Dual Orders Over Trump Deportations Edge Courts Closer to Confrontation With White House
The threat of investigations into whether the administration violated the judges’ orders comes as President Trump and his advisers are increasingly butting heads with the courts.
What We Know About the Gunman in the Florida State Shooting
The authorities identified the attacker as a 20-year-old student at the university, and said he appeared to have been acting alone.
Pride and Dread in Harvard Yard as Trump Wars With the University
Students on Thursday protested the president’s attacks on Harvard, but at town hall meetings, defiance mixed with uncertainty as faculty members examined the toll of the White House’s actions.
Amazon To Launch First Vega OS-powered TV Streaming Device This Year
Amazon plans to release its first TV streaming device powered by Vega OS later this year while courting major publishers to bring their apps to the platform, according to Lowpass, which cites sources familiar with the company's plans and multiple leaks.
Vega, a Linux-based operating system, may eventually replace Amazon's Android-based Fire OS across its device ecosystem. The company has already implemented Vega in three products: the Echo Show 5 and Echo Hub smart displays, as well as the Echo Spot smart clock/speaker. The tech giant has moved more cautiously in transitioning its TV hardware to Vega, having previously delayed a Vega-powered streaming stick originally slated for release in late 2024.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Harvard’s Stand Against Trump Is Helping It Raise More Money
The Trump administration said it would take $2.2 billion in research funds from the school. Some small donors are doing their best to make up for the shortfall.
Judge Delays a Resentencing Hearing for the Menendez Brothers
The proceedings were pushed back for three weeks over the issue of whether a key report on Erik and Lyle Menendez was admissible.
Liz Truss Announces 'Uncensorable' Social Media Venture
databasecowgirl writes: [Liz Truss will launch an "uncensorable" social media platform this summer.] The shortest-serving prime minister, who was quickly shown the door after crashing the UK economy, claims the platform is needed to take on the Deep State. Truss has worked diligently to earn comparisons to Trump with appearances at American political rallies sporting a red MAGA cap. The effort has paid off with Trump's recent tariff announcement and resulting market meltdown, resulting in the two brands combined in the neologism Liz Trump to mark the unprecedented economic policy disasters of the two politicians.
Truss' continuing in Trump's footsteps is creating her own uncensored social media platform for the UK to talk about important matters, which apparently is unable to be achieved without censorship on Musk's X or Trump's Truth Social. While a name has yet to be announced, Lettuce Talk has been suggested as appropriate for a platform run by a prime minister whose term was famously outlasted by a head of lettuce.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Elaine Wynn, Who Built Wynn Resorts Empire in Las Vegas, Dies at 82
She and Steve Wynn were known as the king and queen of Las Vegas. After their divorce, Ms. Wynn became a force in her own right.
Ukraine and U.S. Sign Agreement in Lead-Up to Full Minerals Deal
The signed memorandum of understanding was thin on details, and the White House did not comment. But President Trump has said he expects to sign a minerals deal with Kyiv soon.
Trump Administration Says It Will Take Over Renovation of Penn Station
The head of the federal Department of Transportation promised on Thursday to take away control of the project from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Columbia Activists Are Being Detained. Protesters Demand Answers.
Demonstrators rallied on Columbia’s campus and marched in Manhattan, three days after Mohsen Mahdawi was detained by immigration officials after arriving for a U.S. citizenship appointment.
HP Agrees To $4 Million Settlement Over Claims of 'Falsely Advertising' PCs, Keyboards
HP has agreed to a $4 million settlement over allegations of deceptive pricing practices on its website, including falsely inflating original prices for computers and accessories to create the illusion of steep discounts. Ars Technica reports: Earlier this month, Judge P. Casey Pitts for the US District Court of the San Jose Division of the Northern District of California granted preliminary approval [PDF] of a settlement agreement regarding a class-action complaint first filed against HP on October 13, 2021. The complaint accused HP's website of showing "misleading" original pricing for various computers, mice, and keyboards that was higher than how the products were recently and typically priced.
Per the settlement agreement [PDF], HP will contribute $4 million to a "non-reversionary common fund, which shall be used to pay the (i) Settlement Class members' claims; (ii) court-approved Notice and Settlement Administration Costs; (iii) court-approved Settlement Class Representatives' Service Award; and (iv) court-approved Settlement Class Counsel Attorneys' Fees and Costs Award. All residual funds will be distributed pro rata to Settlement Class members who submitted valid claims and cashed checks."
The two plaintiffs who filed the initial complaint may also file a motion to receive a settlement class representative service award for up to $5,000 each, which would come out of the $4 million pool. People who purchased a discounted HP desktop, laptop, mouse, or keyboard that was on sale for "more than 75 percent of the time the products were offered for sale" from June 5, 2021, to October 28, 2024, are eligible for compensation. The full list of eligible products is available here [PDF] and includes HP Spectre, Chromebook Envy, and Pavilion laptops, HP Envy and Omen desktops, and some mechanical keyboards and wireless mice. Depending on the product, class members can receive $10 to $100 per eligible product purchased.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
After Harvard, Liberal Donors and Groups Fear New Scrutiny From Trump
Some worried liberal donors and the nonprofit groups they support are getting “legal teams on speed dial, crisis plans dusted off, reserves lined up.”
