Leftovers

• France24 ☛ Marjane Satrapi, French-Iranian author of 'Persepolis', dies of 'sadness' at 56

  An outspoken critic of Iran's theocratic government, Satrapi's "Persepolis" recounts her early life in Tehran, struggling with restrictions imposed by Iran's Islamic leadership after the 1979 revolution before her parents sent her to Europe and she began a life in exile.

• Pivot to AI ☛ Pivot to AI travels through space and time!

  Current plan is no Pivot to AI for 4–12 June. I should be back Monday 15 June.

• James G ☛ Chat community for web writers?

  I have several ideas swirling around for projects I would like to see happen. Sometimes, these ideas manifest as a project. Wonders of Web Weaving was inspired by my interest in having more discussions about the indie web. Other times, ideas make their way onto this blog to sit and grow. The idea I am thinking about right now is in the latter category.

• James G ☛ Digital minimalism

  Over the last two years, I have tried to be more intentional about the technology I use. I proactively ask myself the question “do I want to use this tool?” when it comes to websites and applications. When a tool makes me feel overwhelmed, or otherwise doesn’t feel like one I want to use, if the tool provides some meaningful benefit to me or a community I am in, I look for alternatives.

• Science / Mathematics / Computer Science

  • Futurism ☛ College Professors Say Incoming Students No Longer Understand Middle School Math and Science

    "We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics."

  • Science Alert ☛ A Common Joint Pain Medicine Has Risks Many People Overlook

    An expert explains.

  • Science Alert ☛ A Mysterious Quantum Compass May Be Hiding Inside Pigeons' Livers

    "It would fundamentally change how we understand navigation."

  • Science Alert ☛ It's Official: NASA Has Declared Its Mars Spacecraft MAVEN Dead

    Like "the loss of a loved one".

  • Science Alert ☛ The US Just Updated Its Guidelines to Detect And Prevent Colorectal Cancer

    How to reduce your risk.

  • John D Cook ☛ Integrating smooth periodic functions

    Several posts lately have looked at the function

    f(x) = cos(sin(x) + x).

    This post will look at the function from a different angle. It’s a smooth function with period 2π, and it’s very flat at odd multiples of π, i.e. the first five derivatives are zero. For reasons I wrote about here, this means that the trapezoid rule should be very efficient for integrating this function.

  • Computational Complexity ☛ Computational Complexity: The Industrialization of Academic Research

    Yesterday, National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt delivered her last annual State of the Sciences Address. Overall the talk basically calls us to adapt to the new reality that industrial and foundation support for research has taken a far larger role in academic research. I fear we may be losing the broad academic independence and exploration that has made our universities the envy of the world.

• Career/Education

  • Rachel ☛ Shift work and booking maintenance on the calendar

    Then I talked to 2nd and 3rd, and they mostly wanted the window to close two hours ahead of time, just like with the datacenters.

    It was pretty clear. You could almost predict what shift a person worked on based on how they responded to my informal queries: they're either the ones generating the shit, or the ones being stuck with it.

    My manager at the time had an excellent point: since 2nd/3rd end up doing the majority of this work, their opinions should matter more. He was a good guy for thoughts like that and others in the same sense, and that's how we dealt with it.

  • Medievalists.net ☛ Online Course: Tolkien and his Medieval Sources

    For more than half a century J.R.R. Tolkien has gripped the public imagination with his tales of wizards, hobbits, orcs, and elves. But Tolkien took his inspiration from a far older body of literature, the epics, poems, lais and sagas of the Middle Ages. As one of the premier medievalists of his time, Tolkien edited texts like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and wrote extensively on Old English and Middle English, weaving the essence of these works into his own. This course studies of a selection of Tolkien’s works in concert with his earlier medieval sources in order to trace the transformation of medieval texts in the popular modern imagination and emphasize their relevance to modern audiences.

• Hardware

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Broadcom revenue miss stuns Wall Street, and its stock sinks after-hours

    Shares of the chipmaker Broadcom Inc. came crashing down to Earth in late trading today after it reported weaker-than-expected second-quarter revenue. The stock fell a bit initially, and then much more after Chief Executive Hock Tan declined to raise the company’s full-year guidance for artificial intelligence chip sales beyond the current $100 billion forecast range.

  • Dan Langille ☛ r7725-01

    This is the Dell R7425 host known as r7425-01.

    At idle, despite holding 12 x 12TB HDD, this chassis is pulling about 300-350 watts.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ Backlash led Michigan to ease student vaccine waivers. What happened next

    Michigan health officials tried making it harder for parents to send their kids to school unvaccinated. Now, relaxed rules are helping counties move away from a policy once credited with sharply reducing vaccine waivers.

  • Science Alert ☛ Cat Ownership Linked to Increased Risk of Schizophrenia, Study Suggests

    There's some kind of pattern.

  • Federal News Network ☛ Telehealth expanded quickly, oversight is still catching up

    "A large volume of the claims indicate that these billing issues could be widespread across lots of different types of providers overall," said Kari Lowery.

  • TruthOut ☛ As Ebola Virus Spreads, We See the Terrifying Effects of Trump Dismantling USAID

    Trump slashed more than 30 CDC experts and 140 USAID staff who managed the 2018 Ebola outbreak on the ground in the DRC.

  • Derek Thompson ☛ Why Are Men So Bad at Making—and Keeping—Friends?

    The trouble with that interpretation, however, is the fact that everybody is so evidently not fine. In the last few years, rates of anxiety and depression among young people have set records. Several surveys—including the General Social Survey and the World Happiness Report—have shown US well-being in a ditch. Other surveys that measure Americans’ feelings about the economy (see: the University of Michigan Consumer Survey) and the country (see: Pew Research) indicate an unprecedented level of national gloom.

• Proprietary / SaaS

  • Numeric Citizen ☛ Software Quality is Not Goal Anymore — Numeric Citizen Blog

    Working on my iPad and Microsoft apps during lunch while attending a webinar… if you think Apple software is full of paper cuts, you ain’t see nothing because Microsoft apps like Outlook and Teams are literally full of bugs, mostly user interface related. 😩🫤

  • Silicon Angle ☛ ClownStrike shares fall as billings miss overshadows earnings and revenue beats

    Shares of ClownStrike Holdings Inc. fell more than 9% in late trading today after the cybersecurity company beat earnings and revenue estimates in its fiscal 2027 first-quarter but disappointed investors with softer-than-expected billings.

  • HT Digital Streams Ltd ☛ Google layoffs 2026: Cloud division cuts hit Threat Intelligence and Mandiant staff, says report

    Google has laid off employees across its Cloud division over the past fortnight, Business Insider first reported, with the reductions affecting some of the company's most prominent security teams as the company continues to restructure its workforce amid a wider industry push towards artificial intelligence investment.

  • So-Called 'Artificial Intelligence' ('AI') / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Futurism ☛ Now You Gotta Buy a Second Computer Just for Your AI Agent, Nvidia Declares

      Audacious statements are par for the course for AI companies, but the pivot towards providing the hardware for personal agents raises heaps of questions. How big is the market for these laptops, and will they age like milk if agents go out of fashion?

      Based on what Nvidia is teasing, they won’t be cheap. Mark Aevermann, Nvidia’s senior director of product development, said that the PCs will target “creators, AI developers and gamers” and will be priced at the premium end of the market, per The Wall Street Journal. The epic specs of the flagship version of its chip bear that out, boasting 20 CPU cores, 6,144 GPU cores, and 128 gigabytes of unified memory. All this power enables it to run AI agents with 120 billion parameters, Nvidia claims.

    • EFF ☛ EFF Testifies to Congress on Protecting Americans’ Rights from Government AI

      “AI also has a track record of getting things wrong—from false citations on legal briefs to a major AI mistake that sent DHS recruits to the field without proper training. There are likely more consequential examples that we do not even know about because of classification that would prevent a more thorough accounting," he said in his opening remarks.

