U.S. Turns Eight Migrants Over to South Sudan, Ending Weeks of Legal Limbo
Courts blocked the handover after lawyers raised concerns of torture. Then the Supreme Court intervened to allow the Trump administration’s plan to move forward.
HPE Acquires Juniper Networks for $14B After Settling Antitrust Case
This week Hewlett-Packard Enterprise settled its antitrust case with America's Justice Department, "paving the way for its acquisition of rival kit maker Juniper Networks," reported Telecoms.com:
Under the agreement, HPE has agreed to divest its Instant On unit, which sells a range of enterprise-grade Wi-Fi networking equipment for campus and branch deployments. It has also agreed to license Juniper's Mist AIOps source code — a software suite that enables AI-based network automation and management. HPE can live with that, since its primary motivation for buying Juniper is to improve its prospects in an IT networking market dominated by Cisco, where others like Arista and increasingly Nokia and Nvidia are also trying to make inroads.
And after receiving regulatory clearance, HPE "very quickly closed the deal..." reports The Motley Fool. "In the press release heralding the news, the buyer wrote that it "doubles the size of HPE's networking business and provides customers with a comprehensive portfolio of networking solutions."
Investors were obviously happy about this, as according to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence the company's stock price ballooned by nearly 16% across the week, largely on the news.... The Justice Department had alleged, in a lawsuit filed in January, that an HPE/Juniper tie-up would essentially result in a duopoly in networking equipment. It claimed that a beefed-up HPE and networking incumbent Cisco would hold more than 70% combined of the domestic market.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tropical Storm Warnings Issued in the Carolinas Ahead of Chantal
The storm is expected to move ashore by early Sunday.
Trump Says He Will Start Talks With China on TikTok Deal
President Trump has declined to enforce a statutory ban of the popular social media app while his administration negotiates a deal for an American company to acquire it.
Why Do Killer Whales Keep Handing Us Fish? Scientists Unpack the Mystery
Science Daily reports:
Wild orcas across four continents have repeatedly floated fish and other prey to astonished swimmers and boaters, hinting that the ocean's top predator likes to make friends. Researchers cataloged 34 such gifts over 20 years, noting the whales often lingered expectantly — and sometimes tried again — after humans declined their offerings, suggesting a curious, relationship-building motive...
"Orcas often share food with each other — it's a prosocial activity and a way that they build relationships with each other," said study lead author Jared Towers, of Bay Cetology in British Columbia, Canada. "That they also share with humans may show their interest in relating to us as well."
The complete research was published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology. Its title? "Testing the Waters: Attempts by Wild Killer Whales (Orcinus orca) to Provision People (Homo sapiens)."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Will FaceTime In IOS 26 Freeze Your Call If Someone Starts Undressing?
Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shared this report from the Apple news blog 9to5Mac:
iOS 26 is a packed update for iPhone users thanks to the new Liquid Glass design and major updates for Messages, Wallet, CarPlay, and more. But another new feature was just discovered in the iOS 26 beta: FaceTime will now freeze your call's video and audio if someone starts undressing.
When Apple unveiled iOS 26 last month, it mentioned a variety of new family tools... "Communication Safety expands to intervene when nudity is detected in FaceTime video calls, and to blur out nudity in Shared Albums in Photos." However, at least in the iOS 26 beta, it seems that a similar feature may be in place for all users — adults included.
That's the claim of an X.com user named iDeviceHelp, who says FaceTime in iOS 26 swaps in a warning message that says "Audio and video are paused because you may be showing something sensitive," giving users a choice of ending the call or resuming it.
9to5Mac says "It's unclear whether this is an intended behavior, or just a bug in the beta that's applying the feature to adults... [E]verything happens on-device so Apple has no idea about the contents of your call."
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Two Sudo Vulnerabilities Discovered and Patched
In April researchers responsibly disclosed two security flaws found in Sudo "that could enable local attackers to escalate their privileges to root on susceptible machines," reports The Hacker News. "The vulnerabilities have been addressed in Sudo version 1.9.17p1 released late last month."
