Trump’s Apple Threat Complicates India’s Tariff Negotiations

NY Times - Thu, 05/22/2025 - 00:00
Apple and India have invested years and billions of dollars in teaming up against China. India sees it as a strength. To President Trump, it looks like leverage.

Bill Would Give Newborns $1,000 in ‘Trump Accounts’

NY Times - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 23:51
The money would be invested on children’s behalf in the financial markets for them to use once they had grown up.

Brembo's New Brakes Cut Particulate Emissions By 90 Percent

SlashDot - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 23:30
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As electric vehicles reduce car exhaust as a source of particulate emissions, people are increasingly focusing on other vehicular sources of pollution that won't go away with electrification. Tires are one of them, particularly as we grapple with overweight EVs with tire-shredding torque. And brakes are another -- even an EV with regenerative braking will occasionally need to use its friction brakes, after all. Over in Europe, the people responsible for writing regulations have taken this into consideration with the upcoming Euro 7 standard, which sets new limits on 10- and 2.5-micron particulate emissions on all new vehicles -- including EVs -- starting next year. And to help OEMs achieve that target, Brembo has developed a new brake and pad set called Greentell that it says cuts brake dust emissions by 90 percent, improving durability in the process. [...] Brembo investigated a range of solutions before settling on using laser metal deposition. Physical vapor deposition, as used as a durability coating for wristwatches and firearms, was ruled out due to cost. "So it can be used for some special application or some small pieces, but when you are speaking about 20 kilos of cast iron, PVD is not the right solution. LMD is a technology that [has been] available... [for] years, but [it hasn't yet been] applicable in a high volume application. So the goal is to find the best compromise between performance and process," [Fabiano Carminati, VP of disc technical development at Brembo] told me. Together with the reduction in brake dust, there's an 80 percent reduction in surface corrosion compared to conventional brakes, but they won't last forever. "The thickness of the layer that we apply is not so high -- we apply just 100-120 microns. That means that the disk is not a lifetime disk," he said. That said, Greentell brakes should need replacing less often, and while that's not entirely in Brembo's best financial interests, neither is not being able to offer its customers a Euro 7-compliant product.

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Trump Casts Himself as a Protector of Persecuted White People

NY Times - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 22:59
President Trump publicly dressed down the president of South Africa based on a fringe conspiracy theory, providing a vivid distillation of his views on race.

End of Federal Oversight Plan for Minneapolis Police Draws Criticism Over Timing

NY Times - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 22:00
The Trump administration announced the withdrawal of the plan just days before the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s killing.

Phone Companies Failed To Warn Senators About Surveillance, Wyden Says

SlashDot - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 22:00
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed in a new letter to Senate colleagues Wednesday that AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile failed to create systems for notifying senators about government surveillance on Senate-issued devices -- despite a requirement to do so. From a report: Phone service providers are contractually obligated to inform senators when a law enforcement agency requests their records, thanks to protections enacted in 2020. But in an investigation, Wyden's staff found that none of the three major carriers had created a system to send those notifications. "My staff discovered that, alarmingly, these crucial notifications were not happening, likely in violation of the carriers' contracts with the [Senate Sergeant at Arms], leaving the Senate vulnerable to surveillance," Wyden said in the letter, obtained first by POLITICO, dated May 21. Wyden said that the companies all started providing notification after his office's investigation. But one carrier told Wyden's office it had previously turned over Senate data to law enforcement without notifying lawmakers, according to the letter.

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Graduates Boo Columbia’s President at Commencement After a Fraught Year

NY Times - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 21:44
Claire Shipman, the university’s acting president, noted the absence of Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate who continues to be detained by immigration authorities.

Inside the Oval Office Meeting With South Africa’s President

NY Times - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 21:42
John Eligon, Johannesburg bureau chief, recounts what he witnessed in the Oval Office when President Trump confronted the visiting President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa with an elaborate presentation attempting to falsely prove a “genocide” against white Afrikaners.

Inspector Let Recruits Who Failed Psychological Exam Join the N.Y.P.D.

NY Times - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 21:34
Terrell Anderson, the former head of a unit charged with assessing candidates, has been transferred. He has been praised as an innovative officer.

Trump Claimed a Video Showed ‘Burial Sites’ of White Farmers. It Didn’t.

NY Times - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 21:29
During a meeting with South Africa’s president, President Trump played the video as evidence of racial persecution. A Times analysis found he misrepresented the contents of the video.

Trump Lectures South African President in Televised Oval Office Confrontation

NY Times - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 21:16
President Trump showed a video and leafed through printouts that he falsely claimed showed widespread persecution of white South Africans. The country’s president tried to correct the record.

Jim Irsay, Colts Owner and CEO, Dies at 65

NY Times - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 21:05
He took over the business from his father in 1997 and turned the team into one of the best in the league, with a Super Bowl win during the 2006 season.

