kill his political enemies.

So we’ve been really looking into this next evolution of President Donald Trump’s attempt to label his enemies — so anyone who disagrees with him — as “terrorists.” And I’ve now successfully dragged both of my brilliant coworkers onto the show to talk about it. Nick is a senior reporter covering national security and foreign policy, and Noah is a federal law enforcement reporter.

MH: Let’s hear that conversation.

JW: Nick, Noah, welcome to The Intercept Briefing.

Nick Turse: Thanks so much for having us.

Noah Hurowitz: Thanks for having us.

JW: Let’s dive right into this project. Last week, the Trump administration released its counterterrorism strategy. The 16-page memo outlines who they view as terrorist threats and priority targets. The three of us have been combing through this document for an in-document analysis that we just published.

To start, Nick, can you tell us a bit more about this document and the objectives of the administration?

NT: I consider this a truly foundational document, a genuine distillation of Trumpism as both a movement and a system of governance. The document is the brainchild of the senior counterterrorism director at the National Security Council, Sebastian Gorka, who’s a truly bizarre figure and whose credentials for the job of counterterrorism czar are highly dubious.

This Gorka-led strategy brings together Trump’s war on the wider world, which stretches from interventions and wars in Yemen and Somalia to Venezuela and the Caribbean Sea, and it combines it with the administration’s war on dissent at home which has also been lethal, as we saw on the streets of Minneapolis. The 2026 counterterrorism strategy puts so-called domestic “antifascist” or antifa organizations on par with actual terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State and Al Qaeda as well as with international drug cartels. 

It states that there are three major types of terrorist threats. So we’re talking about what they call legacy Islamist terrorists, Al Qaeda and ISIS; narco-terrorists like the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua; and these supposed violent left-wing extremists, which include anarchists and anti-fascists. The latter are longtime Republican boogeymen but don’t actually exist in a real way as, say, urban guerrillas or something like that in the United States.

This is a fictional foe. We can consider this strategy a new declaration of war by the Trump administration on its enemies, both foreign and domestic, both real and imagined.

JW: I think that’s a really good way to look at this document. If we think about it as a foundational text of the Trump administration, then the foundation of the Trump administration is a politics of vengeance, which I think is borne out in so many of the administration’s policies, both at home and abroad.

Noah, I want to bring you in. One thing that this document does is loosely define who is and who isn’t a terrorist. So I want to ask you, what did we now learn about who’s considered a terrorist?

NH: One thing that I found really interesting about this document is that it specifically calls out previous weaponizations of government counterterrorism policy, which is, I think, a pretty clear reference to the prosecutions of right-wing groups, and specifically participants in January 6.

As we know, FBI Director Kash Patel, prior to becoming head of the FBI, was very critical of the federal government’s policies toward violent right-wing extremists, which statistically have been a majority of the domestic terrorists in the United States. This document really explicitly does away with that and explicitly names left-wing groups or left-wing people holding left-wing ideologies as terrorists.

There’s a specific line about doing away with the weaponization of counterterrorism policy against American citizens, when in reality we’ve seen the very explicit weaponization of counterterrorism policy and rhetoric by this administration against its domestic foes, if you will.

Most notably, the language used to describe Alex Pretti and Rene Good in Minneapolis following their deaths, and also the prosecution of nine protesters for their roles in a demonstration outside of an ICE facility in Texas last July. This is the Prairieland case in which eight defendants were convicted on terrorism charges. They might say that they’re ending the weaponization of counterterrorism against American citizens, but in reality, we’ve seen a dramatic escalation of it.

JW: One group that you didn’t mention here, but is mentioned repeatedly throughout the document, are people who the administration calls adherents to radical pro-transgender ideology.

Related

Trump’s Holy War Abroad and at Home

Clearly throughout this document, we’re seeing references to the Christian right, references to the idea that anyone who does not adhere to these very specific tenets of white Christian nationalism — a very specific subset of white evangelical Christianity — that those groups are also considered terrorists under this document.

In April, the Trump administration released the anti-Christian bias task force report which allegedly detailed the Biden administration’s radical efforts to punish Christians and also highlighted President Donald Trump’s efforts to restore religious liberty. There are very similar themes to that document. There clearly is an effort to target anyone who is not a part of MAGA world, and so that includes, obviously, Christian nationalists, but other groups as well.

Noah, I want to ask, how would you characterize what the administration has outlined here?

NH: Fundamentally, this document is a list of the administration’s enemies and a promise of what they’re going to do to them.

JW: Nick, we’re not just talking about rhetoric here. We’ve seen the administration actually use these terms in action when it comes to the boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific that killed nearly 200 people as of early May.

The administration has alleged that they are targeting “narco-terrorists.” This has been going on now since September of last year. What evidence has the administration provided to justify what appear to be extrajudicial killings?

NT: Actually, we haven’t seen one shred of evidence. Instead, we’ve been treated to outlandish claims that are demonstrably outright lies. President Trump has repeatedly claimed that the vessels that the U.S. is attacking are trafficking fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. Trump says that the boats are hit, and then you see bags of fentanyl floating in the ocean.

First off, fentanyl is shipped in dramatically smaller quantities than, say, cocaine. You wouldn’t see bales of it floating in a body of water in the aftermath of an airstrike. It’s really beside the point. No fentanyl comes to the United States from South America. Ninety-nine percent of the fentanyl comes into the U.S. through legal ports of entry primarily from Mexico by U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. Cartels would have to smuggle fentanyl down to South America to smuggle it back by boat.

Related

Trump Administration Conjures Up New “Terrorist” Designation to Justify Killing Civilians

The actual legal justification for the strikes is, like so much else, secret. There is a classified opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. It was drawn up by an interagency lawyers’ group, including representatives of the CIA, the White House Counsel, Department of Justice, and the War Department’s Office of General Counsel. It claims that narcotics on these supposed drug boats, cocaine essentially, are lawful military targets because their cargo generates revenue for cartels whom the Trump administration claims are in a non-international armed conflict with the United States.

Government officials told me that this secret memo wasn’t actually signed by the assistant attorney general until days after the first boat strike on September 2 of last year. So the strikes came before the horse. I should also note that attached to this secret legal memorandum is a similarly secret list of what they call “designated terrorist organizations,” or DTOs. That list is secret too. 

So we’re talking about a fake war in which the enemies aren’t even read into the fact that they’re in an armed conflict with the United States. 

JW: As you’ve reported, nearly 200 people are dead as a result of these strikes, but there are survivors. What do we know about the survivors of these strikes?