Stratascale researcher Rich Mirch, who is credited with discovering and reporting the flaws, said CVE-2025-32462 has managed to slip through the cracks for over 12 years. It is rooted in the Sudo's "-h" (host) option that makes it possible to list a user's sudo privileges for a different host. The feature was enabled in September 2013. However, the identified bug made it possible to execute any command allowed by the remote host to be run on the local machine as well when running the Sudo command with the host option referencing an unrelated remote host. "This primarily affects sites that use a common sudoers file that is distributed to multiple machines," Sudo project maintainer Todd C. Miller said in an advisory. "Sites that use LDAP-based sudoers (including SSSD) are similarly impacted."
CVE-2025-32463, on the other hand, leverages Sudo's "-R" (chroot) option to run arbitrary commands as root, even if they are not listed in the sudoers file. It's also a critical-severity flaw. "The default Sudo configuration is vulnerable," Mirch said. "Although the vulnerability involves the Sudo chroot feature, it does not require any Sudo rules to be defined for the user. As a result, any local unprivileged user could potentially escalate privileges to root if a vulnerable version is installed...."
Miller said the chroot option will be removed completely from a future release of Sudo and that supporting a user-specified root directory is "error-prone."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Nuclear Microreactors Advance as US Picks Two Companies for Fueled Testing
This week America's Energy Department selected two companies to perform the first nuclear microreactor tests in a new facility in Idaho, saying the tests "will fast-track the deployment of American microreactor technologies... The first fueled reactor experiment will start as early as spring 2026."
The new facility is named DOME (an acronym for Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments), and it leverages existing "to safely house and test fueled reactor experiments, capable of producing up to 20 megawatts of thermal energy," according to a local newspaper.
[T]wo companies were competitively selected in 2023 and are currently working through a multi-phase Energy Department authorization process to support the design, fabrication, construction, and testing of each fueled reactor experiment. Both are expected to meet certain milestones throughout the process to maintain their allotted time in DOME and to ensure efficient use of the test bed, according to the release... The department estimates each DOME reactor experiment will operate up to six months, with the DOME test bed currently under construction and on track to receive its first experiment in early 2026... The next call for applications is anticipated to be in 2026.
The site Interesting Engineering calls the lab "a high-stakes proving ground to accelerate the commercialization of advanced microreactors..."
Based in Etna, Pennsylvania, Westinghouse will test its eVinci Nuclear Test Reactor, a compact, transportable microreactor that uses advanced heat pipe technology for passive cooling. Designed to deliver 5 megawatts of electricity on sites as small as two acres, eVinci could support applications ranging from remote communities to mining operations and data centers. Meanwhile, Radiant (El Segundo, California) will test its Kaleidos Development Unit, a 1.2 megawatt electric high-temperature gas reactor aimed at replacing diesel generators. Designed to run for five years, Kaleidos is fueled by TRISO fuel particles that could offer reliable backup power for hospitals, military bases, and other critical infrastructure.
Radiant's CEO said "In short order, we will fuel, go critical, and operate, leading to the mass production of portable reactors which will jumpstart American nuclear energy dominance."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Cost of Victory: Israel Overpowered Its Foes, but Deepened Its Isolation
It is more secure from threats than at any time since its founding. But the war in Gaza, and attacks on Iran and Lebanon, have undercut Israel’s standing among the world’s democracies.
Oasis Live Review: The Gallaghers Reunite, Their Songs Still Stomping and Wounds Still Healing
The British band, a showcase for the intoxicating but toxic chemistry of the brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher, performed for the first time in 16 years.
Near Antarctica, Saltier Seas Mean Less Ice, Study Finds
Some of the water around Antarctica has been getting saltier. And that has affected the amount of sea ice at the bottom of the planet. From a report: A study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that increases in salinity in seawater near the surface could help explain some of the decrease in Antarctic sea ice that have been observed over the past decade, reversing a previous period of growth.
"The impact of Antarctic ice is massive in terms of sea-level rise, in terms of global warming, and therefore, in terms of extremes," said Alessandro Silvano, a senior scientist at the University of Southampton studying the Southern Ocean and lead author of the study. The findings mean "we are entering a new system, a new world," he said. The Times adds: "the Department of Defense announced it would be no longer be providing some of the satellite data that researchers use to monitor changes in sea ice."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Girls in Africa Aren’t Asking for Pity. They’re Asking for a Chance.
