Monday, 26 January
23:00 EST
China Hacked Downing Street Phones For Years [Slashdot]
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Telegraph: China hacked the mobile phones of senior officials in Downing Street for several years, The Telegraph can disclose. The spying operation is understood to have compromised senior members of the government, exposing their private communications to Beijing. State-sponsored hackers are known to have targeted the phones of some of the closest aides to Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak between 2021 and 2024. It is unclear whether the hack included the mobile phones of the prime ministers themselves, but one source with knowledge of the breach said it went "right into the heart of Downing Street." Intelligence sources in the US indicated that the Chinese espionage operation, known as Salt Typhoon, was ongoing, raising the possibility that Sir Keir Starmer and his senior staff may also have been exposed. MI5 issued an "espionage alert" to Parliament in November about the threat of spying from the Chinese state. [...] The attack raises the possibility that Chinese spies could have read text messages or listened to calls involving senior members of the Government. Even if they were unable to eavesdrop on calls, hackers may have gained access to metadata, revealing who officials were in contact with and how frequently, as well as geolocation data showing their approximate whereabouts.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
22:00 EST
21:00 EST
Reddit Lawyers Force Founder to Redact 'WallStreetBets' From Miami Event [Slashdot]
Reddit has forced Jaime Rogozinski, the founder of infamous r/WallStreetBets, to strip the WallStreetBets name from an upcoming Miami conference after legal threats citing trademark rights. According to a press release, it's the "first known case of a social media company enforcing trademark control over a user-created community." From the report: After years of litigation, courts ultimately sided with Reddit in a decision now referred to as the "Rogozinski Ruling," a precedent that grants platforms broad authority to assert trademark ownership over user-created communities. That ruling now forms the basis for Reddit's demand that the words "WallStreetBets" be physically removed from the event. "They aren't afraid of the name being used," said Rogozinski. "If they were, they'd have to sue the internet. What they're afraid of is the creator hanging out with his creation. They're afraid of the community's independence. And they're afraid it's evolved into something bigger than a subreddit." The irony is difficult to ignore. The original subreddit counts around three million subscribers, while conservative estimates place more than seven million WallStreetBets participants spread across other platforms. For a movement that built its reputation confronting corporate overreach, Reddit's decision to extend its authority beyond the confines of its web-based platform, reaching into real-world gatherings to police culture it did not create, risks stirring a hornet's nest with a long memory and a track record of collective action. The event formerly known as WallStreetBets Live, will proceed as scheduled on January 28-30 in Miami. In compliance with Reddit's demands, all references to the name will be physically redacted on-site. "Reddit's lawyers did one thing right," Rogozinski continued. "They proved exactly why we need a decentralized future. This event has become a live case study in what's broken about modern social media. Platforms can deplatform creators, and now, with courts backing them, they can appropriate what users build."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Apple Launches AirTag 2 With Improved Range, Louder Speaker [Slashdot]
Apple has launched a new AirTag 2 that features improved range, a speaker that's 50% louder, and expanded Apple Watch-based tracking. Pricing stays the same at $29 (or $99 for four). 9to5Mac reports: The new AirTag comes with an upgraded second-generation Ultra Wideband chip for improved range, including when using Precision Finding. From Apple Newsroom: "Apple's second-generation Ultra Wideband chip -- the same chip found in the iPhone 17 lineup, iPhone Air, Apple Watch Ultra 3, and Apple Watch Series 11 -- powers the new AirTag, making it easier to locate than ever before. Using haptic, visual, and audio feedback, Precision Finding guides users to their lost items from up to 50 percent farther away than the previous generation. And an upgraded Bluetooth chip expands the range at which items can be located. For the first time, users can use Precision Finding on Apple Watch Series 9 or later, or Apple Watch Ultra 2 or later, to find their AirTag, bringing a powerful experience to the wrist." Another key upgrade with the new AirTag is an improved speaker, which should also make the accessory easier to find. Apple says: "With its updated internal design, the new AirTag is 50 percent louder than the previous generation, enabling users to hear their AirTag from up to 2x farther than before." Apple also touts privacy and security improvements with the new AirTag: "Designed exclusively for tracking objects, and not people or pets, the new AirTag incorporates a suite of industry-first protections against unwanted tracking, including cross-platform alerts and unique Bluetooth identifiers that change frequently."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
TikTok Alternative 'Skylight' Soars To 380K+ Users After TikTok US Deal Finalized [Slashdot]
