Mamdani Says He Plans to Skip the 2026 Met Gala

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 22:30
In an interview with the local news outfit Hell Gate, the New York mayor framed his decision to avoid the glamorous fund-raiser as a way to keep his focus on affordability.

Acting ICE Director Says He Plans to Resign in May

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 21:34
Todd Lyons said he would leave to spend more time with his family. He has spoken about a surge in threats against ICE officers, saying that he knew the reality firsthand.

Former Navy Service Member Charged in Georgia Killing Spree

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 20:22
The suspect is accused of carrying out a string of attacks in the Atlanta area that killed two women and injured a homeless man. The authorities described the attacks as random.

Michigan’s Dam Crisis Shows Decay of U.S. Infrastructure, Whitmer Says

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 19:55
Workers in Cheboygan hurried to shore up a dam in danger of being overtopped, part of a “slow-moving disaster” threatening communities across the state.

An Arrest in the Streets of New York, on Horseback

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 19:52
An officer from the Police Department’s Mounted Unit raced through the Upper West Side of Manhattan, chasing a woman accused of snatching a purse.

RFK Jr. Shifts Tone on Vaccines in Congressional Hearing

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 19:33
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has sought to roll back longstanding vaccine policy, testified that the measles vaccine is safe and effective “for most people” and agreed it was safer than getting measles.

'TotalRecall Reloaded' Tool Finds a Side Entrance To Windows 11 Recall Database

SlashDot - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 19:00
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Two years ago, Microsoft launched its first wave of "Copilot+" Windows PCs with a handful of exclusive features that could take advantage of the neural processing unit (NPU) hardware being built into newer laptop processors. These NPUs could enable AI and machine learning features that could run locally rather than in someone's cloud, theoretically enhancing security and privacy. One of the first Copilot+ features was Recall, a feature that promised to track all your PC usage via screenshot to help you remember your past activity. But as originally implemented, Recall was neither private nor secure; the feature stored its screenshots plus a giant database of all user activity in totally unencrypted files on the user's disk, making it trivial for anyone with remote or local access to grab days, weeks, or even months of sensitive data, depending on the age of the user's Recall database. After journalists and security researchers discovered and detailed these flaws, Microsoft delayed the Recall rollout by almost a year and substantially overhauled its security. All locally stored data would now be encrypted and viewable only with Windows Hello authentication; the feature now did a better job detecting and excluding sensitive information, including financial information, from its database; and Recall would be turned off by default, rather than enabled on every PC that supported it. The reconstituted Recall was a big improvement, but having a feature that records the vast majority of your PC usage is still a security and privacy risk. Security researcher Alexander Hagenah was the author of the original "TotalRecall" tool that made it trivially simple to grab the Recall information on any Windows PC, and an updated "TotalRecall Reloaded" version exposes what Hagenah believes are additional vulnerabilities. The problem, as detailed by Hagenah on the TotalRecall GitHub page, isn't with the security around the Recall database, which he calls "rock solid." The problem is that, once the user has authenticated, the system passes Recall data to another system process called AIXHost.exe, and that process doesn't benefit from the same security protections as the rest of Recall. "The vault is solid," Hagenah writes. "The delivery truck is not." The TotalRecall Reloaded tool uses an executable file to inject a DLL file into AIXHost.exe, something that can be done without administrator privileges. It then waits in the background for the user to open Recall and authenticate using Windows Hello. Once this is done, the tool can intercept screenshots, OCR'd text, and other metadata that Recall sends to the AIXHost.exe process, which can continue even after the user closes their Recall session. "The VBS enclave won't decrypt anything without Windows Hello," Hagenah writes. "The tool doesn't bypass that. It makes the user do it, silently rides along when the user does it, or waits for the user to do it." A handful of tasks, including grabbing the most recent Recall screenshot, capturing select metadata about the Recall database, and deleting the user's entire Recall database, can be done with no Windows Hello authentication. Once authenticated, Hagenah says the TotalRecall Reloaded tool can access both new information recorded to the Recall database as well as data Recall has previously recorded. "We appreciate Alexander Hagenah for identifying and responsibly reporting this issue. After careful investigation, we determined that the access patterns demonstrated are consistent with intended protections and existing controls, and do not represent a bypass of a security boundary or unauthorized access to data," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. "The authorization period has a timeout and anti-hammering protection that limit the impact of malicious queries."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Trump to Nominate Dr. Erica Schwartz, a Vaccine Supporter, as CDC Director

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 18:30
Dr. Erica Schwartz is seen as a highly qualified traditional choice and tapping her is the strongest signal yet that the administration is veering away from vaccine skepticism this election year.