NT: Yeah, very little at this point. Most survivors have been gravely injured, or they’ve been left to die at sea by the United States. What’s notable is that behind closed doors in classified briefings, military officials have said that they can’t actually hold or try the individuals that survive because they can’t satisfy the evidentiary burden. They can’t bring these people to court because they know they would lose. To me, that says that there’s a higher evidentiary standard to hold someone on drug charges than to kill them for supposed smuggling. So I think of these strikes as a centerpiece counterterrorism strategy of the Trump administration.

Related

“Terrorist”: How ICE Weaponized 9/11’s Scarlet Letter

It’s really built on a quarter-century of executive overreach and targeted killings around the world. It’s the price of Congress allowing Presidents Bush, Obama, Biden, and Trump to hunt and kill people by drone from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and Somalia. It took this legally dubious, at best, post-9/11 drone war and laid the groundwork for a completely illegal one in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean.

Experts in the laws of war, as well as members of Congress from both parties, say that these boat strikes are illegal extrajudicial killings because the military isn’t permitted to deliberately target civilians, even suspected criminals who don’t pose an imminent threat of violence.

JW: It is so telling that they say they have the legal authority to kill people, but not the legal authority to hold them. I think it just shows the entire game, frankly.

[Break]

JW: Noah, the strategy repeatedly references narco-terrorists in Latin America as principal targets for the Trump administration’s counterterrorism efforts around the world. Does this help us to understand anything about what the administration has been doing in Venezuela, Cuba, and elsewhere?

NH: I think what it helps us understand is that the drug war is and always has been a instrument for various U.S. foreign policy objectives, particularly in Latin America.

Actually labeling these somewhat nebulous drug trafficking groups as explicitly as terrorist groups was, until fairly recently, a right-wing fever dream. But on day one, President Trump signed an executive order asking the State Department to label various drug trafficking groups in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America as terrorist groups. What that tells us is that the war on drugs continues to be a very useful cudgel for U.S. foreign policy in the region.

It’s been used by Trump to discipline and pressure President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico. It’s been used to underwrite the sanctions regime against the government of Nicolás Maduro. Then, of course, as a pretext for the kidnapping of Maduro in January.

This counterterrorism strategy, like the national security strategy released late last year, makes repeated reference to the Monroe Doctrine, which is a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy dating back to 1823 when President James Monroe issued a diktat, if you will, basically saying that the Western Hemisphere is closed to further colonization by Spanish forces and other European powers, and basically it’s our corner of the world, butt out. 

The strand of “American First” nationalism that undergirds the Trump administration’s foreign policy is heavily influenced by this Monroe Doctrine. Now what’s interesting is that it was posed as a sort of anti-colonial doctrine — that the Spanish should stop meddling, that the British should stop meddling. But it has been used in an essentially colonialist or imperialist fashion by the United States to assert power in the Western Hemisphere for centuries now.

It is popular among American-first nationalists because it is a vision of the world that predates liberal internationalism, and instead — it’s not isolationist, it’s not, “We’re going to sit in our country and take care of ourselves” — it is, “We are going to take care of ourselves by projecting power in the Western Hemisphere.”

That is something that we’ve seen very explicitly from the Trump administration, both in rhetoric, in the national security strategy and the counterterrorism strategy, and in its actions. We’ve seen that in Venezuela. We’ve seen that in Cuba with the reinforced blockade. We’ve seen that in Mexico with the Trump administration’s treatment of President Claudia Sheinbaum. 

Related

Trump Frees Ex-President of Honduras, Right-Wing “Narco-Dictator” Convicted of Drug Trafficking

We’ve seen that in other countries where it appears that the Trump administration, especially through Marco Rubio, are trying to create a sort of Pan-American right-wing project linking the brain trusts and power of Javier Milei in Argentina, the supporters of Juan Orlando Hernández in Honduras, the administration in Paraguay, and the the government of Ecuador, where we’ve also seen military strikes against alleged drug traffickers.

JW: Nick, this Pan-American view isn’t really limited to the Western Hemisphere. We had a conversation with historian Greg Grandin as well where he got into this. Can you talk about how the administration has also loosened rules of engagement and the effects of that on countries with U.S. military operations?

NT: This new strategy boasts that as soon as Trump retook the White House he reinstituted loosened rules of engagement that were used during his first term in office. In retrospect, we know that these weak rules during Trump’s first term had a profound effect across the Middle East and Africa. Attacks in Somalia, for example, tripled after Trump relaxed targeting principles. At the same time, U.S. military and independent estimates of civilian casualties across U.S. war zones, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen all spiked. The U.S. conducted more than 200 declared attacks in Somalia during Trump’s first term, and that was a more than 300 percent increase over the eight years of the Obama presidency.

Now, Trump, already in less than a year and a half in office in the second term, is on the cusp of eclipsing his first four years of strikes in Somalia. A review of the Trump era rules by the Biden administration found that the operating principles used in these strikes including what had previously been at a near-certainty that civilians would not be injured or killed in the course of operations, were severely watered down.

When I talked to retired Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, who led Special Operations Command Africa during Trump’s first term, he told me that this shift in the rules of engagement led to a major shift in who could be targeted and who would be killed. In essence, it made it much easier to strike targets.

Back in 2023, in an investigation for The Intercept, I found that these rules in one case led to the deaths of three and possibly five civilians in a strike in Somalia, including a young mother, a 22-year-old, Luul Dahir Mohamed, and her 4-year-old daughter, Mariam. Members of the U.S. strike cell didn’t know what they were looking at and somehow misidentified Luul as a man and completely missed Mariam.

The mother and child had hitched a ride in a pickup truck that the U.S. targeted. Luul and Mariam actually survived the initial strike but were killed in a double-tap attack as they fled for their lives. This was only possible because of these loosened rules of engagement that Trump has now bragged about in this 2026 counterterrorism strategy.

JW: Frankly, it’s alarming to think that now we’re going to see even more incidents like that, like you just described. And we’re seeing people targeted here at home too. 

Nick, I was looking at a piece you did last year focused on NSPM-7, the presidential memorandum that effectively created a secret list of domestic terrorists, which included everyone from anti-Christians to anti-capitalists.

Related

Trump Calls His Enemies Terrorists. Does That Mean He Can Just Kill Them?

One of the haunting questions from your piece was whether the administration has the authority to kill people on the list that it has designated as terrorists. The line “We will find you and we will kill you” appears in this new counterterrorism strategy. I know that stuck out to both of us as incredibly chilling.

Does this new strategy give us an answer to your earlier question? Does the administration have the legal authority to kill its enemies?

NT: The White House and Justice Department have never answered this question. It’s been left hanging there in both cases since the fall when I started asking.