Skylight, an open-source, TikTok-style video app built on the AT Protocol, surged past 380,000 users after last week's shake-up around TikTok's U.S. ownership and privacy concerns. TechCrunch reports: Launched last year and backed by Mark Cuban and other investors, Skylight's mobile app is built on the AT Protocol, the technology that also powers the decentralized X rival Bluesky, which now has north of 42 million users. Skylight, co-founded by CEO Tori White and CTO Reed Harmeyer, offers a built-in video editor; user profiles; support for likes, commenting, and sharing; and the ability for community curators to create custom feeds for others to follow. The app now has over 150,000 videos uploaded directly to the platform. It can also stream videos from Bluesky because of its AT Protocol integration. Harmeyer said Saturday that 1.4 million videos were played on the app the day before, up 3x over the past 24 hours. The app had also seen sign-ups increase more than 150%. Other noteworthy stats include over a 50% increase in returning users, over 40% rise in video played on average, and over 100% increase in posts created. This surge was likely triggered by concerns over TikTok's change in ownership and its unfortunately timed technical glitches. [...] Over the weekend, Skylight's CEO, Tori White, said the app added around 20,000 new users and is continuing to grow. So far this January, the app has seen around 95,000 monthly active users. "We've seen what happens when one person dictates what's pushed into people's feeds," White told TechCrunch. "Not only does it harm a creator's connection with their followers, but the entire health of the platform. That's why we built Skylight Social on open standards. We wanted creator and user power to be guaranteed by the technology. Not an empty promise, but an irrevocable right."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
20:00 EST
Microsoft's Latest AI Chip Claims Performance Edge Over Amazon and Google [Slashdot]
An anonymous reader quotes a report from GeekWire: Microsoft on Monday announced Maia 200, the second generation of its custom AI chip, claiming it's the most powerful first-party silicon from any major cloud provider. The company says Maia 200 delivers three times the performance of Amazon's latest Trainium chip on certain benchmarks, and exceeds Google's most recent tensor processing unit (TPU) on others. The chip is already running workloads at Microsoft's data center near Des Moines, Iowa. Microsoft says Maia 200 is powering OpenAI's GPT-5.2 models, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and internal projects from its Superintelligence team. A second deployment at a data center near Phoenix is planned next. It's part of the larger trend among cloud giants to build their own custom silicon for AI rather than rely solely on Nvidia. [...] The company says Maia 200 offers 30% better performance-per-dollar than its current hardware. Maia 200 also builds on the first-generation chip with a more specific focus on inference, the process of running AI models after they've been trained. [...] Microsoft is also opening the door to outside developers. The company announced a software development kit that will let AI startups and researchers optimize their models for Maia 200. Developers and academics can sign up for an early preview starting today.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Border Patrol has a history of excessive force. Critics say they're out of their depth [NPR Topics: News]
People who study the Border Patrol say it continues to be less well prepared than big city police for handling crowds and situations involving protesters, some of whom are legally armed.
Amid lawsuits and protests, Trump signals changes to Minnesota immigration surge [NPR Topics: News]
A federal judge on Monday considered the legality of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, where backlash has intensified after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens this month.
(Image credit: Adam Gray)
19:00 EST
OpenAI spills technical details about how its AI coding agent works [Ars Technica - All content]
On Friday, OpenAI engineer Michael Bolin published a detailed technical breakdown of how the company's Codex CLI coding agent works internally, offering developers insight into AI coding tools that can write code, run tests, and fix bugs with human supervision. It complements our article in December on how AI agents work by filling in technical details on how OpenAI implements its "agentic loop."
AI coding agents are having something of a "ChatGPT moment," where Claude Code with Opus 4.5 and Codex with GPT-5.2 have reached a new level of usefulness for rapidly coding up prototypes, interfaces, and churning out boilerplate code. The timing of OpenAI's post details the design philosophy behind Codex just as AI agents are becoming more practical tools for everyday work.
These tools aren't perfect and remain controversial for some software developers. While OpenAI has previously told Ars Technica that it uses Codex as a coding tool to help develop the Codex product itself, we also discovered, through hands-on experience, that these tools can be astonishingly fast at simple tasks but remain brittle beyond their training data and require human oversight for production work. The rough framework of a project tends to come fast and feels magical, but filling in the details involves tedious debugging and workarounds for limitations the agent cannot overcome on its own.