Trump to Pick Ousted FEMA Head to Lead Agency Again

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 18:24
Cameron Hamilton is a former Navy SEAL who ran unsuccessfully for Congress.

Israel and Lebanon Agree to a Cease-Fire Deal

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 18:14
Also, Utah is now the epicenter of U.S. measles cases. Here’s the latest at the end of Thursday.

OpenAI's Big Codex Update Is a Direct Shot At Claude Code

SlashDot - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 18:00
OpenAI is updating Codex with more agent-like capabilities, positioning it as a more direct rival to Anthropic's Claude Code. Some of the new features include the ability to operate macOS desktop apps, browse the web inside the app, generate images, use new workplace plug-ins, and remember useful context from past tasks. The Verge reports: Codex will now be able to operate desktop apps on your computer, OpenAI says in a blog post announcing the update. It can work in the background, meaning it won't interfere with your own work in other apps, and multiple agents can work in parallel. For developers, OpenAI says "this is helpful for testing and iterating on frontend changes, testing apps, or working in apps that don't expose an API." The feature will start rolling out to Codex desktop app users signed in with ChatGPT today and will initially be limited to macOS. OpenAI did not indicate a timeline for when use will expand to other operating systems. EU users will also have to wait, it said, adding that the update will roll out to users there "soon." Codex is also getting the ability to generate and iterate on images with gpt-image-1.5, new plug-ins for tools like GitLab, Atlassian Rovo, and Microsoft Suite, and native web browsing through an in-app browser, "where you can comment directly on pages to provide precise instructions to the agent." OpenAI also said it will also be easier to automate tasks, with users able to re-use existing conversation threads and Codex now able to schedule future work for itself and wake up automatically to continue on a long-term task. Codex will also be getting a memory feature allowing it to remember useful context from past experience, such as personal preferences, corrections, and information that took time to gather. OpenAI said it hopes the opt-in feature, which will be released as a preview, will help future tasks complete faster and to a quality that previously required detailed custom instructions. The personalization features will roll out to Enterprise, Edu, and EU users "soon."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Reed Hastings Will Leave Netflix as Board Chairman

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 17:47
The co-founder of the streaming giant will leave its board in June, the company said.

Roger Adams Dies at 71; Invented the Rolling Sneakers Known as Heelys

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 17:42
You could walk in them like gym shoes, but if you rocked back on your heels the wheels emerged, turning them into roller skates. In the early 2000s, the company sold millions.

NPR Receives $113 Million From 2 Gifts

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 17:35
The donations, from the philanthropist Connie Ballmer and an anonymous donor, will support the network’s long-term strategy.

Mamdani’s Tax Return: $1,600 From Rapping and $131,000 From Politics

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 17:03
In their 2025 joint tax return, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji, reported a combined income of roughly $145,000, including about $10,000 that she earned from art work.

Is Linux Mint In Trouble?

SlashDot - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 17:00
BrianFagioli writes: The developers behind Linux Mint say the project is rethinking its release strategy and moving toward a longer development cycle, with the next version now expected around Christmas 2026. In a monthly update, project lead Clement Lefebvre said the team reached a "crossroads" and needs more flexibility to fix bugs, improve the desktop, and adapt to rapid changes across the Linux ecosystem. The upcoming development build, temporarily called Mint 23 "Alfa," is currently based on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and includes Linux kernel 7.0, an unstable build of Cinnamon 6.7, and early Wayland related work. Mint is also replacing the long used Ubiquity installer with "live-installer," the same tool used by Linux Mint Debian Edition, allowing the project to unify installation infrastructure across its Ubuntu based and Debian based variants. While the team frames the changes as an opportunity to improve quality and reduce maintenance overhead, the shift has raised questions about the project's long term direction and whether Linux Mint may eventually lean more heavily on its Debian roots rather than its traditional Ubuntu base.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mandelson, a Friend of Epstein’s, Became U.S. Ambassador Despite Failing Security Vetting

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 16:35
Britain’s foreign office overruled vetting officials in granting Peter Mandelson, a friend of Jeffrey Epstein, the highest level of security clearance, the government said.

Trump Is the End of a 100-Year Experiment

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 16:22
A conservative court watcher explains why the president has failed to bend the judicial branch to his will.

ICE Has Detained Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé, an 85-Year-Old Widow

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 16:18
After Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé’s husband died, an inheritance battle exploded. Her stepson then used his influence to have her arrested, an Alabama probate judge said.

Older Women Are in Demand by Younger Men

NY Times - Thu, 04/16/2026 - 16:02
What a shift in the dating preferences of younger men reveals about our changing norms.

Pages

Back to top