But in December, Gen. Gregory Guillot, the Chief of U.S. Northern Command, a four-star general who takes his orders from Pete Hegseth and oversees the United States, seemed to answer this question, and worryingly so. When he was asked about his willingness to attack so-called designated terrorist organizations within U.S. borders by Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island. Guillot said that if he had questions about such an order, he would ask Hegseth, and if not, if he thought it was a legal order, then he would “definitely execute that order.”

Now, as far as four-star generals go, Guillot has a good reputation. People on the Hill, decent people there, like him. He’s not a Hegseth acolyte, not a MAGA general. But the military are, in the end, orders followers. They kill on command. They do what they’re told. You don’t get four stars on your shoulder by saying, no, sir, that’s immoral. I won’t do what you want, sir. 

You don’t see a lot of military officers at any level pushing back against the orders of this administration to attack and kill people, whether it’s in Iran or Venezuela, or specifically the boat strikes that every legal authority worthy of that name says are illegal extrajudicial killings.

With secret lists of both foreign and domestic terrorists, we don’t know who can be targeted. But it’s possible that so-called left-wing extremists could be targeted and killed on Trump or Hegseth’s say-so. In a world of secret wars, secret enemies lists, secret legal findings, we just can’t know for sure. And that alone should scare every American.

JW: I think most people in the United States would like to believe that the military would not follow those kinds of orders. But as you’ve documented throughout your entire career, we cannot count on individual soldiers not following through on those orders.

The fact that we now have an enemies list and a counterterrorism strategy that is rather explicit about targeting the left, that includes the words “We will find you and we will kill you,” I think that should be terrifying to pretty much anyone.

Noah, you’ve covered other targets, specifically nonprofits. Can you talk a little bit about how that fits into the broader efforts to not only tamp down but arguably eliminate any dissent? Has the Trump administration strategy here evolved over the last year? And if so, how?

NH: As we’ve mentioned before, this anti-terror imperative makes for a very flexible and useful means of tamping down on dissent. Prior to the Trump administration returning to power, I reported extensively on what was known as the “nonprofit killer bill,” which was a piece of legislation in Congress that would allow the Treasury Department to revoke the nonprofit status of any 501(c)(3) organization found to be providing material support for terrorism.

That was a bill that had received relatively broad bipartisan support prior to the reelection of Donald Trump, and then in the immediate aftermath of the reelection of Donald Trump, it became much more of a partisan issue because suddenly the Democrats looked around and realized that we were going to be handing this tool to a new emboldened Trump administration. So that bill ended up languishing in legislative hell. 

I see that as an early warning sign of the way in which the Trump administration planned to use this terrorism rhetoric to tamp down on pretty non-terroristic political enemies. I think that we’ve seen most clearly that coming through in its prosecution of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Related

“We Knew They Were Paying Informants”: SPLC Donors Reject Trump DOJ Fraud Claims

Now, that is through the DOJ. They are not necessarily using the rhetoric of anti-terror against the SPLC in that lawsuit, which is based on the use of undercover informants in white supremacist groups. They did accuse the SPLC of essentially providing material support to these extremist groups by paying informants, but it was a slight evolution of the somewhat more crude use of this terrorism label against political enemies.

But we do see that they are using every tool in the toolbox to delegitimize, to prosecute, to make the lives harder of anyone they see as their political enemies.

JW: What’s also fascinating, maybe horrifying is the better word, is the fact that they don’t even have to pass this legislation. They don’t even have to convict these organizations on any charges, and yet there’s already damage. The Intercept has been reporting on the fact that certain financial institutions essentially complied in advance and began preventing donations from their donor-advised funds to SPLC. 

Nick, at different points in history, we’ve seen the government target civilians it perceived as enemies of the state, from the McCarthy era to COINTELPRO to the war on terror. Perhaps it’s too soon to tell the full impact, but how does what we’re seeing now with the Trump administration compare to these other periods?

NT: I was really struck by some of the language in this new counterterrorism strategy. At one point, it notes that the national counterterrorism activities “will prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups” whose ideology is and this is quoting, “anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.”

This language of neutralization, it really harkens back to the FBI’s analogous and infamous COINTELPRO program that you mentioned which was employed in the 1960s and 1970s to target the civil rights movement; the new left; anti-Vietnam War protesters — basically domestic groups and individuals. It’s very much the spiritual precursor to Trump’s current war at home. It’s just that COINTELPRO was secret, and Trump’s effort is out and proud.

According to a 1976 Senate Select Committee report on U.S. intelligence activities, COINTELPRO turned a law enforcement agency into a law violator. The Senate committee found that the FBI went beyond the collection of intelligence to secret action designed to “disrupt and neutralize target groups and individuals,” and that they used wartime counterintelligence techniques that were antithetical to a democratic society. There was a 1967 internal FBI memo that laid this out basically that this type of counterintelligence was meant to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” — that language again — “African American groups and leaders.”

These efforts were meant to, this is another quote, “cause serious physical, emotional, or economic damage to the targets,” according to the Senate committee. Martin Luther King Jr., for instance, was one of the targets of the FBI’s campaign. The Senate Select Committee again uses that same language. They said that the FBI targeted him to neutralize him. The man that was in charge of the FBI’s what they called “war against Dr. King,” said that they used the same methods they employed against Soviet agents. It’s the Cold War at the time, very much at war with the Soviet Union.

To me, I think Trump is really reinstituting COINTELPRO under a new name.

JW: The groups that you just mentioned are all generally considered left-leaning movements. What impact did those efforts have on leftist movements in the United States?

NT: Yeah, COINTELPRO and some analogous operations were going on at the same time. They really weakened activist groups. They sowed dissent within organizations, discord among members. They broke up families. They encouraged gang warfare on the streets of American cities. It got people killed.

Related

How the FBI and Big Ag Started Treating Animal Rights Activists as Bioterrorists

They utilized informants and agent provocateurs. They undermined groups that were trying to bring about social change through democratic means and hurt people that really just wanted to build a better, more inclusive America.

We can talk about the promise of 1960s radicalism and the movement and people trying to bring about social change and how it failed. But, we can’t seriously address those failures if we don’t talk about a sophisticated government campaign that was meant to undermine those groups and destroy those people.

JW: Are we doomed to repeat that history, to repeat that fate of previous leftist movements? Or is there a way for alleged enemies of the state to fight back? Noah, I want to start with you.

NH: Oh, yeah, we’re doomed. [Laughter.] Just kidding. No, I think there are definitely ways to push back on these. The Trump administration has been dealt a number of defeats in various district courts on a number of important policies.

So it’s going to be really important for groups like the SPLC to fight back from a legal basis. We’re also seeing a number of the charges that are being brought against protesters in various cities that have been invaded by ICE fall apart. The Prairieland case in Texas was actually a bit of an outlier. If you look at a lot of the cases, particularly in Chicago and Los Angeles, the charges brought against protesters there, where the rhetoric of terrorism has been used against them by the administration, have often fallen apart because juries see through what the prosecution is saying against them.