California Tech CEO and EV Pioneer Arrested, Accused of Murder [Slashdot]
California tech executive Gordon Abas Goodarzi has been arrested and charged with murder in the death of his estranged wife, Aryan Papoli, whose body was found last November down an embankment off Highway 138 in San Bernardino County. Authorities initially believed the injuries were consistent with a fall, but the case was later ruled a homicide following a months-long investigation by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. "Arrest records show that Goodarzi is currently in custody without bail and faces a murder charge and that he is set to appear in court Monday," reports SFGATE. From the report: Goodarzi, a California tech executive with ties to BattleBots, is publicly listed as the president and CEO of Magmotor, which describes itself as a "proud" supporter of the combat robot community and claims to support several teams each year. According to his LinkedIn, Goodarzi also previously worked as a research affiliate at UCLA's B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences since 2023. Originally from Iran, Papoli and Goodarzi settled in Los Angeles County's verdant Rolling Hills community because of its tranquility and natural beauty, Papoli previously wrote. [...] She described her husband, Goodarzi, as a pioneer in the world of renewable energy, developing both electric and hybrid vehicles since the 1980s. According to Papoli, he also worked as the technical director at Hughes Electronics, which developed and manufactured the EV1, an early iteration of the electric car, in the 1990s.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Gemini In Google Calendar Now Helps You Find the Best Meeting Time For All Attendees [Slashdot]
Google is adding Gemini-powered "Suggested times" to Google Calendar, automatically scanning attendees' calendars to surface the best meeting slots based on availability, work hours, and conflicts. The feature also streamlines rescheduling with one-click alternatives when invitees decline. Digital Trends reports: According to a recent post on the Workspace Updates blog, Gemini in Google Calendar can now help you quickly identify optimal meeting times when creating an event, as long as you have access to the attendees' calendars. The new "Suggested times" feature scans everyone's calendars and highlights the best time slots based on availability, working hours, and potential conflicts, eliminating the need to manually check schedules. Google has also made rescheduling simpler. The company explains that if multiple attendees decline your invite, you'll see a banner in the event showing a time when everyone is available, letting you update the invite with a single click. The feature is being rolled out starting today to eligible Workspace tiers. It will be enabled by default and is expected to reach all eligible users over the next few weeks.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Challenger jet crash in Bangor, Maine [Philip Greenspun’s Weblog]
Friends have been asking me about the tragic Challenger N10KJ crash in Bangor, Maine on January 25 at 7:44 pm (NBC). I’m not type-rated for the Challenger 650, but I was trained on the Canadair Regional Jet, which is essentially a stretched version of the business jet.
The closest weather that I could find to the accident is the following:
METAR KBGR 260053Z 04009KT 3/4SM R15/6000VP6000FT -SN VV011 M17/M19 A3035 RMK AO2 PRESFR SLP286 P0002 T11671194
This is at 00:53Z on January 26th, but we subtract five hours for Eastern time so that puts us at 7:53 pm in Bangor.
The weather wasn’t terrible. Wind was from 040 true at 9 knots, which is roughly 56 degrees magnetic. Runway 33 has a magnetic heading of exactly 330 (airnav). So it was almost a perfect crosswind, which is unfavorable, but only 9 knots, which is easily handled even by a general aviation pilot in a slow piston airplane (where 9 knots is a larger fraction of the airspeed).
There was 3/4 miles of visibility or more than a mile down the runway (6000′). It was cold (minus 17C or 1F), which typically means that any snow will be dry and there wasn’t a lot of snow (“-SN” means “light snow”). There was roughly 1100′ of ceiling above the runway. To come back and land on the same runway 33 would require only 200′ of ceiling and 2400′ of visibility (the opposite direction runway required only 1800′; presumably due to superior lighting). (As a general rule, you don’t want to take off unless conditions will permit a return to the airport in the event of a problem, e.g., warning light (jet), or door pops open (old Cirrus). One can still do it with a “takeoff alternate”, i.e., a different reasonably nearby airport with either better weather or a better approach procedure, but that’s perhaps best left to the airlines.)
Part of the ILS 33 approach plate:
Decision altitude is at 363′ and the runway touchdown zone elevation is 163′ above sea level (that’s on a difference part of the chart; the “#363/24” at the bottom is what’s relevant (the # means “only when the lighting system is functional”)).
Jets work only if the aircraft is clean. The Challenger 650 is supposed to rotate at about 140 knots in icing conditions, but this plane was still on the ground at 152 knots:
At a distance of 1760 m past the threshold of runway 33, the aircraft veered right at a ground speed of 152 knots. The airplane flipped over and was partially consumed by a post crash fire.