Judge Finds Trump Administration Violated Court Order With Deportation Flight to South Sudan

NY Times - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 20:57
Lawyers for some of the eight migrants deported Tuesday said they were told they were being sent to South Sudan. People familiar with the flight said it had landed for the time being in Djibouti.

Warning Sirens Were Silent Ahead of Deadly Tornado in St. Louis, City Says

NY Times - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 20:42
Mayor Cara Spencer placed the city’s emergency manager on administrative leave pending an investigation into the failure to warn residents.

SEC Sues Crypto Startup Unicoin and Its Executives For Fraud

SlashDot - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 20:02
The SEC on Wednesday said it has charged cryptocurrency startup Unicoin and three of its top executives for false and misleading statements that raised more than $100 million from thousands of investors. "We allege that Unicoin and its executives exploited thousands of investors with fictitious promises that its tokens, when issued, would be backed by real-world assets including an international portfolio of valuable real estate holdings," said Mark Cave, Associate Director in the SEC's Division of Enforcement. "But as we allege, the real estate assets were worth a mere fraction of what the company claimed, and the majority of the company's sales of rights certificates were illusory. Unicoin's most senior executives are alleged to have perpetuated the fraud, and today's action seeks accountability for their conduct." From the release: The SEC alleges that Unicoin broadly marketed rights certificates to the public through extensive promotional efforts, including advertisements in major airports, on thousands of New York City taxis, and on television and social media. Among other things, Unicoin and its executives are alleged to have convinced more than 5,000 investors to purchase rights certificates through false and misleading statements that portrayed them as investments in safe, stable, and profitable "next generation" crypto assets, including claims that: - Unicoin tokens underlying the rights certificates were "asset-backed" by billions of dollars of real estate and equity interests in pre-IPO companies, when Unicoin's assets were never worth more than a small fraction of that amount; - the company had sold more than $3 billion in rights certificates, when it raised no more than $110 million; and - the rights certificates and Unicoin tokens were "SEC-registered" or "U.S. registered" when they were not. According to the SEC's complaint, Unicoin and Konanykhin also violated the federal securities laws by engaging in unregistered offers and sales of rights certificates. Konanykhin offered and sold over 37.9 million of his rights certificates to offer better pricing and target investors the company had prohibited from participating in the offering to avoid jeopardizing its exemption to registration requirements, as alleged.

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U.S. Fights to Keep Mahmoud Khalil From Holding His Month-Old Child

NY Times - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 19:44
A judge ordered the Trump administration to let Mr. Khalil meet with his wife and infant son before a hearing on his immigration case. It was unclear whether they would be separated by plexiglass.

Quebec To Impose French-Language Quotas On Streaming Giants

SlashDot - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 19:20
Quebec Culture Minister Mathieu Lacombe has introduced Bill 109, which would require streaming platforms like Netflix and Spotify to feature and prioritize French-language content. CBC.ca reports: Bill 109 has been in the works for over a year. It marks the first time that Quebec would set a "visibility quota" for French-language content on major streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney and Spotify. [...] The legislation, titled An Act to affirm the cultural sovereignty of Quebec and to enact the Act respecting the discoverability of French-language cultural content in the digital environment, would apply to every digital platform that offers a service for watching videos or listening to music and audiobooks online. Those include Canadian platforms such as Illico, Crave and Tou.tv. It would amend the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to enshrine "the right to discoverability of and access to original French-language cultural content." If the bill is adopted, streaming platforms and television manufacturers would be forced to present interfaces for screening online videos in French by default. Those interfaces would need to provide access to platforms that offer original French-language cultural content based on the government's pending criteria. Financial penalties would be imposed on companies that don't follow the rules. If the business models of some companies prevent them from keeping to the letter of the proposed law, companies would be allowed to enter into an agreement with the Quebec government to set out "substitute measures" to fulfil Bill 109 obligations differently. "We don't want to exempt them. We're telling them, 'let's negotiate substitute measures,'" Lacombe told reporters.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Craig Steinley, VP of Appraisal Institute, Voted Out After Harassment Claims

NY Times - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 19:07
Calls for Craig Steinley to step down from the Appraisal Institute began immediately after The New York Times revealed claims of improper touching from multiple women.

Inside Trump Officials’ Debate Over Abrego Garcia’s Deportation

NY Times - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 18:56
A Maryland man’s deportation to El Salvador set off a fierce debate among officials in three cabinet agencies, despite agreement there had been a mistake.

Trump’s Federal Cuts Threaten Natural Disaster Support Americans Rely On

NY Times - Wed, 05/21/2025 - 18:47
President Trump’s efforts to downsize the government threaten essential functions that Americans have come to rely on before, during and after natural disasters.

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