Microsoft Researchers Develop Hyper-Efficient AI Model That Can Run On CPUs
Microsoft has introduced BitNet b1.58 2B4T, the largest-scale 1-bit AI model to date with 2 billion parameters and the ability to run efficiently on CPUs. It's openly available under an MIT license. TechCrunch reports: The Microsoft researchers say that BitNet b1.58 2B4T is the first bitnet with 2 billion parameters, "parameters" being largely synonymous with "weights." Trained on a dataset of 4 trillion tokens -- equivalent to about 33 million books, by one estimate -- BitNet b1.58 2B4T outperforms traditional models of similar sizes, the researchers claim.
BitNet b1.58 2B4T doesn't sweep the floor with rival 2 billion-parameter models, to be clear, but it seemingly holds its own. According to the researchers' testing, the model surpasses Meta's Llama 3.2 1B, Google's Gemma 3 1B, and Alibaba's Qwen 2.5 1.5B on benchmarks including GSM8K (a collection of grade-school-level math problems) and PIQA (which tests physical commonsense reasoning skills). Perhaps more impressively, BitNet b1.58 2B4T is speedier than other models of its size -- in some cases, twice the speed -- while using a fraction of the memory.
There is a catch, however. Achieving that performance requires using Microsoft's custom framework, bitnet.cpp, which only works with certain hardware at the moment. Absent from the list of supported chips are GPUs, which dominate the AI infrastructure landscape.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Senator Lisa Murkowski Makes Startling Admission as Trump Wages Retribution Campaign
Lisa Murkowski, a longtime senator from Alaska and an independent voice in an increasingly tribal party, has been the rare Republican on Capitol Hill willing to criticize President Trump’s actions.
US Halts $5 Billion New York Offshore Wind Project Mid-Build
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: In its most aggressive attack against offshore wind yet, the Trump administration halted the $5 billion Empire Wind 1, already under construction off New York's coast. Norwegian developer Equinor announced yesterday that it received notice from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) ordering Empire Wind 1 to halt all activities on the outer continental shelf until BOEM has completed its review. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum posted this tweet yesterday: ".@Interior, in consultation with @HowardLutnick, is directing @BOEM to immediately halt all construction activities on the Empire Wind Project until further review of information that suggests the Biden administration rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis."
Burgum gave no indication of what insufficiencies there were in the approval process for the fully permitted offshore wind project, despite Trump's recent declaration of a national energy emergency that speeds up permitting processes. The commercial lease for the 810-megawatt (MW) Empire Wind 1's federal offshore wind area was signed in March 2017 during the first Trump administration. It was approved by the Biden administration in November 2023 and began construction in 2024. The project is being developed under contract with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). Empire Wind 1, which was due to come online in 2027, has the potential to power 500,000 New York homes. Equinor says it's considering appealing the order.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul issued a statement: "Every single day, I'm working to make energy more affordable, reliable and abundant in New York and the federal government should be supporting those efforts rather than undermining them. Empire Wind 1 is already employing hundreds of New Yorkers, including 1,000 good-paying union jobs as part of a growing sector that has already spurred significant economic development and private investment throughout the state and beyond. As Governor, I will not allow this federal overreach to stand. I will fight this every step of the way to protect union jobs, affordable energy and New York's economic future."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Supreme Court to Hear Arguments on Trump Plan to End Birthright Citizenship
The Trump administration had asked the justices to lift a nationwide pause on the policy as lower court challenges continue.
Overlooked No More: Ethel Lina White, Master of Suspense Who Inspired Hitchcock
A powerhouse of the genre, she published around 100 short stories and 17 novels, one of which was adapted into the acclaimed film “The Lady Vanishes.”
Nino Tempo, Who Topped the Charts With ‘Deep Purple,’ Dies at 90
He was a busy session saxophonist, but he is probably best known for the Grammy-winning pop hit that he sang in 1963 as half of a duo act with his sister, April Stevens.
Google Is Gifting Gemini Advanced To US College Students
Google is offering all U.S. college students a free year of its Gemini Advanced AI tools through its Google One AI Premium plan, as part of a push to expand Gemini's user base and compete with ChatGPT. It includes access to the company's Pro models, Veo 2 video generation, NotebookLM, Gemini Live and 2TB of Drive storage. Ars Technica reports: Google has a new landing page for the deal, allowing eligible students to sign up for their free Google One AI Premium plan. The offer is valid from now until June 30. Anyone who takes Google up on it will enjoy the free plan through spring 2026. The company hasn't specified an end date, but we would wager it will be June of next year. Google's intention is to give students an entire school year of Gemini Advanced from now through finals next year. At the end of the term, you can bet Google will try to convert students to paying subscribers.
As for who qualifies as a "student" in this promotion, Google isn't bothering with a particularly narrow definition. As long as you have a valid .edu email address, you can sign up for the offer. That's something that plenty of people who are not actively taking classes still have. You probably won't even be taking undue advantage of Google if you pretend to be a student -- the company really, really wants people to use Gemini, and it's willing to lose money in the short term to make that happen.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.