What could have kept it from flying? Ice or snow on the wings that disrupts the smooth airflow necessary for generating design lift. How can one prevent the accumulation of dry snow? If starting from a cold hangar, the easiest way to be a hero is to do nothing. Dry snow won’t stick to a below-freezing surface so you taxi to the runway threshold, have your terrified junior co-pilot look out the side window to verify that the snow is blowing off during the takeoff roll, and abort the takeoff if the chicken in the right seat says “we don’t have a clean wing!” I actually did this once in a Piper Malibu out of KBED in Maskachusetts with my favorite gynecologist at the controls. We climbed through 20,000′ of clouds and dry snow and broke out on top of the clouds without ever having accumulated a speck of ice on the plane, just as my gynecologist had said we would. We landed about five hours later in Florida. A friend with a lot of round-the-world experience says that this is the preferred technique in Russia. ChatGPT says that you’d be an idiot to attempt it, but Grok says it is okay:
In extremely cold, dry snow conditions like those in the METAR (-17°C with light snow), the snow is typically non-adhering and powdery, meaning it won’t stick to a clean, cold-soaked aircraft surface. Many operators and pilots (including some Part 121 carriers) rely on this property, determining that light dry snow will blow off during the takeoff roll without needing de/anti-icing fluids. This is permissible under the clean aircraft concept (e.g., 14 CFR § 91.527, § 121.629, § 135.227), which prohibits takeoff only if frost, ice, or snow is adhering to critical surfaces—loose, blowing snow that doesn’t adhere does not violate it.
What if the snow isn’t dry or the airplane wing is warm from being in a heated hangar or because it just came in from Houston, as this jet did, and perhaps had picked up some ice in the descent? In that case, the standard approach is to use Type I de-icing fluid to melt/wash the snow and ice off the plane and, if the snow is still falling, apply Type IV de-icing fluid to protect against any additional accumulation of precipitation. (What about Types II and III you may ask? The first rule of De-ice Club is not to ask about Types II and III.)
As the plane rolls down the runway, Type IV fluid magically shears off and leaves behind a perfect wing. This may happen at roughly 120-130 knots so it won’t work for a crummy piston airplane, but the airlines rely on it.
In order to facilitate fluid recycling, de-icing typically happens on a pad that isn’t right at the runway hold short line. How do the pilots know if the plane is still safe to use if they’ve spent some time taxiing from the de-icing location to the runway or, even worse, waiting for other aircraft to depart and land? They’ll have a holdover time table in the cockpit. Here’s an FAA example:
Notice that the holdover time for light snow is as little as 9 minutes in -17C temperatures and only 2 minutes if the snow is “moderate” rather than “light” (who can distinguish between these?). ChatGPT, no matter how hard it is pressed, always says “Type IV still makes sense despite its limitations [and] … is still immeasurably safer than guessing what will or won’t blow off”, but is able to explain how Type IV fluid can kill everyone:
The conclusion from our strict AI overlord:
But the problem with “Type IV within HOT” being “acceptable” is that the holdover time ranges are large and the pilots might get inaccurate information about whether there is “light” vs. “moderate” precipitation (or just guess wrong). Not only that, but the pilots sitting inside the plane can’t know, especially at night, how thorough the de-ice personnel are being with the Type I and Type IV fluids.
How many minutes elapsed between the Type IV fluid application and the takeoff?
The crew communicated with ground ops by radio requesting Type 1 & Type 4 de-ice & anti-ice fluid application. At 19:13 the aircraft taxied to the de-icing pad, where it remained from 19:17 to 19:36. It taxied to runway 33 and commenced the takeoff at 19:44.
The deicing seems to have taken about 20 minutes so we can perhaps guess that Type IV application was begun at 19:26 or 18 minutes prior to takeoff. That’s within the holdover time range from the above chart, 9-30 minutes, but longer than the “you might be in trouble shortest number” of 9 minutes. Bangor has an epic runway (11,440′) so things might have gone better during daylight hours. The pilot monitoring would have had a chance to see that the wing wasn’t clean at 130 knots, for example, and told the pilot flying to abort. They would have had plenty of runway available within which to stop. Perhaps the VIP passengers/owners, headed for France, insisted on lingering in Houston rather than getting out ahead of the storm. If they’d left Houston three hours earlier it wouldn’t have been snowing at all in Bangor:
METAR KBGR 252153Z 06005KT 10SM OVC050 M15/M26 A3045 RMK AO2 SLP319 PRESENT WX VCSH T11501256
I like to tell my advanced students “If you’re rich enough to own a jet then you’re rich enough to set your own schedule so that you’re never flying in airline-style weather.” (That said, one great way to become “unrich” is to own a jet…)
It’s too early to say whether icing/de-icing was the cause of the accident, of course. But as of right now it is tough to think of another way that a competent two-pilot crew could have wrecked the airplane. One sad thought is that the plane might have been flyable if the crew had rotated at a higher speed. If the investigation shows that the pilots rotated (pulled the jet off the runway) at the book speed and then, once out of ground effect, the plane wouldn’t fly, it will be sobering to reflect that the plane might have flown just fine if they’d waited for another 15 knots (the most critical surfaces on the plane, such as the leading edges of the wing, are de-iced with hot “bleed air” pulled from the engines’ compressors). With sufficient airspeed, even an inefficient wing will generate quite a bit of lift, which varies as a function of the airspeed squared.
