The dystopian "freedom cities" dream fueling Elon Musk's destruction
"Freedom cities" is simply neo-feudalism, a plan to end the concept of citizenship and make every working person a serf whose entire life is controlled by the whims of their boss. "These are going to be cities without democracy."
Elon Musk's war on Social Security unmasks the GOP's true disdain for retirees
Musk frames retired people in parasitical terms, not seeing them as those who have paid their dues and have earned their reward. "The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit." Empathy is "civilizational suicidal" and "the empathy response" is "a bug in Western civilization."
A Tesla protester targeted by Elon Musk speaks out: 'I have to protect myself'
Valerie Costa helped organize peaceful local protests as part of Tesla Takedown. In a post on X about the protest movement, Musk claimed Costa's Seattle group was backed by ActBlue, an online fundraising platform for Democrats. Then he posted: "Costa is committing crimes," with a video clip of her appearing on a podcast.
Dozens of Musk fans targeted Costa with menacing direct messages, social media posts and emails. In several messages reviewed by NPR, Musk supporters said they hope federal authorities will investigate her and even threatened physical violence against her.
Scientists Say NIH Officials Told Them To Scrub mRNA References on Grants
Scientists relayed their experiences on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional retaliation by the Trump administration. NIH is canceling studies of vaccine hesitancy, and “it is reasonable to assume mRNA vaccine work is next.”
Columbia University expels, suspends and revokes degrees of 22 students
The university announced it was expelling, suspending and revoking the degrees of 22 students following last year’s Hamilton Hall protest, fulfilling one of the nine demands issued in a letter from the Trump administration to Columbia.
Trump's border czar: "I don't care what the judges think"
The Trump administration says it ignored a Saturday court order to turn around two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members because the flights were over international waters and therefore the ruling didn't apply.
'RFK'ing the french fries': Steak 'n Shake becomes a MAHA darling
It began cooking its shoestring fries in beef tallow instead seed oils
US evangelical groups urge Trump to spare HIV/Aids program from aid cuts
Christian organizations helped create Pepfar, credited with preventing 25m early deaths, particularly in Africa. Delivery of anti-retroviral medicines (ARVs) funded by the US has all but ground to a halt in some countries, particularly in Africa. That could lead to a resurgence of Aids. Also, once you stop taking ARVs, within days the virus can come back online and then start developing resistance.
FDA staff return to crowded offices, broken equipment and missing chairs
Everyone brought bottled water, due to a monthslong issue involving Legionella, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease, which was detected at several FDA buildings.
Microsoft wouldn't look at a bug report without a video. Researcher maliciously complied
Senior principal vulnerability analyst Will Dormann said last week he contacted Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) with a clear description of the bug and supporting screenshots, only to be told that his report wouldn't be looked at without a video. Frustrated with Microsoft's demand, which Dormann said would only show him typing commands that were already depicted in the screenshots, and hitting Enter in CMD, the analyst created a video laden with malicious compliance. The video is 15 minutes long and at the four-second mark flashes a screenshot from Zoolander, in which the protagonist unveils the "Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good."
It also features a punchy techno backing track while wasting the reviewer's time with approximately 14 minutes of inactivity.
GitHub supply chain attack spills secrets from 23,000 projects
"tj-actions/changed-files" is a popular GitHub Action, used by more than 23,000 GitHub repositories. Attackers compromised the project, and altered its code to leak secrets into build logs. This exposes the secrets for public repositories, but not for private ones. The attack used a stolen PAT [personal access token] linked to a bot account. GitHub is not able to determine how this PAT was compromised.
New GitHub Action supply chain attack: reviewdog/action-setup
Wiz Research has discovered an additional supply chain attack on reviewdog/actions-setup@v1, that may have contributed to the compromise of tj-actions/changed-files. At this point we believe this is a chain of supply chain attacks eventually leading to a specific high-value target.
Alphabet spins off laser-based Internet backbone provider Taara
The technology works by firing a beam of light the width of a pencil from one traffic light-sized terminal to another--free space optics. Alphabet says the system can transmit data at 20 gigabits per second over 20 km, extending traditional fibre-optics networks with minimal construction and lower costs. Taara already operates in 12 countries including India and parts of Africa.
Mark Zuckerberg requested Xi Jinping to name his unborn child, and offered to help censor content and share facial recognition technology with Chinese authorities.
China was Zuckerberg’s “white whale.” His desire to enter the Chinese market was so intense that he learned Mandarin and actively pursued relationships with top Chinese officials.
How ProPublica Uses AI Responsibly in Its Investigations
AI can help reporters analyze large volumes of data and try to identify patterns. And crucially, we made sure to tell the model not to guess if it wasn’t sure. Of course, members of our staff reviewed and confirmed every detail before we published our story, and we called all the named people and agencies seeking comment, which remains a must-do even in the world of AI.
Microsoft Adds Paywall for AI Features in Notepad and Paint
Newer features that use AI, such as an image generator in Paint and AI rewriting of text in Notepad, will require a paid Microsoft 365 account.
AI crawlers haven't learned to play nice with websites
SourceHut says it's getting DDoSed by LLM bots, so it deployed Nepenthes, a tar pit, to catch web crawlers.
China’s BYD launches EV charging system it says works nearly as fast as a fill up
1 megawatt flash-chargers, with voltage levels of up to 1,500V, can provide a full charge for its latest EVs within five to eight minutes.
Waymo coming to San Francisco airport after striking deal with city
SFO will become the first airport in California where Waymo can operate.