    • C4ISRNET ☛ Hackers compromised a senior Space Force official’s Instagram, posting anti-American content

      A Space Force spokesperson confirmed to Military Times on Tuesday that Bentivegna’s account was compromised but denied to comment about how long the hackers had access to the account or who was responsible. All unauthorized content was removed with assistance from Meta, the owner of Instagram, the spokesperson said.

    • The Register UK ☛ 'Please do not vibe f--- up this software': Broken backups spark AI coding row in rsync project

      Rsync is not a weekend side project maintained by three people in a Discord server. First released in the 1990s, it remains one of the most widely used file synchronization and backup utilities in the Unix and Linux world. Countless backup products, scripts, NAS appliances, and IT departments depend on it quietly doing its job without surprises.

      That makes any suggestion of AI-assisted development in the project far more contentious than it might be elsewhere.

    • Dark Reading ☛ Securing AI Agents Before They Go Rogue Is Next to Impossible

      That's according to Dennis Xu, research vice president at Gartner, who spoke about the dangers of rogue AI agents during the Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit on Monday. "There's a lot of them coming at us — whether we like it or not, whether we know it or not," he said during his presentation.

    • 404 Media ☛ Nvidia and Microsoft Researchers Say AI Agents Don't Care About Safety or Reliability

      According to Shayegani, Microsoft is working to make its models more capable and that as the agents progress the threat of BGD will get worse. “Once they become more capable in a year or two, they are definitely less safe and harder to understand the harms,” he said.

      Microsoft and NVIDIA did not return 404 Media’s request for comment.

    • 404 Media ☛ Satya Nadella ‘Not Sure’ Who Said Microsoft Wanted to Make Addictive AI, Is Looking for Guy Who Did This

      As mentioned, the document was written by Shahine. Shahine is not some random Microsoft employee, he is the person who imagined, pitched, and brought Scout to fruition, as he has tirelessly documented over and over and over again in many, many LinkedIn posts and on his personal blog. His job title is “Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Scout,” and he is the person who announced the product on Microsoft’s official blog. His biography on Microsoft’s website is “Omar Shahine is a Corporate Vice President at Microsoft where he leads Microsoft Scout.” Again, Shahine’s name is listed as the author at the top of the document we reported on.

    • Jonathan Kamens ☛ Case study: straightforward tech question, genAI is repeatedly, confidently wrong – Something better to do

      Below, for those who are curious, I detail all wrong and dangerous suggestions Copilot gave me. However, before doing that, I want to talk about why this all concerns me so much and should concern you too. None of this is new. Many other people more qualified to comment on this than I am have said what I am about to say. But I feel like we need to keep saying it, because we need people to listen.

    • Fortra LLC ☛ Meta's Own AI Chatbot to Blame for Instagram Accounts Being Stolen in Seconds

      However, the breach of several high-profile Instagram accounts involved none of those things. Attackers simply asked an AI chatbot to hand over access to accounts that didn't belong to them - and it did.

    • Charity Majors ☛ AI enthusiasts are in a race against time, AI skeptics are in a race against entropy

      The problem is, I know lots of other people at his company, and they described these projects as a horror show. Yes, they allowed, some progress was made, and some of it was pretty cool, but he also left a long, fiery trail of chaos in his wake. Months later, some teams were still grinding through waves of cleanup work.

    • Łukasz Niemier ☛ Reviewing code requires reading

      But that is completely missing a point. The whole point of doing review is to diffuse responsibility. No one want to be the sole person responsible for the downtime of the system. No one want to be the sole person responsible for security issues. No one want to be responsible for accidental data removal. And the sole purpose of reviews is to remove that burden form single individual and instead make it team responsibility. That way, the blame is "spread" among writer and all reviewers.

    • CBC ☛ AI agents lag far behind human workers. Why are tech companies laying off the humans?

      But research shows the agents — autonomous software programs that use large language models to complete multi-step tasks — have a long way to go before they can reliably do those jobs.

      A major AI infrastructure and software company says the agents fail to produce professionally acceptable work more than 19 times out of 20, and some analysts say the technology is overhyped and being used as an excuse to lay off workers.

    • The Walrus ☛ ChatGPT Isn’t Just Changing How We Work. It’s Harming How We Think

      The problem with this viewpoint is that modern AI systems do not merely automate tasks but participate directly in reasoning efforts that were once confined to individuals. Central to this idea is the practice of cognitive offloading, or any action that reduces the mental effort needed for a task. In our case, it means delegating portions of the thinking to external tools and technologies. While such behaviour is not new—evident in the use of maps, calendars, and calculators—the depth and scope of offloading to large language models (LLMs) is unprecedented, with significant implications for adult cognition.

    • India Times ☛ British lawmaker sues Musk's xAI over sexualised Grok images

      "Its ability is not an accident, nor misuse, it is ​a design choice by its creators. In launching this case, I am pursuing accountability for those choices."

      xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    • Semafor Inc ☛ US Sen. Bernie Sanders proposes AI wealth fund

      US Sen. Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, proposed a bill that would give the US government a stake in leading AI companies — similar to the Trump administration’s move to take stakes in companies sitting in strategic sectors — and create a sovereign wealth fund that would benefit the American people.

    • Vox ☛ Is AI-generated art really art? Here’s what the history says.

      Yet what’s striking is that despite this disparity, people still consistently say that human-made art is what they want.

      In one study published in 2023, participants were shown a series of images, each randomly labeled “AI-made” or “human-made.” Participants rated the images they thought were machine made as worse than the images they thought had been created by a human artist — even when those were actually human-made.

    • Press Gazette ☛ New York Times chief: How and why publishers should fight AI 'tsunami'

      AG Sulzberger says New York Times has spent $20m on Hey Hi (AI) lawsuits.

      [...]

      Despite its strong stance, The New York Times has also done AI licensing deals such as with Amazon.

    • Press Gazette ☛ OpenAI not planning to share advertising revenue with publishers

      Varun Shetty was asked at the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress in Marseille on Tuesday whether they are considering a revenue share model on publisher content being surfaced next to adverts, which are being trialled on ChatGPT.

      Shetty responded: “Not at this point.”

    • Pivot to AI ☛ rsync goes AI slop, breaks your backups

      rsync is basically finished. It’s not yearning for new features. But Claude Mythos set off a flood of security mall ninjas pointing chatbots at open source code and sending the projects a ton of noise and garbage.

      So some maintainers are fighting AI with AI. The trouble is that vibe code is unreliable trash, and rsync users are feeling the consequences.

    • I Cringely ☛ The Thirty Percent Confession

      The first is the diagnosis Salesforce’s own researchers wrote down: the bottleneck isn’t the thinking, it’s the finding. The models could reason fine — they simply couldn’t retrieve the right material to reason over. The proof is brutal in its simplicity. When the researchers stopped making the system hunt and instead handed the model the company’s documents outright, the best one leapt from that miserable third to 76.55. Same model. Same questions. The only thing that changed was whether it had to find the evidence or was handed it.

      Read that twice, because it’s the most important sentence published in enterprise AI this year and almost nobody noticed: the model was never the problem. The expensive part — the giant, GPU-devouring brain everyone is mortgaging the next decade to buy more of — is sitting there perfectly capable, tapping its foot, waiting for the cheap, dull, unglamorous retrieval layer to bring it the right paragraph. And the retrieval layer can’t.

    • Silicon Angle ☛ UK orders Surveillance Giant Google to provide Hey Hi (AI) Overviews opt-out option for publishers

      The U.K.’s antitrust regulator has ordered Google LLC to give publishers more control over how their content appears in search results. The Competition and Markets Authority, or CMA, announced the move today. The order focuses on Surveillance Giant Google Search’s artificial intelligence features, particularly the Hey Hi (AI) Overviews panel that often appears above search results.

    • Futurism ☛ Amazon’s AI-Generated Animated Series Canceled After Relentless Derision

      It all fell apart after just two days of outrage.

    • Futurism ☛ In Leaked Document, Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Plots How to Get People “Addicted” to Its AI

      Might want to rethink how you phrase that one, guys.