Unrelated to the physics and aerodynamics, but there seems to be a sad irony that the plane involved in this spectacular accident was owned by a personal injury law firm, i.e., folks who make their money from spectacular accidents. Arnold & Itkin:
Finally, the crash does show the merits of using big airports. The fire and rescue team reportedly reached the crash site within a minute or so. If you experience an in-flight issue and think that there is any chance of having an accident on landing, therefore, divert to the biggest air carrier airport that you can find and certainly reject any unattended nontowered airport.
The post Challenger jet crash in Bangor, Maine appeared first on Philip Greenspun’s Weblog.
18:00 EST
Doctors face-palm as RFK Jr.’s top vaccine advisor questions need for polio shot [Ars Technica - All content]
The chair of a federal vaccine advisory panel under anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made his stance clear on vaccines in a podcast last week—and that stance was so alarming that the American Medical Association was compelled to respond with a scathing statement.
Kirk Milhoan, who was named chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in December, appeared on the aptly named podcast "Why Should I Trust You." In the hour-long interview, Milhoan made a wide range of comments that have concerned medical experts and raised eyebrows.
Early into the discussion, Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist, declared, "I don't like established science," and that "science is what I observe." He lambasted the evidence-based methodology that previous ACIP panels used to carefully and transparently craft vaccine policy.
Why has Microsoft been routing example.com traffic to a company in Japan? [Ars Technica - All content]
From the Department of Bizarre Anomalies: Microsoft has suppressed an unexplained anomaly on its network that was routing traffic destined to example.com—a domain reserved for testing purposes—to a maker of electronics cables located in Japan.
Under the RFC2606—an official standard maintained by the Internet Engineering Task Force—example.com isn't obtainable by any party. Instead it resolves to IP addresses assigned to Internet Assiged Names Authority. The designation is intended to prevent third parties from being bombarded with traffic when developers, penetration testers, and others need a domain for testing or discussing technical issues. Instead of naming an Internet-routable domain, they are to choose example.com or two others, example.net and example.org.
Misconfig gone, but is it fixed?
Output from the terminal command cURL shows that devices inside Azure and other Microsoft networks have been routing some traffic to subdomains of sei.co.jp, a domain belonging to Sumitomo Electric. Most of the resulting text is exactly what’s expected. The exception is the JSON-based response. Here’s the JSON output from Friday:
Google Settles $68 Million Lawsuit Claiming It Recorded Private Conversations [Slashdot]
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Google has agreed to pay $68 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it secretly listened to people's private conversations through their phones. [...] the lawsuit claimed Google Assistant would sometimes turn on by mistake -- the phone thinking someone had said its activation phrase when they had not -- and recorded conversations intended to be private. They alleged the recordings were then sent to advertisers for the purpose of creating targeted advertising. The proposed settlement was filed on Friday in a California federal court, and requires approval by US District Judge Beth Labson Freeman. The claim has been brought as a class action lawsuit rather than an individual case -- meaning if it is approved, the money will be paid out across many different claimants. Those eligible for a payout will have owned Google devices dating back to May 2016. But lawyers for the plaintiffs may ask for up to one-third of the settlement -- amounting to about $22 million in legal fees. The tech firm also denied any wrongdoing, as well as claims that it "recorded, disclosed to third parties, or failed to delete, conversations recorded as the result of a Siri activation" without consent.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
U.S. sled racer Uhlaender says she was unfairly denied sixth Olympic bid [NPR Topics: News]
Five-time U.S. Olympian Katie Uhlaender says a point-manipulation scheme blocked her bid to compete in Milan Cortina. U.S. sports officials are backing her bid for a special berth at the Winter Games.
(Image credit: Al Bello)
Josh Shapiro sees light in his constituents, even in dark times [NPR Topics: News]
NPR's Scott Detrow talks with Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania about his memoir, Where We Keep the Light, immigration raids and the upcoming elections in 2026 and 2028.
17:00 EST
Apple's AirTag 2 is easier to find thanks to new chip [Ars Technica - All content]
Apple is introducing a new version of its AirTag tracking device—simply dubbed "the new AirTag"—and claims it offers substantial improvements thanks to a new Bluetooth chip.
The original AirTag came out five years ago now, and it became popular in a variety of contexts. There were some problems, though—there was real concern about unwanted tracking and stalking with the devices, based on real stories of it being used for that. The company gradually introduced new features and protections against that, getting it to a much better place.
