Trump Administration Looks to Take Steps to Ease Pain From Car Tariffs

NY Times - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 23:15
The planned concessions to give automakers more time to relocate production to the United States would still leave substantial tariffs on imported cars and car parts.

Trump Signs 3 Executive Orders, Addressing Immigration and Policing

NY Times - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 23:03
The president directed his administration to compile a list of “sanctuary cities” that do not cooperate with federal enforcement of immigration laws.

Oracle Engineers Caused Days-Long Software Outage at US Hospitals

SlashDot - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 23:00
Oracle engineers mistakenly triggered a five-day software outage at a number of Community Health Systems hospitals, causing the facilities to temporarily return to paper-based patient records. From a report: CHS told CNBC that the outage involving Oracle Health, the company's electronic health record (EHR) system, affected "several" hospitals, leading them to activate "downtime procedures." Trade publication Becker's Hospital Review reported that 45 hospitals were hit. The outage began on April 23, after engineers conducting maintenance work mistakenly deleted critical storage connected to a key database, a CHS spokesperson said in a statement. The outage was resolved on Monday, and was not related to a cyberattack or other security incident. CHS is based in Tennessee and includes 72 hospitals in 14 states, according to the medical system's website.

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4 Dead After Car Crash at After-School Center in Chatham, Illinois

NY Times - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 22:49
Several others were injured, the State Police said.

N.Y. Budget Deal Includes School Cellphone Ban and Public Safety Changes

NY Times - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 22:14
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a $254 billion state budget agreement that includes tax credits. A measure to restrict mask wearing was watered down.

U.S., Helped by Musk’s Team, Charges Iraqi With Voting Illegally in 2020

NY Times - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 22:05
Akeel Abdul Jamiel, who appears to be a fan of President Trump, voted in upstate New York despite not being a citizen, officials said.

Harvard, Under Pressure, Revamps D.E.I. Office

NY Times - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 21:36
The move comes as President Trump has tried to abolish D.E.I. programs at universities.

Duolingo Will Replace Contract Workers With AI

SlashDot - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 21:00
According to an email posted on Duolingo's LinkedIn, the language learning app will "gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle." Co-founder and CEO Luis von Ahn also said the company will be "AI-first." The Verge reports: According to von Ahn, being "AI-first" means the company will "need to rethink much of how we work" and that "making minor tweaks to systems designed for humans won't get us there." As part of the shift, the company will roll out "a few constructive constraints," including the changes to how it works with contractors, looking for AI use in hiring and in performance reviews, and that "headcount will only be given if a team cannot automate more of their work." von Ahn says that "Duolingo will remain a company that cares deeply about its employees" and that "this isn't about replacing Duos with AI." Instead, he says that the changes are "about removing bottlenecks" so that employees can "focus on creative work and real problems, not repetitive tasks." "AI isn't just a productivity boost," von Ahn says. "It helps us get closer to our mission. To teach well, we need to create a massive amount of content, and doing that manually doesn't scale. One of the best decisions we made recently was replacing a slow, manual content creation process with one powered by AI. Without AI, it would take us decades to scale our content to more learners. We owe it to our learners to get them this content ASAP."

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Mexico to Give U.S. More Water From Their Shared Rivers

NY Times - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 20:42
A joint agreement appeared to avert a threat by President Trump of tariffs and sanctions in a long-running dispute over water rights in the border region.

National Climate Assessment Authors Are Dismissed by Trump Administration

NY Times - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 20:02
The Trump administration told researchers it was “releasing” them from their roles. It puts the future of the assessment, which is required by Congress, in doubt.

Trump Recasts Mission of Justice Dept.’s Civil Rights Office, Prompting ‘Exodus’

NY Times - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 19:41
Hundreds of lawyers and other staff members are fleeing the arm of the agency that defends constitutional rights, which appointees intend to reshape to enact President Trump’s agenda.

Digital Photo Frame Company Nixplay Slashes Free Cloud Storage From 10GB To 500MB

SlashDot - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 19:40
Nixplay has dramatically reduced its free cloud storage offering for digital photo frame users from the original 10GB to just 500MB. The previously announced update, which took effect last week, also removed the formerly free ability to sync Google Photos albums. Users whose accounts already exceed the new 500MB limit will find their content "restricted from sharing or viewing" unless they edit their library or purchase a subscription. Nixplay now offers two paid tiers: Nixplay Lite at $19.99 annually for 100GB storage and Nixplay Plus at $29.99 yearly for unlimited storage.

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I Can’t Believe Anyone Thinks Trump Actually Cares About Antisemitism

NY Times - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 19:12
Jews should remember how Trump promised to “protect” L.G.B.T. citizens.

OpenAI Upgrades ChatGPT Search With Shopping Features

SlashDot - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 19:00
OpenAI has upgraded ChatGPT's search tool to include shopping features, allowing users to receive personalized product recommendations, view images and reviews, and access direct purchase links using natural language queries. TechCrunch reports: When ChatGPT users search for products, the chatbot will now offer a few recommendations, present images and reviews for those items, and include direct links to webpages where users can buy the products. OpenAI says users can ask hyper-specific questions in natural language and receive customized results. To start, OpenAI is experimenting with categories including fashion, beauty, home goods, and electronics. OpenAI is rolling out the feature in the default AI model for ChatGPT, GPT-4o, today for ChatGPT Pro, Plus, and Free users, as well as logged-out users around the globe. [...] OpenAI claims its search product is growing rapidly. Users made more than a billion web searches in ChatGPT last week, the company told TechCrunch. OpenAI says it's determining ChatGPT shopping results independently, and notes that ads are not part of this upgrade to ChatGPT search. The shopping results will be based on structured metadata from third parties, such as pricing, product descriptions, and reviews, according to OpenAI. The company won't receive a kickback from purchases made through ChatGPT search. [...] Soon, OpenAI says it will integrate its memory feature with shopping for Pro and Plus users, meaning ChatGPT will reference a user's previous chats to make highly personalized product recommendations. The company previously updated ChatGPT to reference memory when making web searches broadly. However, these memory features won't be available to users in the EU, the U.K., Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein.