  • Social Control Media

    • Zimbabwe ☛ EcoCash’s X (Twitter) Account Appears To Have Been Hacked

      If you follow EcoCash on X (Twitter), you might want to look away for a bit. The company’s account appears to have been compromised and is currently posting things that definitely did not come from EcoCash.

    • Press Gazette ☛ Youtube boss says publisher paywall integration coming 'very soon'

      He said: “Having a paywall that has a conversation between Youtube and the current paywall of publishers is something that has not yet been developed but we have product and engineers working on it, thanks to great partners such as Le Monde, who pushed us to start developing that solution,” referring to the French publisher as they were also represented on stage.

      Allowing publishers to combine their own subscriptions with Youtube could mean users who want to watch a paywalled video on the platform are invited to sign up for the brand’s overall subscription including unlimited access to their website and other content.

    • New York Times ☛ ‘Teachers Are Going to Hate It’: How Social Media Apps Hooked Teens at School

      Snapchat sent phone alerts to adolescents during school hours, urging them to share what was going on in their classrooms.

      Meta paid “teen ambassadors” to promote Instagram and hand out swag to their friends at school.

      TikTok gave the National PTA millions of dollars, in part to throw school events about online safety and provide favorable comments to journalists.

    • Merritt K ☛ Have a Fucking Website

      Look, I get it. The foundations of the internet are broken and we’ve somehow gotten to a place where having a website is either expensive, complicated, or perceived as unnecessary, whereas social media platforms are cheap and easy. But still, please, if you are a business or an individual artist or creator, have a fucking website. “But-” fuck you, have a fucking website.

    • John Gruber ☛ 'The Metaverse Fever Dream'

      Just a tremendous piece of writing and reporting from Heer. What a pile of horseshit “the metaverse” as promulgated by Zuckerberg was. To call what Heer has assembled here, in a compelling narrative to boot, “comprehensive” is a vast understatement. These hucksters were selling a bill of goods and now they’re trying to whistle past their own hype: [...]

• Entrapment (Microsoft GitHub)

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Github Copilot customers report up to 100-fold price hikes — Hey Hi (AI) sticker shock bites as Abusive Monopolist Microsoft switches to usage-based pricing

    Github Copilot customers suffer from sticker shock syndrome as Abusive Monopolist Microsoft switches to usage-based pricing — customers reporting ten- to hundred-fold price hikes

• Security

  • LWN ☛ Security updates for Tuesday

    Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (php:8.2 and php:8.3), Debian (gst-plugins-good1.0, symfony, and yelp), Fedora (dovecot, freeipa, hplip, libpng, perl-Catalyst-Plugin-Authentication, postfix, samba, unbound, and vim), Mageia (assimp, libcaca, sdl2_sound, and tar), Slackware (kernel), SUSE (alloy, apache-commons-lang3, apache-commons-text,, apache2, bubblewrap, busybox, chromium, cups, docker-stable, ffmpeg-8, google-osconfig-agent, gsasl, ignition, java-26-openjdk, kernel, libsolv-demo, libsoup, libzypp, localsearch, openjpeg2, postgresql-jdbc, putty, python-mistune, python-Pillow, python-python-multipart, python-Twisted, python3-Twisted, re, roundcubemail, vim, wireshark, and xz), and Ubuntu (evolution-data-server, exim4, gsasl, haveged, lcms2, libreoffice, linux-aws, linux-lts-xenial, linux-lowlatency, linux-nvidia-tegra, nginx, nncp, qtdeclarative-opensource-src, sslh, sssd, and xz-utils).

  • CIFSwitch: Old Linux kernel vulnerability can grant local users root privileges

    Vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel are rarely pleasant, but some cases have a particularly unpleasant twist: they remain in established code paths for years until modern system functions suddenly enable a new attack chain. That is exactly what CIFSwitch is about. The vulnerability was publicly documented at the end of May 2026 and affects the interaction of the Linux CIFS/SMB client with cifs-utils and privileged userspace helpers. WinFuture covered the case on June 2, 2026. It is important to classify this correctly from the outset: CIFSwitch is not a remote vulnerability that allows arbitrary Linux systems to be taken over directly from the Internet. It is a local privilege escalation. An attacker therefore already needs access to a system with low privileges. Under suitable conditions, however, this can lead to root access. For multi-user systems, developer workstations, CI runners, container build hosts, or servers with shell access, that is more than a mere academic footnote.

  • Bleeping Computer ☛ CISA warns of active attacks exploiting Android, Linux bugs

    The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is warning that hackers are exploiting vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel and Android operating system.

  • Security Week ☛ IMA Diligence Services Data Breach Impacts 525,000 People

    The affected individuals’ personal information was stolen from a legacy server managed by a third party.

  • Security Week ☛ Hackers Target Global Stock Exchange in Espionage Operation

    The attackers had access to a senior executive’s email account for 150 days and exfiltrated data for months.

  • Security Week ☛ Kirki, Burst Statistics WordPress Plugin Flaws in Attackers’ Crosshairs

    Threat actors are exploiting vulnerable Kirki and Burst Statistics deployments to elevate privileges and take over websites.

  • The Strategist ☛ Australia’s cybersecurity workforce problem: language that repels the people we need

    Australia has a cybersecurity workforce problem, and part of the explanation is hiding in plain sight: the language of the field actively repels the people we need.

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong’s Education Bureau apologises for sending early SMS on Primary One allocation results

      Hong Kong’s Education Bureau (EDB) has apologised for mistakenly sending the Primary One allocation results via SMS one day early, urging parents to ignore the message.

    • SANS ☛ New Wave Of Phishing Emails with SVG Files, (Tue, Jun 2nd)

    • SANS ☛ Continuing Scans for swagger.json, (Wed, Jun 3rd)

      Enterprise applications often still use complex standards like SOAP for web services. The big advantage of SOAP is its tight and extensive standards, which enable interoperability across an enterprise governed by web services. The disadvantage of SOAP: First, while it is de facto usually used over HTTP, it does not leverage HTTP, leading to unnecessary complexity.

    • dwaves.de ☛ Deutsche Bank phishing mail photoTAN-Informationen aktualisieren Screenshot at 2026-06-02

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • NYOB ☛ Nordic Media Giant Schibsted switches to “Pay or Okay” – complaint filed!

      Forced Consent & Consent Bypass

      Today, the Norwegian Consumer Council (Forbrukerrådet) and noyb have filed a complaint against the Norwegian news publisher Schibsted for implementing a “Pay or Okay” system across its products. Schibsted is one of the largest news publishers in the Nordics and owns well-known brands such as TV4, Aftenposten E24 and VG. The company’s introduction of “Pay or Okay” sets a dangerous precedent for free consent across the Nordic countries, which follows the wide-spread trend of websites to charge a “fee” to reject being tracked online.

    • Dedoimedo ☛ Stop scanning QR codes, you dolts

      I am extra cheerful today, as opposed to my normaly mega-grumpy. To wit, I give thee this rather lovely article and rant on why scanning QR codes is wrong, including the irony of humans verifying themselves to machines, illiteracy and opaqueness factors, normalization of smartphone-based rituals, increased dependency on so-called approved hardware, intellectual, moral and societal implications for the future, workarounds to pointless technology, and more. Have fun, but you probably won't.

      [...]

      Today, QR codes are mostly a convenience for people using touch screens. But tomorrow, the ritual may include all sorts of checks and verifications. Choose and name your favorite moral virtue. Security, anti-bot measures, proof of identification or age, and so on. As humans have no way of knowing what QR codes show or display, and as they have no idea what happens on the server side that shows these QR codes or similar pictogram symbols to the end user, it doesn't take a genius leap to see that this scanning ritual can be used, extremely easily, to destroy any last shred of privacy and anonymity on the Web. You asked for Web 3.0. This is your Web 3.0, plebes.

    • Techdirt ☛ Because Flock Can’t Be Trusted, Cities Are Covering Cameras With Garbage Bags

      This has created a problem that has no immediate solution. When Dayton, Ohio shut down its Flock cameras, it had no idea whether contract termination meant the cameras were actually shut off. Worse, law enforcement officials didn’t seem to know either. A fix was needed, and Dayton found a cost-effective way of keeping Flock from operating the unwanted cameras until when (or if!) it decided to roll into town to remove them.