This new version is focused on making the device more effective in general. Thanks to the inclusion of the second-generation Ultra Wideband chip (the same one found in other recently released Apple devices like the iPhone 17), Apple says the new AirTag can work with the Precision Finding feature in the Find My app to direct users to the AirTag (and whatever lost item it's stored with or attached to) from up to 50 percent farther away.
“Wildly irresponsible”: DOT's use of AI to draft safety rules sparks concerns [Ars Technica - All content]
The US Department of Transportation apparently thinks it's a good idea to use artificial intelligence to draft rules impacting the safety of airplanes, cars, and pipelines, a ProPublica investigation revealed Monday.
It could be a problem if DOT becomes the first agency to use AI to draft rules, ProPublica pointed out, since AI is known to confidently get things wrong and hallucinate fabricated information. Staffers fear that any failure to catch AI errors could result in flawed laws, leading to lawsuits, injuries, or even deaths in the transportation system.
But the DOT's top lawyer, Gregory Zerzan, isn't worried about that, December meeting notes revealed, because the point isn't for AI to be perfect. It's for AI to help speed up the rulemaking process, so that rules that take weeks or months to draft can instead be written within 30 days. According to Zerzan, DOT's preferred tool, Google Gemini, can draft rules in under 30 minutes.
DOT Plans To Use Google Gemini AI To Write Regulations [Slashdot]
The Trump administration is planning to use AI to write federal transportation regulations, ProPublica reported on Monday, citing the U.S. Department of Transportation records and interviews with six agency staffers. From the report: The plan was presented to DOT staff last month at a demonstration of AI's "potential to revolutionize the way we draft rulemakings," agency attorney Daniel Cohen wrote to colleagues. The demonstration, Cohen wrote, would showcase "exciting new AI tools available to DOT rule writers to help us do our job better and faster." Discussion of the plan continued among agency leadership last week, according to meeting notes reviewed by ProPublica. Gregory Zerzan, the agency's general counsel, said at that meeting that President Donald Trump is "very excited about this initiative." Zerzan seemed to suggest that the DOT was at the vanguard of a broader federal effort, calling the department the "point of the spear" and "the first agency that is fully enabled to use AI to draft rules." Zerzan appeared interested mainly in the quantity of regulations that AI could produce, not their quality. "We don't need the perfect rule on XYZ. We don't even need a very good rule on XYZ," he said, according to the meeting notes. "We want good enough." Zerzan added, "We're flooding the zone." These developments have alarmed some at DOT. The agency's rules touch virtually every facet of transportation safety, including regulations that keep airplanes in the sky, prevent gas pipelines from exploding and stop freight trains carrying toxic chemicals from skidding off the rails. Why, some staffers wondered, would the federal government outsource the writing of such critical standards to a nascent technology notorious for making mistakes? The answer from the plan's boosters is simple: speed. Writing and revising complex federal regulations can take months, sometimes years. But, with DOT's version of Google Gemini, employees could generate a proposed rule in a matter of minutes or even seconds, two DOT staffers who attended the December demonstration remembered the presenter saying.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
GOP lawyer Chris Madel ends bid for Minnesota governor, calls ICE effort a 'disaster' [NPR Topics: News]
Chris Madel — a Republican candidate for governor of Minnesota — has dropped out of the state's gubernatorial race, saying he no longer supports the immigration crackdown taking place in Minneapolis.
Treasury cancels Booz Allen contracts over leaks about wealthy taxpayers [NPR Topics: News]
A Booz Allen contractor had leaked confidential tax information that showed how wealthy people like Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos manage to minimize their tax obligations.
(Image credit: Jim Watson)
Minnesota officials rebuff DOJ's data demands after latest shooting by federal agents [NPR Topics: News]
Minnesota officials are rebuffing demands from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, as the state continues its clash with the Trump administration over the surge of federal immigration enforcement.
(Image credit: Adam Bettcher)
In the wake of Alex Pretti's death, Congress appears on track for a partial shutdown [NPR Topics: News]
Senate Democrats say they are unwilling to fund the Department of Homeland Security without major reforms, raising the likelihood of a partial government shutdown at the end of this week.
