DOGE’s Zombie Contracts: They Were Killed but Have Come Back to Life

NY Times - Fri, 05/09/2025 - 09:31
The Times found that federal agencies have revived dozens of contracts that Elon Musk’s group still publicly listed as canceled, inflating what it has saved.

‘How Do I Survive?’: Tariffs Threaten U.S. Market for Traditional Chinese Medicine

NY Times - Fri, 05/09/2025 - 05:00
Dispensary owners say a protracted trade war would harm a niche but popular sector in which imported herbs are prescribed to treat colds, pain and other ailments.

The Pope Appears Uneasy With Trump Immigration Policies

NY Times - Fri, 05/09/2025 - 01:45
Before Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost became pope, a social media account under his name shared criticisms of the Trump administration’s positions on immigration.

This Israeli Government Is Not Our Ally

NY Times - Fri, 05/09/2025 - 01:34
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is behaving in ways that threaten U.S. interests in the region.

Celsius CEO Mashinsky Sentenced To 12 Years in Multi-Billion-Dollar Crypto Fraud Case

SlashDot - Fri, 05/09/2025 - 01:30
Alexander Mashinsky, the former CEO of Celsius Network, was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to two counts of fraud, a dramatic fall for the leader of a company once hailed as the "bank" of the crypto industry. From a report: Standing before U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl in Manhattan's Southern District, Mashinsky faced the consequences of what prosecutors described as a sweeping scheme to defraud investors. In December he pleaded guilty to commodities fraud and a scheme to manipulate the Celsius token. His sentencing took place in courtroom 14A at 500 Pearl Street -- a venue that has seen several crypto executives-turned-felons. Mashinsky's legal troubles began in 2023 when he was arrested on charges of securities, commodities, and wire fraud, just as Celsius reached a $4.7 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission -- one of the largest in the FTC's history.

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Trump Administration Fires Librarian of Congress

NY Times - Fri, 05/09/2025 - 01:13
Dr. Carla D. Hayden was the first African American and the first woman to serve as the head of the Library of Congress. Her firing drew a furious response from Democrats.

Russia’s Victory Day Parade: What to Know.

NY Times - Fri, 05/09/2025 - 00:01
A huge parade in the Russian capital to celebrate the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, attended by leaders of more than 20 countries, comes amid faltering attempts to end the war in Ukraine.

Europe’s Wind Industry Faces Uncertainty Over Trump’s Policies

NY Times - Fri, 05/09/2025 - 00:01
Not long ago, the U.S. was seen as a promising market for offshore wind. Now industry executives aren’t making any assumptions.

Trump Officials Seek to Bring First White Afrikaner Refugees to U.S. Next Week

NY Times - Fri, 05/09/2025 - 00:00
The rapid relocation of the Afrikaners, who President Trump says have been racially persecuted in South Africa, stands in stark contrast to the virtual shutdown of all other refugee admissions.

NOAA Retires Extreme Weather Database

SlashDot - Thu, 05/08/2025 - 23:30
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday its well-known "billion-dollar weather and climate disasters" database "will be retired," a move that will make it next to impossible for the public to track the cost of extreme weather and climate events. The weather, climate and oceans agency is also ending other products, it has recently announced, due in large part to staffing reductions. NOAA is narrowing the array of services it provides, with climate-related programs scrutinized especially closely. The disasters database, which will be archived but no longer updated beyond 2024, has allowed taxpayers, media and researchers to track the cost of natural disasters -- spanning extreme events from hurricanes to hailstorms -- since 1980. Its discontinuation is another Trump-administration blow to the public's view into how fossil fuel pollution is changing the world around them and making extreme weather more costly. [...] The database vacuums loss information from throughout the insurance industry, among other public and private sources. According to the database, there were 403 weather and climate disasters totally at least $1 billion in the United States since 1980, totaling more than $2.945 trillion. As of April 8, there had not been any confirmed billion-dollar disasters so far in 2025, but it lists four events as having the potential to make the tally, including the Los Angeles-area wildfires in January. Between 1980 and 2024, there were nine such disasters on average each year, though in the past five years, that annual average has jumped to 24. The record for one year was 28 events in 2023. "What makes this resource uniquely valuable is not just its standardized methodology across decades, but the fact that it draws from proprietary and non-public data sources (such as reinsurance loss estimates, localized government reports, and private claims databases) that are otherwise inaccessible to most researchers," Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications for and co-founder of First Street, a climate risk financial modeling firm, told CNN via email. "Without it, replicating or extending damage trend analyses, especially at regional scales or across hazard types, is nearly impossible without significant funding or institutional access to commercial catastrophe models."