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Soft Vine-Like Robot Helps Rescuers Find Survivors In Disaster Zones

SlashDot - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 18:20
New submitter MicroBitz shares a report: SPROUT, short for Soft Pathfinding Robotic Observation Unit, is a flexible, vine-like robot developed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory in collaboration with the University of Notre Dame. Unlike rigid robots or static cameras, SPROUT can "grow" into tight, winding spaces that are otherwise inaccessible, giving first responders a new way to explore, map and assess collapsed structures. Beyond disaster response, the technology could be adapted for inspecting military systems or critical infrastructure in hard-to-reach places, making SPROUT a versatile tool for a variety of high-stakes scenarios. "The urban search-and-rescue environment can be brutal and unforgiving, where even the most hardened technology struggles to operate. The fundamental way a vine robot works mitigates a lot of the challenges that other platforms face," says Chad Council, a member of the SPROUT team, which is led by Nathaniel Hanson. "The mechanical performance of the robots has an immediate effect, but the real goal is to rethink the way sensors are used to enhance situational awareness for rescue teams," adds Hanson. "Ultimately, we want SPROUT to provide a complete operating picture to teams before anyone enters a rubble pile." You can see the SPROUT vine robot in action in a YouTube video from MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

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Why the Economic Disruption From Trump’s Tariff War Will Be Hard to Reverse

NY Times - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 17:58
The president’s turnover of the economic order has unleashed changes that could prove lasting, because other countries will adjust.

Milwaukee Police Consider Trading Millions of Mugshots For Free Facial Recognition Access

SlashDot - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 17:40
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee police are mulling a trade: 2.5 million mugshots for free use of facial recognition technology. Officials from the Milwaukee Police Department say swapping the photos with the software firm Biometrica will lead to quicker arrests and solving of crimes. But that benefit is unpersuasive for those who say the trade is startling, due to the concerns of the surveillance of city residents and possible federal agency access. "We recognize the very delicate balance between advancement in technology and ensuring we as a department do not violate the rights of all of those in this diverse community," Milwaukee Police Chief of Staff Heather Hough said during an April 17 meeting. For the first time, Milwaukee police officials detailed their plans to use the facial recognition technology during a meeting of the city's Fire and Police Commission, the oversight body for those departments. In the past, the department relied on facial recognition technology belonging to neighboring police agencies. In an April 24 email, Hough said the department has not entered into an agreement with any facial recognition and the department intends to continue engaging the public before doing so. The department will discuss it at a future meeting of the city's Public Safety and Health Committee next, she said. "While we would like to acquire the technology to assist in solving cases, being transparent with the community that we serve far outweighs the urgency to acquire," she said in an email. Officials said the technology alone could not be used as probable cause to arrest someone and the only authorized uses would be when there's basis to believe criminal activity has happened or could happen, or a threat to public safety is imminent. Hough said the department intended to craft a policy that would ensure no one is arrested solely based on facial recognition matches. That reassurance and others from police officials came as activists, residents and some public officials voiced concern.

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Monero Likely Pumped 50% Due To Suspected $330 Million Bitcoin Theft

SlashDot - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 17:00
Onchain investigator ZachXBT flagged a suspicious $330.7 million Bitcoin transfer that was quickly laundered into Monero, causing XMR's price to spike by 50%. CoinTelegraph reports: The transaction, reported on April 28, saw funds moved from a potential victim's wallet to the address bc1qcry...vz55g. Following the transfer, the stolen stash was quickly laundered through over six instant exchanges and swapped into privacy-focused cryptocurrency Monero. The large-scale conversion led to a 50% spike in XMR's price with the token reaching an intraday high of $339, according to data from CoinMarketCap. At the time of writing, XMR has settled slightly but remains up 25% in the past 24 hours, trading at $289. When asked whether North Korea's Lazarus Group was behind the attack, ZachXBT dismissed the theory, stating it was "highly probable it's not," suggesting independent hackers were responsible. "While there are concerns of more criminals moving to privacy coins for anonymity, the vast majority of criminal activity still uses mainstream cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and stablecoins," Chainalysis said. "Cryptocurrency is only useful if you can buy and sell goods and services or cash out into fiat, and that is much more difficult with privacy coins, especially as many mainstream exchanges have offboarded the use of privacy coins, such as Monero."

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Neurotech Companies Are Selling Brain Data, Senators Warn

SlashDot - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 16:20
Three Democratic senators are sounding the alarm over brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies' ability to collect -- and potentially sell -- our neural data. From a report: In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Maria Cantwell (D-IN), and Ed Markey (D-MA) called for an investigation into neurotechnology companies' handling of user data, and for tighter regulations on their data-sharing policies. "Unlike other personal data, neural data -- captured directly from the human brain -- can reveal mental health conditions, emotional states, and cognitive patterns, even when anonymized," the letter reads. "This information is not only deeply personal; it is also strategically sensitive."

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Israeli Spy Chief to Step Down After Clash With Netanyahu

NY Times - Mon, 04/28/2025 - 16:16
The departure of Israel’s domestic intelligence chief appeared to end his unusually public clash with the prime minister.

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