    • Papers Please ☛ If I have a US passport, do I need another ID to enter the US?

      “No, but because you opted out of facial recognition, you have to show me a second piece of ID.”

      By law (22 U.S. Code § 2705), a valid US passport is defined not just as “evidence” but as “proof” of US citizenship. What other ID would we have that would constitute evidence of identity and US citizenship? The CBP officer didn’t say.

    • Wired ☛ Meta Silently Added Face-Recognition Code for Its Smart Glasses to Millions of Phones

      Code discreetly added to Meta’s AI app over multiple updates this year shows that the feature, internally called “NameTag,” identifies people captured by the glasses’ camera and, when activated, alerts the wearer when it recognizes someone.

    • Howard Oakley ☛ Stop your photos revealing your location

      If you want your location to remain in images you keep in your Mac and devices, but don’t want it to be included in those you share, the Photos app has a useful setting that can remove the data. In Photos on macOS that’s in its General settings, towards the bottom, under Sharing. Uncheck that box and when you share images from Photos, their location information should be removed automatically.

    • India Times ☛ UK urged to end contract with US AI-firm Palantir

      "Palantir's increasing presence across the public sector represents an unacceptable point of weakness," the parliamentary Commons Science, Innovation and Technology committee said in a report.

      Their conclusions were "not ideologically motivated or driven by concerns about the quality of their products," it added.

    • TruthOut ☛ For 25 Years, the War on Terror Has Turbocharged Surveillance and Imperialism

      In our first conversation, Truthout editor-in-chief Negin Owliaei and Maya Schenwar, director of the Truthout Center for Grassroots Journalism, joined Truthout contributors Khury Petersen-Smith and Maha Hilal to focus on the impact of the so-called “war on terror” and the social movements that have emerged since. We draw on lessons from the war on terror and the anti-war movement of the 2000s to inform today’s struggles against war and imperialism.

  • Confidentiality

    • Federal News Network ☛ Why cryptography is increasingly vital in securing space defense

      The number of space assets put on orbit in the last decade reaches into the thousands, with an estimated 10 more satellites per day being added through 2033. The resulting capabilities and coverage now available for military and civil use are extraordinary. Yet even with modern space systems evolving to be more resilient, the data transiting them can be vulnerable. That is because the pace of adoption of innovative cryptographic solutions needed to protect space-based data is not keeping up with the speed of asset deployments.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Michael Geist ☛ Why Mark Carney’s Antisemitism Speech Did Not Meet the Moment

    For more than two and a half years, antisemitism in Canada has moved from the margins to a daily feature of Jewish life. Synagogues have been shot at, including several Toronto-area congregations this spring, (among them the Shaarei Shomayim, the synagogue where I was married).

  • Breach Media ☛ The left’s opposition to antisemitism must be unconditional

    Opposing antisemitism is not a distraction from Palestinian solidarity but a prerequisite of genuine internationalism

  • JURIST ☛ Palestinian advocacy group seeks justice for prisoners amid abuse allegations

    The Palestinian Prisoner Society called Sunday for Israel to be held accountable for what it described as the “systematic” use of sexual violence and torture against Palestinian detainees. While welcoming the UN’s decision to place Israel on its blacklist of parties credibly suspected of conflict-related sexual violence, the organization argued that additional action is necessary.

  • France24 ☛ North Korea unveils new nuclear fuel facility, vows 'exponential' expansion of nuclear arsenal

    North Korea on Thursday unveiled a new facility believed to produce fuel for nuclear weapons, with leader Kim Jong Un pledging to expand the country's nuclear forces “at an exponential rate.” State media said the plant uses advanced technology, while photos suggested it may be a uranium enrichment facility.

  • ACLU ☛ ‘Voting By Mail is My Lifeline’: Voter with Disability Shares Importance of Mail-In Voting

    One voter with cerebral palsy shares how Convicted Felon’s executive order against mail-in ballots limits voting accessibility and keeps voters with disabilities out of the election process.

  • France24 ☛ Middle East war live: Israel and Lebanon agree to implement conditional ceasefire

    Israel and Lebanon agreed Wednesday to renew their fragile ceasefire and create a number of “pilot” security zones inside Lebanon from which Hezbollah militants would be banned. In a joint statement released after a fourth round of US-mediated talks at the State Department, the two sides said the ceasefire “is contingent on a complete cessation of Hezbollah fire and the evacuation of all Hezbollah operatives” from areas south of the Litani River. Follow our liveblog for the latest developments.

  • France24 ☛ Deadly attack on migrants highlights issue of labour abuse in Italy

    Four migrants ​working as fruit pickers in slave-like conditions in southern Italy have been burned to death in a grisly murder case that is prompting fresh national soul-searching over labour exploitation. The migrants were found on Monday in ​a burned-out ‌van parked in a petrol station in Amendolara, in the southern region ⁠of Calabria. Surveillance cameras showed two people setting the car alight before running away. FRANCE 24's Seema Gupta reports from Rome.

  • New York Times ☛ Iranian Drone and Missile Barrage Against Kuwait Inflames Regional Tensions

    One person was killed and dozens were injured at Kuwait’s international airport. Tehran denied it had struck the airport.

  • France24 ☛ Iran says no 'tangible progress' in war talks, Convicted Felon says deal close

    Iran's foreign minister said on Wednesday that negotiations to end the Middle East war had made "no tangible progress" after fresh US and Iranian strikes tested a fragile ceasefire. Kuwaiti officials said an Iranian drone strike on Kuwait International Airport killed one person and wounded 63, while President The Insurrectionist said talks could produce a breakthrough "over the weekend."

  • Alabama Reflector ☛ Congress weighs cuts to states’ already ‘insufficient’ election security dollars

    “If my colleagues truly cared about protecting our elections from foreign interference, they’d put the resources behind it,” Rep. Sanford Bishop, a Georgia Democrat, said at a House Appropriations Committee meeting this spring. “Instead, we get empty rhetoric, zero urgency, while putting the right of citizens to vote at risk.”

  • TruthOut ☛ Pentagon Hires Convicted January 6 [Insurrectionist] to Counterterrorism Role

    Elias Irizarry — a 24-year-old Trump loyalist who took part in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021 — has been hired at the Defense Department’s Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict office in the ‘irregular warfare and counterterrorism’ section. This office covers particularly classified issues including embassy security, hostage rescue, and personnel recovery.

  • The Record ☛ Russia seeks to label two anti-Kremlin hacker groups as ‘extremist’

    The lawsuit comes less than a year after the two groups claimed responsibility for a major cyberattack on Russia's flagship carrier, Aeroflot. The incident, which occurred in July 2025, forced the airline to cancel more than 100 flights, disrupting travel for roughly 20,000 passengers.

  • Wired ☛ The TikTok Ban Was Never About TikTok

    The story of the TikTok ban was long and winding. It went through countless debates and battles when it passed through Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House. The app went from being Trump’s pet issue, to a rare point of bipartisan consensus under Biden, to something Trump strongly opposed, before eventually becoming a bargaining chip in the US-China trade war. It was exhausting to follow it back then as a reporter, and the constant twists made it impossible to conclude what this whole saga meant for the US. But Wu’s documentary succeeds in finally making some sense out of the madness. “As a filmmaker, my intention is to make people go back and relive that experience, and think about what that experience revealed,” Wu says.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ Ukraine is now Europe’s shield but still needs more help to stop Russia

    Europeans are increasingly speaking of Ukraine as a shield protecting the continent from Russian aggression. This recognition is certainly justified, but it also carries a risk. Amid all the talk of Ukraine’s growing military strength, there is a danger that this could encourage complacency over the country’s ability to bear the current security burden indefinitely.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Taliban, Russia are cozying up to each other — why?

    This dual message — deterrence toward Pakistan, reassurance toward the wider region — illustrates how both the Taliban regime and the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin have framed their budding relationship: Rather than being an ideological alliance, it is a pragmatic exchange in which both sides see immediate gains.