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Pope Leo XIV Overcame a Major Strike Against Him: Being American

NY Times - Thu, 05/08/2025 - 22:55
Before he was chosen, Robert Francis Prevost had the papal seal of approval from his predecessor, Francis, who put him in one of the top jobs in the Roman Catholic Church.

Police and Brooklyn College Protesters Clash After Pro-Palestinian Rally

NY Times - Thu, 05/08/2025 - 22:49
The police moved in to make arrests after demonstrators left the college grounds and gathered outside. Officers punched some students and slammed others to the ground.

New Pope Has Creole Roots in New Orleans

NY Times - Thu, 05/08/2025 - 22:39
His ancestry, traced to a historic enclave of Afro-Caribbean culture, links Leo XIV to the rich and sometimes overlooked Black Catholic experience in America.

Reincarnated by A.I., Arizona Man Forgives His Killer at Sentencing

NY Times - Thu, 05/08/2025 - 22:04
A likeness of Christopher Pelkey, who was killed in a 2021 road rage episode, was created with artificial intelligence. It was part of a victim’s impact statement.

Alibaba's ZeroSearch Teaches AI To Search Without Search Engines, Cuts Training Costs By 88%

SlashDot - Thu, 05/08/2025 - 22:00
Alibaba Group researchers have developed "ZeroSearch," a technique that enables large language models to acquire search capabilities without using external search engines during training. The approach transforms LLMs into retrieval modules through supervised fine-tuning and employs a "curriculum-based rollout strategy" that gradually degrades generated document quality. In tests across seven question-answering datasets, ZeroSearch matched or exceeded the performance [PDF] of models trained with real search engines. A 7B-parameter retrieval module achieved results comparable to Google Search, while a 14B-parameter version outperformed it. The cost savings are substantial: training with 64,000 search queries using Google Search via SerpAPI would cost approximately $586.70, compared to just $70.80 using a 14B-parameter simulation LLM on four A100 GPUs -- an 88% reduction. The technique works with multiple model families including Qwen-2.5 and LLaMA-3.2. Researchers have released their code, datasets, and pre-trained models on GitHub and Hugging Face, potentially lowering barriers to entry for smaller AI companies developing sophisticated assistants.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Americans Celebrate Pope Leo XIV, the First Pontiff From the U.S.

NY Times - Thu, 05/08/2025 - 21:41
Across the country, Catholics and non-Catholics alike greeted the news of the Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV with reverence and satisfaction.

Trump To End Biden-Era High-Speed Internet Program

SlashDot - Thu, 05/08/2025 - 21:00
President Trump on Thursday attacked a law signed by President Joe Biden aimed at expanding high-speed internet access, calling the effort "racist" and "totally unconstitutional" and threatening to end it "immediately." The New York TimesL: Mr. Trump's statement was one of the starkest examples yet of his slash-and-burn approach to dismantling the legacy of his immediate predecessor in this term in office. The Digital Equity Act, a little-known effort to improve high-speed internet access in communities with poor access, was tucked into the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that Mr. Biden signed into law early in his presidency. The act was written to help many different groups, including veterans, older people and disabled and rural communities. But Mr. Trump, using the incendiary language that has been a trademark of his political career, denounced the law on Thursday for also seeking to improve internet access for ethnic and racial minorities, raging in a social media post that it amounted to providing "woke handouts based on race."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Year Ago, Columbia Security Was Hands-Off at a Protest. Not This Time.

NY Times - Thu, 05/08/2025 - 20:47
When demonstrators occupied the university’s main library on Wednesday, campus security forces intervened aggressively. The occupation ended with arrests hours later.

Alexander Brothers Face More Sex Crimes, Including Against Underage Girl

NY Times - Thu, 05/08/2025 - 20:25
Prosecutors added more charges in the sex-trafficking case against Oren and Tal Alexander, who were known as top brokers in luxury real estate, and their brother Alon Alexander.

Musk-Tied Investor Clashes With One of World’s Biggest Asset Managers

NY Times - Thu, 05/08/2025 - 20:22
A lawsuit accuses Brookfield Asset Management of fraud, attempted bribery and improperly limiting investments in one of Elon Musk’s companies.

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