I think that we are early in this administration and we’re going to keep seeing creative methods used to tamp down on dissent. Say what you will about the people around President Trump, but they have proved very adept at finding levers of power and levers of pain to go after their enemies. 

The SPLC lawsuit is a really good example of that. I’m sure they knew that these donor-advised funds were going to stop allowing donations there. It’s not just the bad press. It’s not just the legal headaches. There’s all sorts of problems that you kick off when you make an accusation like this in court.

So we are going to continue to see this so-called anti-terrorism carried out against leftist groups. It’s just going to be really important to find creative ways to push back on.

JW: Nick, how does the left survive this?

NT: The only reason that we, the public, that Congress, anyone ever found out about the COINTELPRO program is because a tiny group of academics, a daycare director, and a taxi driver broke into an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, in 1971, stole more than a thousand classified FBI documents, and exposed the FBI’s illegal operations.

The Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI, as they called themselves, changed our understanding of how underhanded and unhinged the U.S. government is and can be. And they were just regular people. 

I’m not encouraging people to break into an FBI field office, but activists are still smart and committed, and I’m confident they’ll find a way to expose today’s illegality.

I hope and I humbly ask that they send whatever they uncover to The Intercept.

JW: Sounds like we’re going to have a lot more documents to go through. We’re going to leave it there. We go into much more detail about the far-reaching implications of the administration’s counterterrorism strategy beyond what we cover here, so you can check out our story. You can find it at theintercept.com, and we’ll link it in the show notes. 

Nick and Noah, thanks for joining me on The Intercept Briefing.

NT: Thanks so much for having us. 

NH: Thanks so much.

JW: That does it for this episode. 

This episode was produced by Laura Flynn. Ben Muessig is our editor-in-chief. Maia Hibbett is our Managing Editor. Chelsey B. Coombs is our social and video producer. Fei Liu is our product and design manager. Nara Shin is our copy editor. William Stanton mixed our show. Legal review by David Bralow.

Slip Stream provided our theme music.

This show and our reporting at The Intercept doesn’t exist without you. Your donation, no matter the amount, makes a real difference. Keep our investigations free and fearless at theintercept.com/join. 

And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Intercept Briefing wherever you listen to podcasts. Do leave us a rating or a review, it helps other listeners to find us.

Let us know what you think of this episode, or If you want to send us a general message, email us at podcasts@theintercept.com.

Until next time, I’m Jessica Washington. 

The post “We Will Find You and We Will Kill You” appeared first on The Intercept.

State oil company fast-tracks previously undisclosed project, which is expected to double export capacity

• Business live – latest updates

The United Arab Emirates has announced it will complete a new oil pipeline bypassing the strait of Hormuz by next year to secure its future crude exports against the threat of disruption.

The current blockade of the vital waterway, through which 20% of oil and seaborne gas flowed before the Iran war, is approaching the 11-week mark, sending energy prices soaring around the world and throttling Gulf economies.

the Trump administration last week unveiled its “2026 Counterterrorism Strategy,” a 16-page collection of threats, grievances, hyperbole, and lies. The memo is a truly foundational document and a striking distillation of Trumpism as an ideology, movement, and system of governance. It also serves as a new declaration of war on the Trump administration’s enemies — foreign and domestic, real and imagined. 

The brainchild of National Security Council official Sebastian Gorka, the “Counterterrorism Strategy” weaves together Trump’s war on the wider world — which stretches from interventions and wars in Yemen and Iran to Nigeria and Somalia to Venezuela and the Caribbean Sea — with the administration’s war on dissent at home, which has targeted immigrants, legal observers, activists, protesters, and the press.

Under the guise of protecting America, it takes aim at wide swaths of Americans, putting targets on the backs of the most vulnerable.

Related

“We Will Find You and We Will Kill You”

The “Counterterrorism Strategy” formalizes a drastic shift in focus for counterterror efforts. Now, according to the Trump administration, the nation is battling three major types of terror groups: “Legacy Islamist Terrorists,” the long-standing focus of America’s counter-terror efforts; “Narcoterrorists and Transnational Gangs”; and “Violent Left-Wing Extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists.”

This last group is defined in the document as people the administration deems to be “anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.” This puts antifa — a fictional foe that is actually a collection of ideas and not an organization — on par with actual terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group, and drug-trafficking syndicates such as the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel. 

The memo makes no mention of right-wing extremist groups, despite rafts of research, from the U.S. government and others, demonstrating that such groups have been responsible for the majority of violent attacks in America in recent years.

Following 9/11, the George W. Bush administration published the first official National Strategy for Combating Terrorism. The 2003 document purported to set “the course for winning the War on Terror,” with a focus on “destroying the larger al-Qaida network,” by defining the threat and laying out big-picture goals and objectives. New strategies have been issued numerous times, over multiple presidencies, since.

Explaining the 2026 strategy last week, Gorka leaned into the lies which permeate the Trump administration’s document. “Very simply, it’s common-sense counterterrorism based on reality not fake threats,” he explained. “In the president’s foreword and in chapter one, we make it very clear we will not permit the use of the most powerful national security tools in the world including the counterterrorism enterprise to be used as political weapons.”

Rep. Valerie Foushee, D-N.C., had a very different interpretation, calling the strategy “a plan on how they’re going to attack people on the left,” noting that antifascists are “not a real terrorism threat in the United States.” She added that the effort is “completely corrupt.”

To contextualize the U.S. government’s radical new approach to counterterrorism, The Intercept analyzed the document, highlighting revelatory passages that show how the Trump administration is bringing the war on terror home.

“We Will Kill You”

History ultimately judges presidents by their priorities, both deeds and words.

While calling out slavery as the cause of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln still focused his second inaugural address on reconciliation over retribution. “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations,” he pronounced.

On the eve of World War II, as the threat of fascism loomed over the world, President Franklin D. Roosevelt readied a nation for war, not with ferocious rhetoric but by envisioning a new world founded upon the freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. “That is no vision of a distant millennium,” he told Congress on January 6, 1941. “It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.”

These presidents were deeply flawed. Both committed grave injustices, were responsible for immense harm, and neither lived up to their most laudable words. But those words survived for a reason and are now part of the American canon.

For President Donald Trump, the “2026 Counterterrorism Strategy” is as good as any collection of words in defining him. Nothing better illustrates his vision of America’s role in the world than Trump’s capstone quote. He concludes the foreword with words that ring true from the streets of Minneapolis, where federal agents killed U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti during anti-ICE resistance; to a school building in Minab, Iran, where more than 100 children were killed in a U.S. airstrike; to the Eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, where close to 200 civilians have been killed in attacks on alleged drug boats; and should follow him forever: “We Will Find You and We Will Kill You.”