  • Eesti Rahvusringhääling ☛ Harri Tiido: On the Finnish memo about a turning point in the world order

    The memo identifies two main pathways to building a better future. One would see the European Union transform its economic strength into strategic influence by strengthening its technology and industrial policy, ensuring funding, and increasing its decision-making capacity — for example, by forming coalitions of the willing. The other option is to rely more on enhancing the role of middle-sized countries, which has been discussed before.

  • Observer Research Foundation ☛ The Sulphur Chokepoint: Hormuz and China's Critical Minerals Vulnerability

    The Strait of Hormuz accounts for roughly half of the world's seaborne sulphur trade, originating from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. Gulf sulphur loadings fell to nearly 400,000 tonnes in March alone, a 74.5 percent year-on-year decline since the Strait's closure in late February 2026. This is not a disruption of marginal supply. One of the world's most industrially critical commodity chains is undergoing a structural crisis.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Dignity’s role in ending wartime rape

    In Africa’s third-largest country by area, preventing conflict-related sexual violence or helping survivors has been difficult. The civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, now in its fourth year, has yet to yield to international efforts to end it. Sudan has become the world’s most dire displacement crisis.

  • Truthdig ☛ House Republicans Aim to Cut Election Security Dollars

    “If my colleagues truly cared about protecting our elections from foreign interference, they’d put the resources behind it,” Rep. Sanford Bishop, a Georgia Democrat, said at a House Appropriations Committee meeting this spring. “Instead, we get empty rhetoric, zero urgency, while putting the right of citizens to vote at risk.”

    Congressional support of the EAC’s election security grant program has fluctuated over time, but has generally trended downward.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • France24 ☛ Ukraine strikes St. Petersburg with drones ahead of 'Russian Davos'

      Ukrainian drone attacks in St. Petersburg targeted military and energy infrastructure overnight into Wednesday, setting ablaze a Russian warship and oil depots on the Baltic coast. This attack deep in Russian territory came on the opening day of Putin's three-day economic forum held in the city and as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte  arrived in Kyiv for an unannounced visit.

    • France24 ☛ Ukrainian drones hit Saint Petersburg as 'Russian Davos' opens in the city

      Ukrainian long-range drones hit an oil terminal in the Russian city of St Petersburg on June 3, setting the facility ablaze. It came hours before Vladimir Putin's showcase economic forum got under way in the city, apparently an attempt to embarrass the Kremlin chief. Moscow said it would keep striking Ukraine systematically in response to such attacks.

• Environment

  • New York Times ☛ Unusual Greenpeace Lawsuit May Proceed, Dutch Court Says

    Greenpeace International is arguing under Dutch law that an American pipeline company, Energy Transfer, sought to silence it with a costly lawsuit in North Dakota.

  • France24 ☛ Models suggest amplitude of El Niño in 2026 'as high or higher than any event in last century'

    Speaking with FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney, Paul Roundy, Professor of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences at the State University of New York at Albany, says that "the models and physical arguments based on tracking the progress of warm water suggest that the amplitude [of El Niño in 2026] could be as high or potentially higher than any event in the last century".

  • Futurism ☛ United Nations Issues Grave Warning About El Niño

    "El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world."

  • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia’s waste-to-energy push eases landfill strain but raises pollution fears

    The first of 18 WTE plants nationwide will tackle growing waste and boost renewable energy capacity.

  • Futurism ☛ Data Centers Have Become Shockingly Unpopular, Poll Finds

    In short, the AI backlash has grown immensely over the past year or so — and the latest numbers put the trend in stark relief.

    According to a new Heatmap poll, at least seven in ten Americans would oppose a data center being built near their home. That’s a seismic shift from last September, when a similar poll found only 42 percent of Americans were opposed.

  • Nevada Current ☛ Lombardo backs natural gas pipeline expansion for data centers

    The pipeline, which has a current daily average capacity of about 200 dekatherms, stretches from Nevada’s northern border to Reno-Sparks, Carson City, and Lake Tahoe. The application calls for 212 miles of new or expanded pipeline, including expansion to the Tahoe Regional Industrial Center in Storey County.

  • Mississippi Journalism and Education Group ☛ Jackson Data Center Proposal Expands to 230 Acres

    What those protestors did not know at the time was that Saxum had expanded its request to rezone 230 acres, rather than 190, almost a month beforehand. The proposed site is in the Ashley Acres neighborhood.

  • Michigan Advance ☛ Trump to pump $700M into coal power in the states, as he again blasts renewable energy

    Coal plants receiving a combined $425 million in Defense Production Act funding are in West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Arizona, Oklahoma, North Dakota and Wisconsin, according to the White House.

  • Common Dreams ☛ 350.org responds to WMO warning on developing El Niño

    El Niño is not new , but the conditions we are experiencing today are. Fossil fuel pollution is loading the dice, turning a natural climate cycle into a far more dangerous force. Now is the time to prepare. But preparedness alone is not enough. We must urgently tackle the root cause by phasing out fossil fuels and holding polluters accountable.

    A permanent windfall tax on fossil fuel companies could help countries protect lives and livelihoods as climate impacts intensify. This is also a moment for global cooperation, because no country can face this crisis alone.”

  • Wired ☛ Data Center Operators Are Trying to Fix Their Water Use Problems

    Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory predicted in a 2024 report that hyperscale data centers could consume up to 33 billion gallons of water by 2030 if they relied heavily on evaporative cooling. That’s on par or even less than other thirsty industries, like agriculture or oil and gas—a single fracked well can use 1.5 to 16 million gallons of water—but it poses a risk in regions where water is already scarce. The risk is particularly acute in summer, when data center cooling needs tend to skyrocket at the same time as municipal water use.

  • RTL ☛ Explicit ban on reusables: World Cup fans barred from bringing water bottles into stadia

    As recently as last month, FIFA's official stadium code of conduct included a clause which read: "For the avoidance of doubt, empty, transparent, reusable plastic bottles, up to (1 liter in) capacity, may be brought into the Stadium."

    However The Athletic reported on Wednesday that those guidelines had now been tweaked to explicitly ban refillable bottles.

  • India Times ☛ EU plans energy standards for data centres amid concerns over soaring power use

    The European Union will develop minimum energy-efficiency standards for data centres, it said on Wednesday, as concerns grow over their rapidly rising power use. EU data centre capacity is expected to more than ‌double in the coming ⁠years, ⁠reaching 28 gigawatts by 2030 from 12 GW last year. That expansion will lift their share of EU electricity consumption beyond the current 2.5%.

  • Utah News Dispatch ☛ Data centers, redistricting and Great Salt Lake take center stage in Republican CD2 debate

    From a debate stage in Salt Lake City, the two candidates pitched themselves to voters in Utah’s newly drawn 2nd Congressional District, staking out differences in how they see plans for a massive hyperscale data center in the district and on President Donald Trump’s proposed $1 billion in federal funding to help the drying Great Salt Lake.

  • Arkansas Advocate ☛ Arkansas’ largest city approves new data center ordinance

    The nearly five-hour meeting was packed with local residents who provided feedback on the ordinance and Google’s plans to build a 300,000-square-foot data center in the Port of Little Rock. Mayor Frank Scott Jr. proposed the ordinance amid significant online pushback against the centers last month.

    Many residents implored the directors to delay voting on the regulations in favor of a temporary moratorium on data centers while stronger regulations were developed. Several criticized the process that brought the data center to Little Rock as lacking transparency, and warned of consequences for elected officials at the ballot box.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Toxic Ground: Inside Oklahoma’s Massive Oil Field Wastewater Crisis

    The United States is the largest oil and gas producer in the world. All of that drilling produces hundreds of billions of gallons of toxic wastewater each year. For decades, energy companies have disposed of that briny fluid by shooting it back underground using high-pressure injection wells. But across Oklahoma, the fluid is spreading uncontrollably belowground, blasting out of old, unplugged wells, polluting land and contaminating drinking water.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Straits Times ☛ US, South Korea discuss nuclear cooperation in security talks

      The talks were due to cover Seoul’s push for expanded uranium enrichment and spent-fuel reprocessing rights.

    • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea, China agree on first expansion in flight rights in seven years

      First-quarter passenger traffic between South Korea and China reached 4.39 million, exceeding pre-pandemic levels.

    • Nevada Current ☛ NV Energy betting the house on data centers

      The utility is projecting it needs 47% more electricity than it anticipated just two years ago in its last IRP, primarily to satisfy the needs of data centers in the north. That part of the state is “a sought-after location for data centers due to the expanse of developable land, a favorable climate for efficient cooling, and robust fiber connectivity,” according to its 41-volume plan filed in May with the Nevada Public Utilities Commission.

    • MinnPost ☛ Minneapolis could soon see the rebirth of ride share bikes

      Nice Ride proved the appeal of the bike share concept, which can serve as a cycling gateway. The project thrived for years as a low-barrier testing grounds, reducing an often intimidating situation into something manageable. For years, yellow and blue bikes collected downtown every day at rush hour, and linked disparate parts of the Twin Cities together during the summer months.

    • Renewable Energy World ☛ Opinion: Let's not sit back while the world swaps Middle Eastern oil for Chinese solar

      Many commentators have concluded that these trends all lead to China, given its commanding lead in clean energy manufacturing, which includes over 90% of global polysilicon, wafer, and solar cell production. But the US can upend China’s dominance if we can beat them to market with the next generation of clean technologies. The opening has never been clearer on solar.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Aviation enthusiast uses Raspberry Pi and ADS-B radio to create viral real-time airport tracker — open-source 'Skylight' intercepts aircraft signals and projects flight paths onto your ceiling

      Living near an airport isn’t for everyone. But for some, like software engineer Cameron Paczek, the unique environment offers inspiration for very unique projects. Paczek’s latest creation, Skylight, harnesses the power of a Raspberry Pi 5, a radio antenna, and a projector to listen for aircraft signals as planes pass over your house and then instantly projects their real-time paths across your ceiling exactly as you hear them soaring above.

    • Energy Mix Productions Inc ☛ UN Calculates Nation-Sized Environmental Footprints for AI and Data Centres

      By 2030, data centres will account for nearly 3% of the world’s projected electricity use, with 935 trillion watt-hours. If data centres were a country, the country would be projected to rank sixth-highest in power use in 2030. That would produce nearly 399 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, the report said. The study focused on energy use and didn’t examine the massive amount of water used to cool data centres.

      “If you look at these numbers, we’re seeing scales comparable to nations,” said study co-author Kaveh Madani, a water scientist and director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health in Canada. “The demand is enormous.”

    • Futurism ☛ Bitcoin Is Taking a Nasty Swim

      During the year of a US midterm election, though, Bitcoin tends to collapse into a bear market, characterized by prolonged losses of over 20 percent. While this regularity would suggest the digital currency could moderate before too long, there’s no real way to know how far Bitcoin could fall: the true bottom could be a long way down.

    • Michigan Advance ☛ Whitmer signs bill giving Mackinac Island the right to regulate ferry services

      Senate Bill 304, now Public Act No. 17, was sponsored by state Sen. John Damoose (R-Harbor Springs). It authorizes the city and its voters to seek an amendment to Local Act 437 of 1899, which could also include changes to fees associated with travel, such as baggage, parking, early boarding options, and other extraneous fees.

      The city of Mackinac Island is a special charter city, so the change will require the majority approval from Mackinac Island voters before taking effect.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Science News ☛ Bumblebees can solve problems on their own

      Bumblebees are brainy, with studies showing they may have emotions and can teach one another to score goals in a six-legged version of soccer. The new finding adds yet another skill to their repertoire. “Spontaneous problem-solving is something that has never been shown in any invertebrate before,” says Olli Loukola, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Oulu in Finland.

  • Overpopulation

    • Nevada Current ☛ Nevada signs water sharing agreement with Arizona, California

      The desalination plant, operated by the San Diego County Water Authority, can produce 54 million gallons a day. And in years San Diego has a surplus of water, the proposed program would allow California’s share of the Colorado River to be transferred to other states.

    • Arizona Luminaria ☛ Colorado River faces "devastating consequences" if another dry winter lands, experts warn

      The Colorado River and its tributaries serve 40 million people across seven Western states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. In the U.S., the Colorado River Basin is split into an upper basin containing Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, and a lower basin comprising Arizona, California and Nevada. Water use in the basins, between 11 and 13 million acre feet recently, has consistently outstripped what nature provides, leading to some reductions in usage but an imminent need for much steeper cuts.

    • The University of New Mexico ☛ UPDATE: Colorado River Basin Storage Continues Slide Toward System Crash [PDF]

      In this paper, we again calculate a mass balance for a short period into the future. Our calculation is for Water Year 2027 (hereafter, WY2027) that extends between October 1, 2026 and September 30, 2027. We assume the initial conditions of our calculation to be the reservoir contents as projected by Reclamation in the recently released May 2026 24-Month Study. We consider natural flows at Lees Ferry and inflows to Lake Mead under two scenarios and subtract consumptive uses and losses. The difference between supply and use is reservoir storage at the end of WY2027. The two hydrologic scenarios bracket the spectrum between a dry year comparable to WY2025 and a wet year comparable to WY2023. These straightforward supply and demand calculations provide a simple picture of how much water we might have in the reservoir storage “savings account” going into WY2028.

• Finance

  • The Straits Times ☛ Chinese restaurant in Bangkok allegedly refuses baht, accepts only renminbi for payment

    Such practices could raise concerns under several Thai laws.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Pope Leo XIV Against the Market’s Techno-Dehumanization

    Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical has been presented as a defense of humanity against artificial intelligence. But on a closer reading, the threat he identifies is not software development but the capitalist market logic that impels it.

  • The Verge ☛ Microsoft and OpenAI broke up — now they’re ready to fight

    Microsoft spent years betting on OpenAI, and in some ways, that’s left it behind in the AI race. But as OpenAI and other competitors turn to enterprise to finally make money, it’s got some obvious advantages. Microsoft already has a substantial client base and, compared with other AI companies, a reputation for safety and security. And like Google, it also has deep pockets, considerable computing resources, and a diversified revenue stream, meaning it can take big bets without a ton of risk.

  • Daniel Andrlik ☛ Last.fm is now independent

    Last.fm announces that it has separated from CBS and is now an independent company.

  • India Times ☛ PM Modi’s high stakes push for sovereign AI faces reality check

    The world’s most populous nation and a leading digital economy, India is becoming a test case for whether a middle-power country can build AI on its own terms. Its successes — or failures — could offer a blueprint for much of the Global South, where governments face similar trade-offs between technological independence and reliance on foreign platforms.

  • The Nation ☛ What’s Really Behind Peter Thiel’s Panicked Move to Argentina

    But I do think Thiel suspects that something big and bad is coming—not necessarily for you or me or anyone we know but for him, and for others in his rarified political and social class. The Nazis decamped to Argentina after the war to escape the Nuremberg trials. It’s not quite clear what exactly Thiel thinks is coming now, but he’s let us know that he’d like to be at least 6,000 miles away when it hits.

  • Vox ☛ Do Republicans have a chance at winning California’s biggest elections?

    The slow procedure for counting votes isn’t the only reason this is taking so long, though. Voters were reluctant to rally around a single candidate in either the governor or mayoral contest — contributing to slow ballot returns — with many expressing unease with their choices and with the Democratic-dominated government. There’s a sense of deep voter frustration: at Trump, at the status quo, at homelessness, and incumbents. Yet despite it all, the state might just get more of the same.

    To better understand where Californians are coming from, I turned to Dan Walters, a columnist at CalMatters and veteran chronicler of the state’s politics. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

  • I Cringely ☛ The Most Expensive Mistake in the History of Computing

    I promised to show you why the whole industry’s answer to its own problem — buy a bigger brain — is the most expensive mistake in the history of computing. To do that I have to take you back to 1999, because I was there, and if you’re old enough to be reading me, maybe you were too. And I wasn’t only watching. In 1999 I put $10,000 into a young company called E-Loan, run by a founder named Chris Larsen. After the IPO I cashed out for $400,000 and bought a house. [...]

