Friday, 29 May
19:00 EDT
Kenyan court blocks Trump admin from dumping Ebola-exposed Americans there [Ars Technica - All content]
The Trump administration is refusing to repatriate Americans exposed to Ebola amid the outbreak still raging in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But the plan to send US citizens to Kenya has hit a snag, and officials are still scrambling to find other countries that might take them.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that the administration had devised a plan to establish a makeshift quarantine and treatment facility in Kenya—instead of bringing its citizens home for high-quality care at specialized facilities built for this purpose. According to the initial plans, the US facility would be in Laikipia, about 120 miles north of Nairobi, where the US has an air base. Initially, the plan was to set up a 50-bed quarantine facility that was expected to be operational today, May 29. Then, in a second state, officials would set up isolation and biocontainment units to house Americans infected with the virus.
But after a series of events on Thursday and Friday, that plan has now been stalled. The Katiba Institute, which advocates for Kenyans' constitutional rights, filed the petition on Thursday to challenge the establishment of the quarantine and treatment facility.
17:00 EDT
Botnet of more than 17 million devices dismantled [Ars Technica - All content]
Authorities in the Netherlands said they dismantled a botnet that comprised more than 17 million devices and were managed by 200 servers in a joint operation by the police and the National Cyber Security Center.
The action, announced Thursday, came about after a security researcher reported the sprawling network to authorities. The host infrastructure was located in the Netherlands.
Used for criminal purposes
“The police then seized several botnet servers from a hosting provider for investigation,” the NCSC said. “The botnet was taken offline by the provider because it was used for criminal purposes.”
Analysis of Texas measles outbreak shows just how dangerous virus is [Ars Technica - All content]
For years, anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his zealous followers have downplayed measles as "just a rash" and falsely claimed that "Measles outbreaks have been fabricated to create fear."
In 2021, when Kennedy wrote those words, the US recorded just 49 measles cases. Yearly case counts have generally been low since 2000, when the US declared measles eliminated thanks to a decades-long vaccination campaign. But with the rise of Kennedy and his ilk in the past few decades, that public health triumph is being undone. Vaccination rates have slipped, and large, multistate outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases have inevitably come roaring back. Now it's becoming painfully clear once again how wrong Kennedy and his cohorts are about infectious diseases and vaccines.
In a study published yesterday in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, state and federal researchers provided a detailed postmortem of last year's massive multi-state measles outbreak that mushroomed out of West Texas. The data reveals a disease that's far from just a rash, with about 20 percent of people—mostly younger children—being hospitalized.
House of the Dragon S3 trailer revels in dragons, fire, and blood [Ars Technica - All content]
Some viewers were disappointed that the second season of House of the Dragon ended not with a bang, but a whimper. But the big battle sequence that season 2 set up will open season 3 with a bang, judging by the latest trailer, which has all the dragons, fire, and blood Westeros is known for.
(Spoilers for first two seasons below.)
As previously reported, the series is set nearly 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, when dragons were still a fixture of Westeros, and chronicles the beginning of the end of House Targaryen’s reign. The primary source material is Fire and Blood, a fictional history of the Targaryen kings written by George R.R. Martin. As book readers know, those events culminated in a civil war and the extinction of the dragons—at least until Daenerys Targaryen came along.
Trump FCC warns all broadcasters to follow orders or be punished like ABC [Ars Technica - All content]
The eight broadcast TV stations owned by ABC filed applications for early license renewals under protest yesterday, accusing the Federal Communications Commission of trying to suppress speech as part of "an unprecedented attack on a single company’s entire portfolio of broadcast licenses."
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has repeatedly threatened to revoke broadcast licenses from President Trump's least favorite networks. He recently ordered the Disney-owned ABC to file early license renewal applications for all of its TV stations over allegations that its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices violate anti-discrimination rules.
"The only plausible reason to issue the Order is to punish the Station for speech the government does not like," ABC said in its filings. The FCC is "using the license process renewal to punish a broadcaster for its editorial choices" in "an extraordinary demonstration of power and coercion directed at disfavored editorial voices," it said.