Treating Americans as Terrorists

Under U.S. law, the government can designate “foreign terrorist organizations,” a process that typically entails a formal declaration by the secretary of state at the direction of the president, allowing the Treasury Department to impose financial penalties and the Justice Department to prosecute people for providing “material support” to such groups. Congress has not passed any law creating a domestic terrorism designation, nor is there a standalone crime of “domestic terrorism.” 

This has not stopped Trump from aiming the counterterror apparatus at domestic targets in his second term. Under National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, or NSPM-7, which Trump issued last September, vaguely defined enemies are not only typified by “support for the overthrow of the United States Government,” but also advocacy of opinions clearly protected by the First Amendment including “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity” as well as “hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

In this document, the Trump administration makes clear it considers any American who it believes has “adopted ideologies antithetical to freedom and the American way of life” to be a terror threat.

“The Trump administration has repurposed the ‘terrorism’ framing and applied it to new boogeymen, like alleged narcos as well as a caricature of their domestic political opposition,” Brian Finucane, a senior adviser for the U.S. Program at the International Crisis Group, told The Intercept.

White-Washing Right-Wing Terror

What’s notable here isn’t just the “major terror groups” included — it’s the type of groups the Trump administration omitted. 

“Absurdly, the document incorrectly labels drug cartels, ‘legacy Islamist terrorists,’ and violent left-wing extremists as the top counterterrorism threats — despite years of data proving that right-wing extremism has presented the most persistent and deadly threats to Americans for decades,” said Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security. 

In fact, a 2025 analysis conducted by the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies found that, over the past decade, right-wing extremists carried out 152 attacks in the United States and killed 112 people, compared with 35 attacks and 13 deaths attributed to left-wing militants. Islamist jihadist-inspired attacks resulted in 82 deaths over the same span.

“Radical Ideologies”

The new “Counterterrorism Strategy” signals a jarring shift in the priorities of the national security apparatus. Instead of having the security state primarily focus on foreign actors and those domestic threats responsible for the most violence in recent years — like white supremacists and violent militias — the president is effectively siccing them on anyone who dares to disagree with him or his supporters. 

“This is a very severe degradation of freedom of thought [and] freedom of speech in the country, and it should be raising alarm bells,” said Robert P. Jones, president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute.

“It does look like a very straight blueprint drawn from white evangelical Protestant Christian circles,” said Jones, the author of the forthcoming book “Backslide: Reclaiming a Faith and a Nation After the Christian Turn Against Democracy.”“What they call radical ideology is essentially anything that differs from that conservative, white evangelical Protestant worldview.”

The Narcoterrorist Boogeymen

By labeling drug-trafficking networks as terrorists, Trump is operating in a long tradition of using the rhetoric of war to refer to an issue that is rooted in public health. The terrorism framing is simply the logical next step in the decadeslong war on drugs that is, more often than not, used as a cudgel by U.S. policymakers to keep Latin American countries in line, said Alexander Aviña, a historian at Arizona State University.

“They’re using drug war counterterrorism as a cover,” Aviña said. “They’re effectively maintaining control over the region through a bunch of proxy right-wing governments, but it’s being framed as counterterrorism, as an anti-drugs operation. The innovation here is that they’re applying war on terror legislation and laws to drug trafficking organizations”

Related

Trump Administration Conjures Up New “Terrorist” Designation to Justify Killing Civilians

The problem with labeling drug networks as “terrorists,” however, is that the vast majority of drug traffickers differ from organizations like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group in that they have no real membership, and they operate for profit, not to achieve an ideological objective.

Legacy Islamist Terrorists

Despite Trump’s boasts of his prowess at fighting terrorism, both Al Qaeda and ISIS were the top threats in his 2018 counterterrorism strategy. They are called out specifically in the new document as well.

In fact, Gorka’s inclusion of ISIS directly contradicts longtime claims by Trump. “We defeated ISIS in record time,” Trump said in his 2024 election-night speech. Last year, at his commencement speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he said: “I defeated ISIS in three weeks.”

“Politically Motivated” Killings of Christians

The idea that Christians, who make up two-thirds of the U.S. population, are under siege is belied by the data. Hate crimes motivated by anti-Christian bias are far rarer than attacks motivated by racism or xenophobia in the United States, and other religious groups are far more likely to report being the victim of a religiously motivated hate crime than Christians. An analysis of 2023 FBI hate crime data found that less than 10 percent of religiously motivated hate crimes were believed to be motivated by anti-Christian bias. 

“There’s really no evidence-based reason why a report focused on the domestic front would disproportionately feature violence against Christians. There’s just no evidence that that is the most pressing problem facing us in the United States today,” said PRRI’s Jones.

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing, right-wing influencers and media outlets rapidly spread misinformation about the shooter’s gender identity and supposed “pro-transgender” ideology based on unverified claims about the bullet casings used in the shooting. Trans people are far more likely to be victims of gun violence than perpetrators. In mass shootings carried out between 1966 and 2025, less than 1 percent of the shooters were transgender, according to the Violence Prevention Project. The overwhelming majority of shooters were cisgender men. 

“In the immediate aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s murder, news outlets and people with large platforms online raced to share unconfirmed reports that wrongfully tied the LGBTQ+ community to the shooter,” Human Rights Campaign national press secretary Brandon Wolf told The Washington Blade. “Jumping to those conclusions was reckless, irresponsible, and led to a wave of threats against the trans community from right wing influencers, and a wave of terror for the community that is already living scared.”

“Neutralization” of Adversaries

While Trump has frequently threatened his political opponents in public, experts in extremism told The Intercept that “this kind of language” in a national security document should raise alarm bells. It’s one thing when the president rants about “radical gender ideology” at a rally, said Jones. “But when it gets put into a national presidential security memo, when it gets put into a report that’s led by a task force at the U.S. Department of Justice, and when it’s put into a counterterrorism document … these are laying the legal framework for prosecution.” 

This language of “neutralization” in this new strategy harkens back to the FBI’s analogous and infamous COINTELPRO program, which was employed in the 1960s and 1970s to target the civil rights movement, the New Left, and anti-Vietnam War protesters, among other domestic groups and individuals and, according to a 1976 Senate Select Committee report on U.S. intelligence activities, “turn[ed] a law enforcement agency into a law violator.” The FBI, the committee found, “went beyond the collection of intelligence to secret action designed to ‘disrupt’ and ‘neutralize’ target groups and individuals,” using “wartime counterintelligence” techniques that “would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity,” which they were not.