    Then it ended, and everyone drew exactly the wrong lesson.

    The lesson people took from 1999 was that the [Internet] was a bubble. It wasn’t. The [Internet] was the most real thing to happen to commerce in a century — it ate retail, media, advertising, and the telephone, precisely as the prospectuses promised. The technology was never the lie. The lie was the price — capital sprinting into a true story while refusing to look at the unit economics underneath it. Pets.com wasn’t wrong that you’d someday buy dog food online. You’re probably buying it online right now. Pets.com was wrong about what it cost to ship a forty-pound bag for a flat five bucks. The revolution was real. The arithmetic was fatal.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Austria, Portugal, Trinidad and Tobago and Zimbabwe elected to UN Security Council

    The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday elected Austria, Portugal, Trinidad and Tobago and Zimbabwe to the 15-member U.N. Security Council for two-year terms starting on January 1, 2027.

  • The Straits Times ☛ India embraces Myanmar junta to deepen trade and security ties, and counter China

    Rare earth minerals have emerged as an important portfolio in the bilateral relationship.

  • The Straits Times ☛ New Solomon Islands leader reviews security pact with China, seeks treaty with Australia

    The Solomon Islands will negotiate a comprehensive strategic treaty with Australia and review a security agreement with China, the Pacific country's new prime minister said on Wednesday.

  • The Strategist ☛ A General Assembly that backed international rules would put Philippines on Security Council

    On 3 June in New York, the UN General Assembly faces a choice: will the institution charged with enforcing international rules include a voice that’s prepared to call out their breaches? The General Assembly will ...

  • JURIST ☛ Federal courts consider challenges to Convicted Felon-IRS settlement as DOJ abandons anti-weaponization fund

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea ruling party sweeps local elections but loses Seoul mayor race

    The election is widely seen as a report card for President Lee Jae Myung's first year in office.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Satellite images fuel speculation of China’s Pooh-tin visit to North Korea

    It appears to show a fenced-off section and a structure being built in Kim Il Sung Square.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Satellite images fuel speculation of China’s Pooh-tin visit to North Korea

    It appears to show a fenced-off section and a structure being built in Kim Il Sung Square.

  • The Straits Times ☛ New Zealand expresses concern after China bans its lawmakers who visited Taiwan

    The four New Zealand lawmakers have been banned from entering China, Hong Kong and Macau for a year.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China bans New Zealand lawmakers over Taiwan trip

    China has slapped a travel ban on a group of New Zealand lawmakers after they recently visited Taiwan, Wellington said Thursday. The four MPs hail from across the political spectrum and visited Taiwan as part of a cross-party delegation in May, national broadcaster RNZ reported.

  • New York Times ☛ Republicans Begin to Test the Limits of Convicted Felon’s Power by Flexing Their Own

    The president’s unilateral and retributive style of governing is starting to hit a wall in both chambers of Congress.

  • New York Times ☛ Louisiana ICE Facility Mistreated Immigrants, Federal Investigators Say

    A report by the Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog described officers putting one man in a chokehold and stabbing another with a pen.

  • New York Times ☛ Sherrill Says Immigration Officials Won’t Let Her Visit Detention Center

    The governor said the Department of Homeland Security’s actions at Delaney Hall raise “serious questions.”

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Bets On Education To Sustain Influence In Central Asia

      The five Russian-language schools opened in Tajikistan in 2022 educate a total of around 6,000 students. The schools follow Russian educational standards and teach primarily in Russian. The curriculum as well as the schools' ceremonies and symbols emphasize Russia's language and culture.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ '60 Minutes' in turmoil as talent revolts under Bari Weiss

    Scott Pelley’s firing, along with the departure of several other veterans, is raising fears about the future of the most-watched TV news program.

    Veteran journalists warn the sweeping overhaul threatens the fiercely independent culture that helped “60 Minutes” thrive for decades.

  • CPJ ☛ Egypt sentences commentator Ahmed Douma to 1 year in prison

    “The sentencing of Ahmed Douma for writing about prison conditions is a stark violation of the right to free and safe expression. No journalist should face prison for sharing firsthand experiences or expressing critical opinions,”said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “Egyptian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Douma and stop weaponizing the country’s legal system to quash public debate.”

  • Tor ☛ Supporting those who speak out | The Tor Project

    In the words of a youth activist in Zambia who took part in a research study tracking digital security threats:

    "We are all fearful. It makes you constantly paranoid. It also undermines our work. It discourages us. It's very disheartening. It's difficult to keep the fire going. I've sort of stepped back from the front line."

    Silencing of whistleblowers, journalists and human rights defenders deprives citizens of the credible information they need to participate meaningfully in public life. It undermines democracy, enabling corruption and human rights abuses to flourish.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ CBS and '60 Minutes' Are Going Through Major Changes. WTF Is Happening?

    Last year, David Ellison, son of tech billionaire Larry Ellison, acquired Paramount in a massive merger and appointed Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News. The decision immediately sparked criticism, given Weiss’ background.

  • Truthdig ☛ Who Murdered ‘60 Minutes'?

    It was all part of Weiss’ shake-up of the revered broadcast.

    Why, you may wonder, is Weiss so eager to shake up “60 Minutes”?

    I mean, it’s the most successful television news broadcast in U.S. history. It has remained the No. 1 news program for 50 straight years and consistently ranks among the top 10 of all Nielsen-rated television programs.

    And it pulls in a fortune for CBS. “60 Minutes” is one of the most profitable programs in all of television, generating millions in annual profit for CBS. In one recent year, its advertising revenues were $67.5 million. The network wholly owns the franchise, which makes it a gold mine. It’s the most lucrative and prestigious journalism operation on the network.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Rubio says China cannot erase memories of Tiananmen Square [bloodbath]

    Beijing's censorship cannot erase memories of its 1989 military assault on peaceful demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday, ahead of the anniversary of China's violent suppression there.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Explainer: What to know about Hong Kong’s past Tiananmen commemorations and nat. security trial of vigil leaders

    “This prosecution is, in fact, a trial of the law itself,” Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Chow Hang-tung told a court last month. Chow, 41, made the remark during a defiant closing argument in her trial. T

  • The Straits Times ☛ Taiwan presses China to confront Tiananmen past

    The events on and around the central Beijing square on June 4, 1989 are not publicly discussed in China.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ For 4th year, patriotic carnival held on ex-site of Tiananmen crackdown vigils

    Before the enactment of the Beijing-imposed national security law, a large-scale candlelit vigil was hosted at Victoria Park every year on the evening of June 4. Members of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement would remember the dead, as well as call for the democratisation of China and justice for the victims.

  • RFA ☛ No vigils: Hong Kong’s Victoria Park silent on Tiananmen crackdown anniversary

    Since National Security Law went into effect, the government silenced the yearly protest that once drew 180,000. [...]

    Now on that day, pro-China showcases are held in the park, and there’s no mention of the massacre in local media anymore.

    “It is not that the Hong Kong media are unaware of June 4, nor is it that they lack the necessary information; rather, they simply do not dare to touch the subject anymore,” a veteran media professional closely monitoring press freedom in Hong Kong, identified only by his surname Chen, told RFA.

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Tiananmen Square Crackdown Cannot Be Erased by Censorship, Says US

    The United States said Wednesday that Chinese censorship could not "erase" the deadly 1989 crackdown on unarmed protesters at Beijing's Tiananmen Square and that victims will eventually be "vindicated."

  • The Straits Times ☛ Hong Kong school rejects resignation of principal who swore at security guards in S'pore, fires him

    The school requested his “immediate dismissal”.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • University of Michigan ☛ How The Daily won its editorial independence

    The most interesting piece of Daily history I know, however, is the fact that our motto is, historically, a lie. We have existed for 135 years, but to say we were independent that entire time is a massive overestimate. At best we’ve enjoyed 59 years of independence, and possibly far less. No matter where you draw the line, we had to fight to get there, and I think the story of how we did that is worth remembering.