DOJ sues states that rejected ICE requests for undercover license plates [Ars Technica - All content]
The Trump administration continues to claim in lawsuits that ICE monitoring sites are doxing agents, without showing evidence that's happening.
Most recently, the Department of Justice pointed to sites like ICEList.info and ICESpy.org in lawsuits it filed in an attempt to force four states to reverse policies blocking ICE agents from registering undercover license plates.
The DOJ alleged that the states' policies are unconstitutional, unlawfully requiring federal officers to abide by different rules than state officers who can easily obtain undercover plates. Among risks to ICE agents denied undercover plates, the DOJ counted alleged threats of increased harassment and invasive tracking of officers, as well as the possibility that targets of ICE enforcement may more easily evade arrest.
Trump's name must come off of the Kennedy Center, judge rules [NPR Topics: News]
added to the Kennedy Center in December of
2025. This photo was taken in April 2026.' />
The judge wrote in his 94-page ruling that it was "crystal clear" that the arts complex was named for the late president John F. Kennedy. He also ruled that the center could not wind down its programming and close for two years of renovations – at least for now
(Image credit: Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Wix Is the Latest To Cut 20% of Jobs While Citing AI [Slashdot]
Wix is laying off roughly 20% of its workforce, about 1,000 employees, as CEO Avishai Abrahami cites both the rapid evolution of AI and currency pressure from a stronger Israeli shekel against the dollar. The web developer joins a growing list of tech companies making similar cuts, including Amazon, Block, Cisco, Cloudflare, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle and Intuit. Fast Company reports: "We have witnessed the most significant shift in how companies are built since the invention of modern programming languages in the 1970s," [wrote Abrahami]. "This is not just about adopting new tools -- it is about rewiring how companies are built, how they think, how they manage, and how they operate. Companies that embrace this change will not only build faster; they will build things the previous generation literally could not have imagined." Abrahami also cited the poor exchange rate between the Israeli shekel and the U.S. dollar. The Israeli currency has significantly strengthened in the past few quarters against a weakening dollar, and the shekel is up nearly 30% against the greenback over the last year. "As the majority of our teams are Israel-based, a very meaningful portion of our costs are shekel-denominated, while our revenue is largely dollar-denominated," Abrahami explained on X. "This creates a structural pressure on our ability to operate at our current scale. It is a reality that directly shapes what is sustainable for our company."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
15:00 EDT
Startup offers free home cleaning—if it can record it all for robot training [Ars Technica - All content]
A tech startup is offering New York City residents free home cleaning with a twist—it will send “professional cleaners” wearing cameras to record everything they do. All that data will supposedly be used to train AI-driven robots.
The unusual pitch comes from the German startup MicroAGI, whose website describes the company as a “team of engineers, researchers, and operators on a mission to accelerate embodied AI.” It began publicizing the free home-cleaning service run through its newly launched Shift app on May 28, with posts on social media sites such as X and LinkedIn featuring a video set to the upbeat piano notes of the Jay-Z and Alicia Keys song “Empire State of Mind.”
The Shift app website claims it “connects New Yorkers with free, trusted professional house cleaners” in exchange for recording “first-person cleaning footage to help train the next generation of household robots.” The “book a free cleaning” link directs clients to enter information such as a phone number, email address, and home address, along with access instructions, before booking an appointment that lasts an estimated two hours.
After years of stability, F1 reliability can no longer be taken for granted [Ars Technica - All content]
First off, apologies for the lack of a Canadian Grand Prix report at the beginning of this week; Ferrari chose last weekend to show us its new electric vehicle, and between that and Memorial Day, one thing led to another, and here we are.
Canada was yet another sprint weekend, meaning limited practice time for teams desperate for it to collect data on their various upgrade packages. The race, held on an artificial island built for Expo 67, is often one of the season's highlights, and 2026 did not disappoint, with some excellent duals among the field.