A 1967 FBI memo notes that purpose of this type of “counterintelligence endeavor is to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” African American groups and leaders. Efforts included “sending anonymous poison-pen letters intended to break up marriages,” “encouraging gang warfare,” “falsely labeling members of a violent group as police informers,” and other means to “cause serious physical, emotional, or economic damage to the targets,” according to the committee. Their investigation found that civil rights leader “Martin Luther King, Jr. was, for instance, the target of an intensive campaign by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to ‘neutralize’ him” and that “the man in charge of the FBI’s ‘war’ against Dr. King” said they used the same methods employed against Soviet agents.

An Antifa Obsession

Antifa, short for antifascist, is a decentralized, leftist ideology, a collection of related ideas and political concepts much like feminism or environmentalism. Over the last decade, however, Republicans have used it as an omnibus term for left-wing activists — as if it were an organization with members and a command structure. They have increasingly blamed antifa for terrorist violence.

Related

Leaked Documents Show Police Knew Far-Right Extremists Were the Real Threat at Protests, Not “Antifa”

In 2019, during his first term, Trump floated the idea of declaring antifa “a major Organization of Terror,” likening it to the group MS-13, an international criminal gang that originated in the U.S. and that the administration added to the foreign terrorist organization list last year. “The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization,” Trump tweeted in 2020, during protests after the police killing of George Floyd.

Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray said, however, that antifa was “not a group or an organization” but a “movement or an ideology.” Trump lashed out, calling antifa “well funded ANARCHISTS & THUGS who are protected because the … FBI is simply unable, or unwilling, to find their funding source.” After Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an effort to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, Trump blamed “antifa people” for inciting violence. 

Finally, last September, Trump signed an executive order designating antifa as a “domestic terror organization.” He followed it by issuing NSPM-7, which directs the Justice Department and elements of the Intelligence Community and national security establishment to target “anti-fascism … movements” and “domestic terrorist organizations.” 

Related

How Many Members Does Antifa Have? Where Is Its Headquarters? The FBI Has No Answers.

On his press tour touting the new strategy, Gorka said “left-wing violent radicals like antifa and the anarchists” were the “most ascendant” terror group and — without evidence — claimed they were “the people who killed our friend Charlie Kirk.” He said these leftists are “people who think that if you don’t agree with them politically, they get to kill you.”

Locking Up Trump’s Enemies

The new document detours to discuss the wrongful detention of Americans abroad. Ironically, the Trump administration has unlawfully detained thousands of people residing in the United States, including those with legal status, targeting everyone from perceived political dissidents to racial and ethnic minorities. 

Last year, the Trump administration detained Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk for writing an op-ed, as revealed by legal documents unsealed as a result of litigation from The Intercept and other parties. 
Also in 2025, the administration sent Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadoran national with an order preventing his deportation to his country of origin, to CECOT, a prison in El Salvador notorious for human rights abuses. He has since been released to his home in Maryland, but the administration has continued to target him, including with criminal prosecution.

The Monroe Doctrine

Issued by President James Monroe, the Monroe Doctrine is a foundational principle of U.S. foreign policy opposing any foreign interference in the Western Hemisphere — except by Washington. It’s seen by American nationalists and by modern “America First” Trump ideologues as marking a “golden age” of U.S. power in the region, according to historian Greg Grandin.

“Going back to World War I and World War II, America First nationalists have liked the Monroe Doctrine because they saw it as an alternative to liberal internationalism,” Grandin said. “They were never isolationists, even though that word is often applied to them, because they’ve long claimed the right to intervene and project power in the Western Hemisphere.”

Now, Trump is using the spectre of terror to justify extrajudicial killings of alleged drug traffickers at sea and the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Boat Strikes and Bogus Stats

The U.S. military has conducted 58 attacks on so-called drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean since September 2025, killing more than 190 civilians. 

Experts in the laws of war, as well as members of Congress from both parties, say the strikes are illegal, extrajudicial killings because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians — even suspected criminals — who do not pose an imminent threat of violence.

The assertion that this campaign has resulted “in a more than 90% decrease in maritime drug smuggling” into the U.S. slightly tempers similarly outlandish and false figures from Trump, who regularly claims that “drugs entering our country by sea are down 97 percent.” Experts say these claims are meant to deceive the American people. “It wouldn’t be the first time this administration just made up something out of whole cloth,” Sanho Tree, the director of the Drug Policy Project at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies, told The Intercept.

Even the Pentagon’s own figures refute Trump’s numbers. “He’s trying to imply that 97 percent of the cocaine that left South America by boat headed to the United States has been stopped,” said Rear Adm. William Baumgartner, the former commander of the Seventh Coast Guard District, who oversaw drug-interdiction operations in the Southeast U.S. and the Caribbean Basin. “That’s not true and is contradicted by the administration’s own statements.” Acting Assistant Secretary of War for Homeland Defense and Americas Security Affairs Joseph Humire, for example, offered completely different numbers to Congress, telling the House Armed Services Committee in March that there “has been a 20 percent reduction of movements of drug vessels in the Caribbean and an additional 25 percent reduction in the Eastern Pacific.”

The “Trump Corollary”

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen an attempt by the administration to enshrine a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, with the term also appearing in the administration’s national security strategy document in December. But it’s not entirely clear what, precisely, this corollary means, said Aviña, the historian.

“It’s supposed to be an addition to the Monroe Doctrine, but we don’t get a very precise definition of what that is,” said Aviña. “It harkens back to the Roosevelt Corollary, but Teddy Roosevelt was very clear about what his addition was: international police power.” Trump makes no claim to a new power. “So Trump is working in that tradition, but in a weird and imprecise way.”

Loosened Rules and Civilian Deaths

The loosened rules of engagement during Trump’s first term had a profound effect across the Middle East and Africa. Attacks in Somalia tripled after Trump relaxed targeting principles, while U.S. military and independent estimates of civilian casualties across U.S. war zones spiked. The U.S. conducted 219 declared attacks in Somalia during Trump’s single term in the White House, a more than 329 percent increase over the eight years of the Obama presidency. Trump is already on the cusp of eclipsing those numbers in less than a year and half. Since taking office last year, Trump has overseen at least 190 attacks in Somalia.

A review of Trump-era rules by the Biden administration found that, in some countries, “operating principles,” including a “near certainty” that civilians would “not be injured or killed in the course of operations,” were reportedly enforced only for women and children, while a lower standard applied to civilian adult men. All military-age males were considered legitimate targets if they were observed with suspected al-Shabab members in the group’s territory, Donald Bolduc, who led Special Operations Command Africa at the time, told The Intercept. 