I went to West Africa to report on girls’ education. I left convinced that the Western feminist movement has grown far too comfortable fighting only for itself.
AI Coding Agents Are Already Commoditized
Software engineer Sean Goedecke argues that AI coding agents have already been commoditized because they require no special technical advantages, just better base models. He writes: All of a sudden, it's the year of AI coding agents. Claude released Claude Code, OpenAI released their Codex agent, GitHub released its own autonomous coding agent, and so on. I've done my fair share of writing about whether AI coding agents will replace developers, and in the meantime how best to use them in your work. Instead, I want to make what I think is now a pretty firm observation: AI coding agents have no secret sauce.
[...] The reason everyone's doing agents now is the same reason everyone's doing reinforcement learning now -- from one day to the next, the models got good enough. Claude Sonnet 3.7 is the clear frontrunner here. It's not the smartest model (in my opinion), but it is the most agentic: it can stick with a task and make good decisions over time better than other models with more raw brainpower. But other AI labs have more agentic models now as well. There is no moat.
There's also no moat to the actual agent code. It turns out that "put the model in a loop with a 'read file' and 'write file' tool" is good enough to do basically anything you want. I don't know for sure that the closed-source options operate like this, but it's an educated guess. In other words, the agent hackers in 2023 were correct, and the only reason they couldn't build Claude Code then was that they were too early to get to use the really good models.
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How Many Dates Should You Go On Before You Start Talking About Money?
Couples tend to dance around discussing how much they earn or owe early in a relationship. But experts agree that talking about money sooner is better than later.
A Lifetime After Fleeing the Nazis, They Tell Their Stories
Thousands of Jewish children fled to Britain and other European countries in the 1938-39 rescue mission known as the Kindertransport. Seven recall their journeys, and what came next.
EU Sticks With Timeline For AI Rules
Reuters: The European Union's landmark rules on AI will be rolled out according to the legal timeline in the legislation, the European Commission said on Friday, dismissing calls from some companies and countries for a pause.
Google owner Alphabet, Facebook owner Meta and other U.S. companies as well as European businesses such as Mistral and ASML have in recent days urged the Commission to delay the AI Act by years. Financial Times adds: In an open letter, seen by the Financial Times, the heads of 44 major firms on the continent called on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to introduce a two-year pause, warning that unclear and overlapping regulations are threatening the bloc's competitiveness in the global AI race.
[...] The current debate surrounds the drafting of a "code of practice," which will provide guidance to AI companies on how to implement the act that applies to powerful AI models such as Google's Gemini, Meta's Llama and OpenAI's GPT-4. Brussels has already delayed publishing the code, which was due in May, and is now expected to water down the rules.
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A Napoleon From Long Island Meets His Waterloo
An American war re-enactor earned the job of Napoleon for the 210th anniversary of the battle, despite his accent.
The Royal Box: Who’s in Wimbledon’s Most Exclusive Seats?
The event’s most coveted seats are available only through invitation, reserved for celebrities and dignitaries. Here’s a look at who’s sitting in them.
US Plans AI Chip Curbs on Malaysia, Thailand Over China Concerns
President Donald Trump's administration plans to restrict shipments of AI chips from the likes of Nvidia to Malaysia and Thailand, part of an effort to crack down on suspected semiconductor smuggling into China. Bloomberg: A draft rule from the Commerce Department seeks to prevent China -- to which the US has effectively banned sales of Nvidia's advanced AI processors -- from obtaining those components through intermediaries in the two Southeast Asian nations, according to people familiar with the matter. The rule is not yet finalized and could still change, said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Officials plan to pair the Malaysia and Thailand controls with a formal rescission of global curbs from the so-called AI diffusion rule, the people said.
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Camp Mystic in Texas, Where 20 Children Are Missing, Is Nearly a Century Old
Camp Mystic, on the banks of the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas, has been operated by generations of the same family since the 1930s.