  • The Indiana Capital Chronicle ☛ What we learn about Indy newsrooms by comparing coverage of the Indy 500

    To explore this question, I analyzed almost 500 news stories for the 500, from TV stations, nonprofit and for-profit news outlets, a newsletter and the local Black press. I categorized stories published or aired between April 28 and May 26 as either stories about the race itself, stories about events surrounding the race, fan features, community events, driver profiles, or race history.

  • CPJ ☛ Egypt sentences commentator Ahmed Douma to one year in prison

    Douma was arrested on April 6, 2026, at the Supreme State Security Prosecution headquarters following a six-hour interrogation and held for nearly two months in pre-trial detention. He was sentenced despite Article 71 of the Egyptian Constitution, which states that “no custodial sanction shall be imposed for crimes committed by way of publication.”

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • Wired ☛ xAI Asks Court to Strip Alleged Grok Deepfake Nudes Victims of Anonymity

    “Having stripped them of their clothes, xAI now seeks to strip Plaintiffs of their pseudonyms in an obvious effort to intimidate Plaintiffs into dropping the litigation by compounding the same harms that they seek to remedy,” Sophia Rios, a lawyer representing the individuals for legal firm Berger Montague, wrote in a recent filing. “Asking this Court to reverse itself, xAI suggests that the abuse it has perpetuated is no big deal.” Rios tells WIRED she is unable to comment beyond what is written in the filings.

  • El País ☛ An army of lawyers is fighting so you can order an Uber at Mexico City’s airport

    Three months ago, the yellow taxis blocked access to AICM, throwing traffic into chaos and leaving travelers stranded during a four‑hour protest. Licensed drivers accused platforms like Uber, DiDi, and InDrive of unfair competition, arguing that the apps operate in a federal zone without the permits they themselves must pay for.

    The Mexican government responded by promising to keep ride‑hailing vehicles out of airport grounds, meaning users must walk outside the federal area to meet their app‑ordered rides. The problem is that, 90 days later, airport passengers still don’t know these designated pickup areas exist — and they end up risking having their driver fined by the National Guard and the car impounded.

    [...]

    The licensed taxi drivers, for their part, accuse the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport and airport authorities of failing to enforce the law. They also point to the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies for “tailor‑made legislation” that favors the ride‑hailing platforms. According to these drivers, since 2015 “thousands of families linked to airport services” have seen their income harmed. “We exhausted every communication channel. We asked for working groups and we were not heard,” they said during the March protests.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ No Babies? Blame Capitalism.

    Commentators are pinning low fertility rates on everything from feminism to smartphones. But they miss one glaring factor: capitalism, an economic system predicated on individual autonomy and naked self-interest whose incentives run counter to child-rearing.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • APNIC ☛ Vale Alan Barrett — Internet pioneer, community leader, trusted voice

    Alan Barrett helped shape the Internet in Africa and beyond, combining technical leadership with a deep commitment to the global Internet community.

• Monopolies/Monopsonies

  • Patents

    • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Wine Railway and the Patent Marking Statute: Is a Covenant Not to Sue a Patent License?

      Supreme Court cert petition in Ortiz v. Vizio challenges Federal Circuit's expansion of patent monopoly marking requirements to non-practicing entities, conflicts with Wine Railway and Dunlap precedents.

    • JUVE ☛ Munich Court orders arrest for Polytech general manager [Ed: Arrests over patents; meanwhile, very criminal management at the EPO is above the law]

      It is the next stage of escalation in the long-running dispute between the Brazilian company Silimed and its German competitor Polytech. It is the kind of decision that makes compliance departments sit up and take notice.

    • Unified Patents ☛ Dominion Harbor entity, Bunker Hill, EV battery patent monopoly challenge granted

      On June 1, 2026, two months after Unified filed an ex parte reexamination, the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU) granted Unified’s request, finding substantial new questions of patentability on all challenged claims of U.S. Patent 9,914,365, asserted by Bunker Hill Technologies, an NPE and entity of Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC.

    • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Plain, Ordinary, and Unresolved: Woodway’s Two-Front Claim Construction Fight

      At Woodway's twin Federal Circuit arguments, plain and ordinary meaning deferred the scope fight, which returned as standard of review and disclaimer.

    • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Cheap Text, Expensive Claims: Fee Asymmetry and the Growing Patent Document

      Patent specs nearly quadrupled while claim counts fell since 2005. A new study finds supply-side economics, not Alice, driving the growth.

    • Kangaroo Courts

      • JUVE ☛ Kodak and Freshfields turn long-arm jurisdiction case against FujiFilm around [Ed: JUVE is aware that UPC is based on corruption, lies and other stuff peddled by cocaine addicts at EPO]

        Kodak does not infringe FujiFilm’s EP 3 511 174 and can therefore continue to manufacture and sell its planographic and lithographic printing plates in Germany and the UK. This is the decision of the second panel of the Court of Appeal (case IDs: UPC_CoA_312/2025, UPC_CoA_880/2025, UPC_CoA_333/2025, UPC_CoA_882/2025).

      • JUVE ☛ While losing at the EPO, ToolGen escalates battle against Vertex in Europe [Ed: And JUVE still knows Unified Patent Court is a major scandal; it gets paid to participate in normalising it]

        ToolGen is seeking a global licensing agreement with Vertex for the use of the world’s first genome-editing therapy, Casgevy. The Korean biotech company is now stepping up the pressure once again on Vertex and its commercial manufacturing partner, Lonza.

  • Copyrights

    • Public Domain Review ☛ Covers from Cerîde-i Adliye, a Turkish Law Journal (1924–26)

      Legal infographics that reflect a Turkish nation in flux.

    • Digital Music News ☛ Dutch Judge Clears Kanye West Performances In the Netherlands After Emergency Lawsuit

      An Amsterdam judge has allowed two upcoming shows by Kanye West to move forward in the Netherlands despite an emergency lawsuit from the Central Jewish Council. The Central Jewish Counsil filed an emergency lawsuit in a bid to prevent Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, from performing two upcoming shows in the Netherlands.

    • Digital Music News ☛ Björn Ulvaeus Opens CISAC Centenary, New [Slop] Statement

      The document also outlines four central principles, these include the protection of human creativity and cultural diversity; transparency, licensing, and fair remuneration in [Slop] systems; the importance of collective management in sustaining creative ecosystems; and the need for governments and policymakers to safeguard creators’ rights and cultural expression.

    • EFF ☛ California’s AB 412 Still Demands Developers Do The Impossible

      EFF submitted an opposition letter to the California Senate Privacy Committee explaining why we continue to believe A.B. 412 is simply unworkable. To the extent developers do follow this law, it will have the effect of locking in the power of the largest companies in [Slop].

    • Torrent Freak ☛ Streaming Piracy Crackdown 'KRATOS 2' Leads to 29 Arrests, Targets Remain Unknown

      A seven-month Europol operation, coordinated by Bulgaria with support from Europol, has dismantled nine criminal networks running pirate streaming services. The operation, dubbed KRATOS 2, resulted in 29 arrests and the removal of more than 27,000 URLs. While the press release includes many data points, the announcement does not mention the name of a single targeted platform that was taken offline.

    • Torrent Freak ☛ Google's Top DMCA Sender Plateaus at 70 Million Takedowns Per Week

      Google has processed billions of DMCA takedown requests during the first months of the year. Reporting agency Link-Busters remains the top sender. While its dominance remains, the company appears to have hit a takedown ceiling of roughly 70 million URLs per week. Google won't confirm whether there's a limit on the notices it processes and says that trusted parties "can submit the quantity they need."

    • Press Gazette ☛ Google faces regulation crackdown in UK over AI use of content

      So far, Google has made it impossible for publishers to remove their content from its AI-written answers without also removing themselves from Google’s main search index (the way most people in the UK access the internet).

      Yet the introduction of AI-written Google summaries has led to plunging Google referral traffic and a rise in zero-click searches as they remove the need for readers to click through to an article source.