(Image credit: Heather Diehl)
16:00 EST
Valve Facing UK Lawsuit Over Pricing and Commissions [Slashdot]
An anonymous reader shares a report: Video game developer and distributor Valve must face a 656 million-pound ($897.7 million) lawsuit in Britain, which alleges it charged publishers excessive commissions for its Steam online store, after a tribunal ruled on Monday the case could continue. Valve was sued in 2024 on behalf of up to 14 million people in the United Kingdom who bought games or additional content through Steam or other platforms since 2018. Lawyers representing children's welfare advocate Vicki Shotbolt, who is bringing the case, allege Valve prevents publishers selling products more cheaply or earlier on rival platforms to Steam by imposing conditions on them. They say Valve requires users to buy all additional content through Steam if they've bought that game through the platform, effectively "locking in" users to make purchases on its platform. This allows Valve to charge "unfair and excessive" commissions of up to 30%, Shotbolt's lawyers said at a hearing in October.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
New California Law Means Big Changes For Photos of Homes in Real Estate Listings [Slashdot]
California house hunters now have legal protection against the kind of real estate photo trickery that has long plagued the home-buying process, as a new state law requiring disclosure of digitally altered listing images took effect on January 1. Assembly Bill 723 mandates that real estate agents and brokers include a "reasonably conspicuous" statement whenever photos have been altered using editing software or AI to add, remove, or change elements like furniture, appliances, flooring, views or landscaping. Agents must also provide access to the original, unaltered image through a QR code, link, or placement next to the altered photo. The law does not cover wide-angle lenses -- a perennial complaint among buyers who find rooms smaller than they appeared -- nor does it apply to routine adjustments like cropping, color correction or exposure. California is the first state to require such disclosures, though Wisconsin passed a similar law in December that takes effect next year.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
RFK Jr. is definitely coming for your vaccines (part 7): What, me worry (about polio and HPV)? [Science-Based Medicine]
Last week was a hellscape for vaccines, with a RICO lawsuit against the AAP and the newly antivax CDC coming for your HPV and polio vaccines.
The post RFK Jr. is definitely coming for your vaccines (part 7): What, me worry (about polio and HPV)? first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.Open Thread 418 [Astral Codex Ten]
This is the weekly visible open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. ACX has an unofficial subreddit, Discord, and bulletin board, and in-person meetups around the world. Most content is free, some is subscriber only; you can subscribe here. Also:
1: Inkhaven was a blogging residency/bootcamp/program in Berkeley last November. The conceit was that residents had to write one post per day for thirty days, or else get kicked out without a refund. I ran some sessions, and so did other people you might recognize like Gwern, Zvi, Ozy, Aella, and Scott Aaronson. People seemed to like it (average rating 8/10, see also reflections here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, etc; when you make forty people write every day, you sure do end up with a lot of written reflections on the experience). They’re doing it again this April, and you’re invited to apply. You’ll need ~$3,500 (some scholarships available) and a month free. I plan to help again. Application deadline March 1.
2: ACX grantee Aerolamp manufactures far-UVC lamps that kill airborne germs (but are safe for humans and animals). Place them in a heavily-trafficked area, and infections won’t spread from person to person because the germs will get zapped before they can reach a new host. The utopian dream is that nobody will have to worry about indoor gatherings during the next COVID-scale pandemic; more practically, companies and schools could use them to reduce sick days. In order to build buzz/awareness, Aerolamp will be giving away free lamps (~$500 value) to anyone with an appropriate location (they’re imagining coworking spaces and group houses, but maybe you have better ideas) who’s willing to display an included poster and take a customer survey. If you’re in this category, then apply here for your free Aerolamp DevKit.
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GTA 6's Physical Release Could Be Delayed To 2027 Because of Leaks [Slashdot]
An anonymous reader shares a report: An insider who correctly leaked information about Oblivion: Remastered and other titles is warning that GTA 6's physical release could be pushed back. GTA 6 is set to finally launch on November 19, 2026, but fans hoping to get their hands on a physical copy could be stuck waiting even longer. According to a report from Polish site PPE, insider Graczdari says Rockstar's parent company, Take-Two, isn't planning to release a physical edition of GTA 6 at launch. "We are getting more and more information that the box version will not be released simultaneously with the digital version to prevent leaks," the report says.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Nike Says It's Investigating Possible Data Breach [Slashdot]
Nike says it is investigating a potential data breach, after a group known for cyber attacks reportedly claimed to have leaked a trove of data related to its business operations. From a report: "We always take consumer privacy and data security very seriously," Nike said in a statement. "We are investigating a potential cyber security incident and are actively assessing the situation." The ransomware group World Leaks said on its website that it had published 1.4 terabytes of data from Nike.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Hundreds of thousands without power in the U.S. after a powerful winter storm [NPR Topics: News]
A powerful winter storm walloped a huge swath of the U.S., killing at least 25 people. Electricity is out for hundreds of thousands, and freezing rain and snow have coated streets.
(Image credit: Brett Carlsen)
Tempted to get a septum piercing [Pharyngula]
It would almost be worth it to have golden spiders hanging from my nose, but I think this kind of jewelry would be uncommon nowadays. And expensive.