The 19-year-old Italian sophomore Kimi Antonelli now leads his Mercedes teammate George Russell by 43 points in the championship after four straight wins in a row. With 25 points for a win, that means Russell could soon be two whole race wins behind his young in-house rival; never a comfortable spot when competing against someone with identical equipment.
Severed sea cucumber appendages don't seem to die [Ars Technica - All content]
Organs, arms, appendages, and other complex tissues usually decay rapidly when they’re separated from their host. Over the years, biologists have seen some success with keeping them alive outside of the body—organ transplants depend on it—but it has always required germ-free environments and nutrient-rich mediums filled with growth factors. Now, though, scientists have discovered bits of tissue removed from a species of sea cucumber called Psolus fabricii can keep on living indefinitely if they’re left in ordinary seawater.
“This is naturally occurring tissue immortality,” said Sara Jobson, a researcher at Memorial University of Newfoundland and lead author of the study. “Having tissues that survive that easily is unheard of. We’ve never seen anything like this.”
The beginning of LiPfe
Psolus fabricii is a species of sea cucumber that lives in the cold waters of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Its bottom side, known as a sole, is soft and ringed by a band of tube feet that it uses to grip rocks. Once on a rock, it extends soft, branching tentacles into the water to feed on suspended particles. Because these sea cucumbers inhabit harsh environments, their feet and tentacles experience high rates of injury and loss. Evolution has therefore endowed these sites with an incredibly high capacity for regeneration.
Louisiana lawmakers pass a congressional map to dismantle a majority-Black district [NPR Topics: News]
Louisiana's Republican lawmakers raced to eliminate one of two majority-Black congressional seats in the state after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the current map unconstitutional in a sweeping ruling.
(Image credit: Michael DeMocker)
Why are people attacking Ebola clinics? It revolves around trust, death and body bags [NPR Topics: News]
In echoes of past outbreaks, community members are attacking clinics, distrusting doctors and following burial traditions that could lead to more cases of Ebola.
(Image credit: Gradel Muyisa Mumbere)
Blue Origin Rocket Exploded Thursday Night During Hot-Fire Test [Slashdot]
Spaceflight Now shared their video of the explosion, which the Orlando Sentinel describes as showing Blue Origin's rocket "become engulfed in flames. The fireball expands out and covers the entire launch pad as the fuselage of the rocket can be seen crumbling into the flames." Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said on X.com "It's too early to know the root cause but we're already working to find it. Very rough day, but we'll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It's worth it." (SpaceX founder Elon Musk posted "Sorry to see this, I hope you recover quickly.") It's unclear how this will impact future launches. "The rocket was destroyed," reports CBS News, "and as the smoke cleared, there was no sign of the erector-gantry used to move the New Glenn from its hangar to the pad and to raise it from horizontal to vertical. Likewise, one of two tall lightning towers was no longer visible." It was the first such on-pad explosion at the Cape since a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blew up on nearby pad 40 on Sept. 1, 2016... Blue Origin only has one New Glenn pad, the one that was damaged in the Thursday test. The New Glenn, which has launched three times, is a heavy lift rocket designed to compete head-to-head with SpaceX Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. During New Glenn's most recent flight in April, an upper stage malfunction prevented a commercial internet satellite from reaching its planned orbit... The New Glenn destroyed Thursday was to send 48 Leo internet satellites owned by Amazon into space [which were not on board for the hot-fire test] Blue Origin posted on X.com that "Debris from our recent hotfire anomaly may wash ashore in the coming days/weeks. If you encounter any debris, do not touch or approach it for your safety." "Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult..." NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman posted on X.com. "âWe will provide information on any impacts to the Artemis and Moon Base programs as it becomes available." Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader symbolset for sharing the news.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
13:00 EDT
Here's how we're coping with high gas prices, according to Costco and Walmart [NPR Topics: News]
Sky-high gas prices have drivers going out of their way for discounts at the pump. Oil executives warn that even higher prices might be on the horizon.
(Image credit: Paul Sancya)
I’ve been a distracted mess lately, with all this PT stuff as well as a week of administrative malarkey, but I did notice a a provocative comment that I feel compelled to respond to.