A 2023 investigation by The Intercept found that Trump’s directive contributed to a particularly disastrous attack in Somalia that killed at least three — and possibly five — civilians, including 22-year-old Luul Dahir Mohamed and her 4-year-old daughter, Mariam Shilow Muse. The mother and child survived the initial strike but were killed by a double-tap attack as they fled for their lives. “They know innocent people were killed, but they’ve never told us a reason or apologized,” said Abdi Dahir Mohamed, one of Luul’s brothers. “No one has been held accountable.”

Using Europe to Promote Bigotry

The document employs its section on Europe to shamelessly promote racism, white nationalism, and Christian supremacy employing a stilted worldview that ignores the U.S. role in the immigration it rails against.

“Trump officials are clearly weaponizing anti-Muslim bigotry in their campaign to heap pressure on Europe. They are baselessly insinuating that European policies that welcomed migrants — who largely fled their home countries due to the impact of U.S. backed wars and regime changes — created an incubator for terrorism,” Erik Sperling, the executive director of Just Foreign Policy, told The Intercept. “At the same time, however, the White House continues to implement the exact kind of violent, interventionist policies that drove mass migration and generated extremism in the first place.”

“There is this kind of praising of Western culture and values, the denigration of ‘alien cultures,’” said Jones. “What’s behind those is really a sense of European superiority, and that gets translated into the U.S. in racial terms. So it really is a white Christian worldview here that’s being projected and protected.”

A Bid to “Protect Christians”

Experts on white supremacy and Christian nationalism told The Intercept that the Trump administration is spreading misinformation about a Christian genocide in Africa in order to stoke white Christian nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiments at home. “In Nigeria, it’s genocide against Christians, and in South Africa, it’s the supposed genocide against these white Afrikaners,” Christine Reyna, a professor of psychology at DePaul University, told The Intercept. “And so in absence of an actual genocide in the United States against either of these two groups, you can keep that narrative of that existential fear of extermination and genocide and oppression that is alive and well within a certain subset of white Americans.”

In addition to using the conflicts in Africa to spread propaganda domestically, experts on Christian nationalism tell The Intercept that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth believes in waging war to achieve Christian supremacy abroad, without respect to international laws or norms. “Hegseth believes that he is carrying out a spiritual and actual war to vanquish a Christian nation’s enemies and protect and promote a Christian nation,” Sarah Posner, an investigative journalist covering the Christian right, said on The Intercept Briefing podcast. “For Hegseth, biblical law is the only law he feels obligated to obey. The law of war, international law governing military conflicts, and human rights and civilian rights in war — he believes don’t apply to him.”

Trump’s Holy War in Nigeria

While Christians have been the victims of violence in Nigeria, they have not been the primary target, and experts overwhelmingly reject the idea that a Christian genocide is occurring in that country. Research from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, an independent global monitor of conflict and protest data, found that of the 1,923 attacks on civilians in Nigeria that occurred as of November of last year; 50 of those attacks targeted Christians because of their religion. According to experts, the majority of the violence has focused on land disputes. 

Trump’s Christmas Day attack was another in a long string of failed and futile U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Africa documented by The Intercept over the last decade This includes blowback from U.S. operations and failed secret wars, civilians killed in drone strikes, coups by U.S. trained officers, increases in the reach of terror groups, surging fatalities from militant violence, human rights abuses by allies, massacres of civilians by partner forces, and a catalogue of other fiascos.

Doubling Down on Failures in Africa

The document casts Trump’s strategy as a departure from the failed forever war interventions of Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. But Sarah Harrison — who served as an associate general counsel at the Pentagon’s Office of General Counsel, International Affairs, where she oversaw the Africa portfolio, and as counsel to the deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs — sees little difference. “Setting aside the bombast about protecting Christians, the fundamentals of Trump’s Africa CT policy isn’t that distinct from his predecessors: a light military footprint to facilitate intel sharing and drone strikes with an emphasis on supporting the partner nation. These policies fail because they ignore the drivers of conflict and refuse to acknowledge the need for a political solution,” she told The Intercept.

The U.S. government’s own statistics bear out this record of futility and failure. Throughout all of Africa, the State Department counted 23 deaths from terrorist violence in 2002 and 2003, as U.S. counterterrorism efforts began to ramp up on the continent in the wake of 9/11. Last year, there were 22,307 fatalities from militant Islamist violence in Africa, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution. This represents an almost 97,000 percent increase since the early 2000s, with the areas of greatest U.S. involvement — Somalia and the West African Sahel — suffering the worst outcomes.

“Reality-Based” Counterterrorism

The document ends as it began, with unserious bombast that reads like little more than AI slop fashioned from administration talking points. Evoking the administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy, which called for a restoration of “Europe’s civilizational self-confidence and Western identity,” the Trump administration appears to be making up for its own insecurities with claims that the president has restored America’s “civilizational confidence” through a baptism of fire. In reality, the document projects a heady blend of weakness and anxiety and espouses a counterterrorism strategy akin to a 12-year-old boy’s vision of foreign policy: boasts about killing one’s way to victory.

In a post-release media tour where he spoke with MAGA outlets and administration sycophants, Gorka expressed amazement at how little negative reporting there was about the new counterterrorism strategy. “Even the left, they’re so on their heels. I did a kind of press call when we released the strategy,” said Gorka. “Fifty articles were written. … Only one of them … was even slightly negative.” (The Intercept’s invite must have been lost in the mail.) He continued: “We are moving so fast, they just can’t keep up with us — which is delicious.” His interviewer, Dean Cain, best known for playing second fiddle in “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” responded, “That’s wonderful.” 

Related

“Terrorist”: How ICE Weaponized 9/11’s Scarlet Letter

“If the U.S. government counterterrorism enterprise hadn’t jumped the shark before, it certainly has now,” said Finucane. “The administration has repurposed the terrorism framing and applied it not only to alleged narcos but also perceived domestic political opponents — as we saw with the way the administration baselessly smeared Renee Good and Alex Pretti as ‘terrorists’ after gunning them down. The whole situation would be much funnier if the Trump administration wasn’t currently engaged in a lawless killing spree under the guise of ‘counterterrorism.’”

The post How Trump’s New Counterterrorism Strategy Puts You at Risk appeared first on The Intercept.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Youth services for hundreds of New Castle County children face uncertainty as finances at the Police Athletic League of Delaware are probed. The nonprofit is one of dozens of private organizations that are regularly funded by taxpayers. For years, it also was one of a handful to be led by a state lawmaker.

The financial crisis facing the Police Athletic League of Delaware escalated in recent weeks after state officials demanded that the community center nonprofit repay nearly $900,000 in misspent pandemic relief money, New Castle County police chief Col. Jamie Leonard said Tuesday.

Speaking before the New Castle County Council, Leonard said the PAL — as the organization is known — does not have enough cash on hand to repay the money, which he said was awarded for capital projects in previous years, but instead was spent on day-to-day operating expenses. 