Every time I try to feel sympathy for a church, they push me away [Pharyngula]
I had no idea what Cities Church was like. This is
the church in St Paul were protesters disrupted a service,
horrified at the fact that one of the pastors was also an ICE field
agent. Several people have been arrested, and Bondi’s
Department of Justice
promises a full investigation of the
affair.
I think it is rightful to protest a church that takes advantage of the separation of church and state to get tax exemptions, but then hosts a clergy that preaches against secular government. Don’t burn them down, but at the very least the people should have the right to alert the community that one of the pastors is a hypocrite, on the one hand preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and on the other hand arresting and deporting and bullying the poor and needy. Let everyone know what a lying fraud he is.
But now I learn about Cities Church’s long-running reputation. One protest is not enough.
“[T]hey are insecure little sexist and racist power-mongers who desire to be God,” wrote Rick Pidcock, a former fundamentalist and worship music expert, in a lengthy exposé for Baptist News Global. According to Pidcock, Cities Church is rooted in a network of far-right churches that teach “male headship and female submission” so extreme that their thought leader, John Piper, has argued that women shouldn’t even occupy management positions where men might have to answer to them.
Parnell himself has written extensively about how men “are given a charge to lead.” Under his leadership, female parishioners teach courses on learning to submit to your husband even when it’s “overwhelming, frustrating, or maybe even impossible,” as it seemed to be for a former church member who told Pidcock that the pastors pressured her to stay in a marriage with an emotionally abusive man who bankrupted his family by spending money on online sex workers.
Among Cities Church’s pastors is Joe Rigney, who has recently become a MAGA media darling because he, along with podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey, has been pushing the idea that empathy is a sin. Rigney has partnered with Doug Wilson, a pastor who has praised race relations under slavery and denounced women’s suffrage, to argue that people are “being manipulated by empathy.” Rigney’s misogyny is never far from the surface, including when he denounced empathy as evidence that “feminism is a cancer” because it allows women to move beyond just being “life-givers and nurturers” and into public spaces, where their allegedly toxic compassion is a “curse.”
“Cities Church is part of the Southern Baptist Convention, which was founded in 1845 over the right to own slaves,” Tim Whitaker, a former Christian nationalist who now works to expose the movement on his YouTube channel, told Salon. “This church should be disrupted. As far as I’m concerned, Jesus would’ve been right with those protesters.”
Whitaker’s view illuminates what the MAGA freakout over this protest is ignoring: that freedom of religion is not a shield against criticism of a church’s teachings, especially when those teachings are impacting the lives of other people. Cities Church, he said, “is home to a pastor that works for a federal agency kidnapping brown-skinned immigrants and killing unarmed citizens.” The anti-empathy and bigoted views taught inside the church are directly affecting people outside of it.
This is the Church of Doug Wilson, not the Church of Jesus, and it’s nothing but a sheltered little pocket of poison infesting the body politic. We have a system in which you are not even allowed to criticize the most evil, odious views if they are said by a man wearing a clerical collar, and it has to stop.
I don’t agree that empathy is a sin, but that’s OK because I feel no empathy for a nest of vipers in my state.
It’s hard to get going in the morning, because we’re all just swimming in lies. The administration lies non-stop — they’re repeating obvious lies over and over, despite the fact that we have multiple videos that allow us to see with our own eyes how false they are.
The echo is repeated over and over again by the media. Fox News only lies, and the lies are expanding into CBS News with the corruption named “Bari Weiss”. But occasionally they slip up.
Pam Bondi has delivered an ultimatum to Minnesota. They will pull ICE out of the state (they say…don’t believe them) IF we do just three things:
“You and your office must restore the rule of law, support ICE officers, and bring an end to the chaos in Minnesota,” Bondi wrote in the letter, which was published by The New York Times and other outlets. “Fortunately, there are common sense solutions to these problems that I hope we can accomplish together.”
To stop the crisis, Bondi directed Walz to repeal Minnesota’s “sanctuary policies” for migrants and share information on its welfare programs, which have been under scrutiny over alleged fraud in government-supported child care centers and million of dollars in funds stolen through a food aid program dating back to the pandemic.
She also requested access to the state’s voter registration records “to confirm that Minnesota’s voter registration practices comply with federal law.”
So she wants an end to policies that protect immigrants, and she wants unfettered access to all the state information on welfare and … voter registration? Donald Trump wants to be able to learn as much as possible about how our citizens vote. You know, our mostly Democratic citizens. This is a crude attempt to undermine democracy.
The state has told her no, flatly, which is good. I’d rather not have ICE knocking on my door because my record shows I’m a reliable, consistent Democratic voter and they want to intimidate people like me.
Impeach Pam Bondi. It would be a good start.