Upon accepting the risk of dispensing an unpopular remark: One day, we shall have to set nature in order using genetical engineering.
No creature should devour any other.
Wow. That makes no sense. We humans are obligate heterotrophs — we must obtain certain vital molecules by consuming other organisms. For example, we cannot synthesize valine, isoleucine, leucine, methionine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, threonine, histidine, or lysine, so we have to consume other organisms that contain those substances, or we die. I guess we can define “creature” to escape the problem, which is the vegetarian solution. We don’t eat meat from animals by making the decision that plants don’t count. It’s very convenient to say that killing carrots or yeast or lettuce is ethically OK, but if you think about it all deeply, even a carrot is a product of processes that kill insects with pesticides. Do insects count? What about protists? The lines are all arbitrary and we each draw our own lines.
Is our solution to genetically modify humans so they can synthesize every molecule we need? Or are we going to build factories to create all these essential substances as supplements?
But deeper still, the planetary biome is built on dependencies contingent on death and consumption, in every food web that exists. For example, sea otters eat sea urchins; sea urchins eat kelp; when sea otters are eliminated, the kelp forests die. How do we genetically engineer “devouring” out of the system without necessarily deleting entire ecologies? The only way any of this can happen is by magic.
Nature is already in order, reordering it to your preferences is silly.
Book Freak #211: Tolstoy’s Guide to Daily Wisdom [Cool Tools]
A Calendar of Wisdom is a daily reader Tolstoy assembled in the last decade of his life. Each entry pairs several short quotes from someone like Epictetus, Buddha, Marcus Aurelius, or Pascal with a paragraph of Tolstoy’s own commentary. He intended it to be read one page a day, and read repeatedly every year for the rest of the reader’s life.
Core Principles
1. One wise idea a day is enough
Tolstoy thought one wise idea a day was enough, and he laid the book out to match. You read a quote, you read his short reflection on it, and that’s it for the day.
2. False knowledge is worse than ignorance
The useful skill is sorting what’s necessary to know from what isn’t. If you don’t know something, you can learn it. If you wrongly think you already know it, you can’t.
3. Love is the project worth a whole life
Tolstoy believed creating more love between people and reducing what divides them was the only project worth a whole life. He put money and status well below it.
4. The same problems, two thousand years ago
The contributors include Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lao Tzu, the Buddha, Pascal, Emerson, and Tolstoy himself. You’ll realize others have had the same problems you did two thousand years ago and wrote down what they figured out.
Try It Now
1. Read one entry from A Calendar of Wisdom (or any wisdom book) every morning before checking your phone, for a month.
2. Make a list of what you read, watched, and listened to this week. Cross off everything that was not necessary to know. Look at what’s left.
3. Think of one person you’ve lost touch with or fallen out with. Send them a message today.
4. Pick one of the philosophers Tolstoy quotes (Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lao Tzu, Pascal, the Buddha) and read one short book by them this month.
Quote
January 23
Among all sins, there is one which completely opposes the major blessing of human life, which is your love for your brother: there is no worse sin than to destroy this major joy of life, by feeling rage and hatred for your brother.
Seneca, a wise man from Rome, said that when you want to escape from your rage, when you feel that it grows, the best thing to do is to stop. Do not do anything: do not walk, do not move, do not speak. If your body or your tongue moves at this moment, then your rage will grow. Rage is very harmful for all people, but it is most harmful for the man who experiences it.
“An evil person damages not only others but himself.” — After SOCRATES
“Your enemy will pay you back with rage, will make you suffer, but the biggest damage to you will be caused by the rage and hatred existing in your heart. Neither your father, nor your mother, nor all your family can make you more good than your heart can when it forgives and forgets its abuse.” —DHAMMAPADA, a book of BUDDHIST WISDOM
Your rage cannot be justified by anything. The reason for your rage is always inside you.
Book Freak is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run Recomendo, the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Recomendo Deals, Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper, and Book Freak.