Leonard said state officials are expecting the repayment “rather quickly,” because they want to redistribute the dollars before a spending deadline at the end of the year.

He also indicated the situation could involve criminal liability, but said it remains “difficult to unravel.” 

 “Financial crimes was never my thing, but it’s messy, for sure,” he said to the council.

A spokesperson for the Delaware Department of Finance declined to confirm that it is demanding repayment, stating “we do not comment on active investigations.”

The office of the U.S. Attorney for Delaware did not respond to an email seeking comment. 

The police chief’s comments mark the latest chapter in the troubles facing the politically connected nonprofit, which operates community centers serving children in New Castle County. They first emerged publicly eight months ago after former Delaware House Speaker Valerie Longhurst quietly resigned as the executive director of the nonprofit. 

At the time, two board members told Spotlight Delaware that the organization’s cash reserves had dwindled, even after it received a record $5 million in cash and rent assistance from taxpayers in the 2024 fiscal year – as well as hundreds of thousands more in 2025.

A portion of its revenues in recent years came from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, a 2021 law designed to jump start the COVID-era economy. While the money originated at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, it was awarded by then-Gov. John Carney.

Following Longhurst’s resignation, New Castle County Executive Marcus Henry announced that Leonard would take over as the PAL’s board chairman. Leonard then named one of his officers, New Castle County Police Lt. Angela Dolan, as its interim executive director.

During a New Castle County Council meeting last fall, Dolan described the array of activities offered by the PAL, including a basketball league, a flag football league, a soccer clinic, a Lego league, a book club, and an art club.  

Then she expressed dismay over what she feared could be the organization’s future.

“When you see these kids come in and love what they’re doing and what they’re being exposed to, it’s really hard to think that this could end,” she said then.

Who controlled the finances?

In the months that followed, Longhurst did not comment publicly, even after reports surfaced that her former nonprofit faced a criminal investigation, and an audit that could force it to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

On Wednesday, she broke her silence in an interview with Spotlight Delaware that primarily consisted of her suggesting several questions that should be asked of the PAL’s board of directors, including about the quality of their past oversight, and about a former staffer who she said had the authority to make spending decisions. 

Last year, Spotlight Delaware learned that the organization’s board of directors had not held meetings on a regular basis. 

Longhurst did not directly answer the question of why money granted for capital projects may have been used for operating expenses during her tenure.

“All I can say is, you know, were procedures put in place?” she said. “The people who were supposed to oversee that. Were they?”

When pressed that those spending decisions would have been hers to make as executive director, Longhurst said, “Actually, they weren’t.”

Instead, she claimed that a former bookkeeper at the PAL “had full autonomy over all the finances.”

Asked whether she has been contacted by either state of federal criminal investigators, she said she had not. 

In her comments, Longhurst also showered praise onto the PAL and its mission. She said the organization with community centers across the county has an impact that is underestimated in Delaware.  

“I have nothing but great things to say about how wonderful the PAL is,” she said.

The PAL of Delaware operates athletic, arts and academic programs at community center locations in Hockessin, Delaware City and suburban New Castle. The settings place children in contact with law enforcement as part of a founding principle “of building bridges between police officers and the communities they serve,” according to the PAL of Delaware website.  

The nonprofit also has been an integral piece of Delaware’s political landscape, with elected officials regularly making public appearances at its locations.

Until 2024, it also was one of several prominent Delaware organizations led by a state lawmaker. That ended last September when Longhurst — then among the most powerful politicians in Delaware — lost her seat representing the Bear area to now-Rep. Kamela Smith, a Democrat.

Could the state be liable?

At the New Castle County Council meeting Tuesday, Councilman John Cartier asked Leonard about the state’s deadline for the PAL to pay back its $876,000 debt.  

That deadline, Leonard said, had already passed. He noted that state officials want to reclaim the dollars immediately so they could award them to another organization ahead of the end-of-the-year deadline to spend the dollars.  

He also recounted a conversation last month with state officials, who described different scenarios that could result from their demand. The PAL could pay back the money in full. The state could place a lien on the organization’s property.

Or, federal and state officials could “look to the party responsible for the mismanagement at the time to recoup those funds,” Leonard said, without detailing who the responsible party might be.

Also at the council meeting, Councilwoman Janet Kilpatrick pressed the police chief about whether it was state or federal officials demanding the money back. 

Leonard said it was both. All of his meetings with regulators have been through the state, he said, but with a U.S Treasury official in attendance.  

“So the state would like the money back to redistribute, but Treasury has the ultimate say on any forgiveness,” Leonard said. 

The U.S. Department of the Treasury did not respond to a request to comment on this story.

Kilpatrick then asked Leonard if he met with Delaware lawmakers. She suggested the state may have liability around any misspent money if officials had not conducted sufficient oversight. 

Kilpatrick then noted that Delaware’s annual capital budget hearings are set to commence soon. In response, Leonard said the co-chairs of the state’s primary budget committee have been briefed on this “on a continual basis.” 

He also noted that the PAL has applied to the Delaware grant-in-aid program for the next fiscal year. The program distributes tens of millions of dollars annually to Delaware nonprofits.

Last summer, lawmakers paused a grant-in-aid package to the PAL after evidence of its financial crisis first emerged. Ultimately, the state distributed more than $600,000 to the organization during the current 2026 fiscal year, which ends on June 30.

Asked about the nature of Leonard’s recent conversations with lawmakers, a spokesperson for the Senate Democrats said in a statement that they “welcome communication” from PAL leadership, but “in our current fiscal climate, we cannot commit to allocating state funds to cover their shortfall at this time.”

The spokesperson also stated that she would not characterize the PAL’s past outreach with legislators as “continual.”

In an interview with Spotlight Delaware, Leonard declined to go into details about the frequency of past conversations with lawmakers.  

He also said the organization is not at risk of closing, stressing that all three PAL community centers are running at normal times.

To rebuild its finances, he said the organization has begun leasing its facilities out during off hours. He also stated that conversations with the state officials about an “appeal process or a forgiveness option” for the demanded money have occurred.

“We are working through possible ways to make good on our obligations,” Leonard said.

The post Crisis at the PAL escalates as the state demands an $876K repayment appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Redress to customers for force-fitting devices in homes includes £20m penalty and £70m of debt write-offs

Thousands of British Gas customers who had prepayment meters force-fitted in their homes will between them receive compensation and energy bill debt write-offs worth up to £112m in the biggest energy supplier settlement on record.

Great Britain’s energy regulator found that British Gas forced PPMs on homes that were not keeping up with their bills at the height of the Russian gas crisis, in one of the most complex investigations in Ofgem’s history.