‘Didi vs. Modi’: A Test for the Hindu Right in India’s Bengali Heartland

NY Times - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 00:09
The party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been making gains in a state once beyond its grasp, but many decry an audit that removed nine million voters, many of them Muslim.

In Britain, 7 Unelected Lords Are Helping to Block an Assisted Dying Bill

NY Times - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 00:01
A small group in the House of Lords has proposed hundreds of amendments that are helping stymie a bill that was meant to legalize medically assisted death for the terminally ill.

Europe Mulls What Mutual Defense Looks Like Outside NATO

NY Times - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 00:01
European Union nations have a little-known obligation to protect one another. Experts caution it is no replacement for NATO.

War and Sanctions Accelerate China’s Currency Push

NY Times - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 00:00
China’s bid to build a renminbi-based financial system beyond the U.S. dollar’s reach is gaining traction as a way to sidestep sanctions.

New Gas-Powered Data Centers Could Emit More Greenhouse Gases Than Entire Nations

SlashDot - Thu, 04/23/2026 - 23:30
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: New gas projects linked to just 11 data center campuses around the US have the potential to create more greenhouse gases than the country of Morocco emitted in 2024. Emissions estimates from air permit documents examined by WIRED show that these natural gas projects -- which are being built to power data centers to serve some of the US's most powerful AI companies, including OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, and xAI -- have the potential to emit more than 129 million tons of greenhouse gases per year. As tech companies race to secure massive power deals to build out hundreds of data centers across the country, these projects represent just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential climate cost of the AI boom. The infrastructure on this list of large natural gas projects reviewed by WIRED is being developed to largely bypass the grid and provide power solely for data centers, a trend known as behind-the-meter power. As data center developers face long waits for connections to traditional utilities, and amid mounting public resistance to the possibility of higher energy bills, making their own power is becoming an increasingly popular option. These projects have either been announced or are under construction, with companies already submitting air permit application materials with state agencies. [...] The emissions projections for the xAI and Microsoft projects, and all the others on WIRED's list, were pulled directly from publicly-available air permit documents in state databases as well as public air permit materials collected by both Cleanview and Oil and Gas Watch, a database maintained by the Environmental Integrity Project, an environmental enforcement nonprofit. Actual greenhouse gas emissions from power plants are usually lower than what's on their air permits. Air permit modeling is based on the scenario of a power plant constantly running at full capacity. That's rarely the reality for grid-connected power plants, as turbines go offline for maintenance or adjust to the ebbs and flows of customer demand. "Permitted emission numbers represent a theoretical, conservative scenario, not the actual projected emissions," Alex Schott, the director of communications at Williams Companies, an oil and gas company that is building out three behind-the-meter power plants in Ohio for Meta, told WIRED in an email. Internal modeling done by the company, Schott added, shows that actual emissions could be "potentially two-thirds less than what's on paper." The projections involved, however, are still substantial. Even if the actual emissions from these power plants end up being half of the emissions numbers on the permits, they still could create more greenhouse gas emissions than the country of Norway emitted in 2024. This number is, according to the EPA, equivalent to the emissions from more than 153 average-sized natural gas plants. (WIRED's analysis does not include emissions from backup generators and turbines on the data center campuses themselves, which create smaller amounts of emissions.) Energy researcher Jon Koomey says the data center boom has created a shortage of the most efficient gas turbines, pushing some developers toward less efficient models that would need to run longer and produce more emissions. "[Data center operators'] belief is that the value being delivered by the servers is much, much more than the cost of running these inefficient power plants all the time," he said. Michael Thomas, the founder of clean energy research firm Cleanview, has been tracking gas permits for data centers across the country. He calls behind-the-meter power "a crazy acceleration of emissions." He added: "It's almost like we thought we were on the downside of the Industrial Revolution, retiring coal and gas, and now we have a new hump where we're going to rise. That terrifies me in a lot of ways."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Concern Grows Over Republican Congressman’s Mysterious Absence

NY Times - Thu, 04/23/2026 - 23:01
A spokesman for Representative Thomas Kean Jr. said an unspecified “personal medical issue” has led the New Jersey Republican to miss House votes.

Dan Goldman Will Personally Match Each Donation as He Fights to Keep House Seat

NY Times - Thu, 04/23/2026 - 23:01
Daniel Goldman is pledging at least $1 million of his own money, and possibly millions more, in hopes of fighting off a primary challenge from Brad Lander in New York City.

Pentagon Fires Stars and Stripes Newspaper’s Ombudsman

NY Times - Thu, 04/23/2026 - 22:13
The newspaper’s ombudsman, Jacqueline Smith, said she had been given no reason for her dismissal.

Soldier Used Classified Information to Bet on Maduro’s Ouster, U.S. Says

NY Times - Thu, 04/23/2026 - 21:52
Federal prosecutors say that Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke, who was involved in the operation to oust Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela, used the information to place bets on a prediction market.

Iran War Has Drained U.S. Supplies of Critical, Costly Weapons

NY Times - Thu, 04/23/2026 - 21:04
The Pentagon’s rush to rearm its Mideast forces makes it less ready to confront potential adversaries like Russia and China, administration and congressional officials say.

Trump Reposts Anti-Immigrant Tirade Calling China and India ‘Hellhole’ Places

NY Times - Thu, 04/23/2026 - 20:42
The president touched off a furor with his post sharing a podcast episode in which the host referred to China and India as “hellhole” places.

Apple Stops Weirdly Storing Data That Let Cops Spy On Signal Chats

SlashDot - Thu, 04/23/2026 - 19:00
Apple has fixed a bug that could cause parts of Signal notifications to remain stored on iPhones even after messages disappeared and the app was deleted. "Affected users concerned about push notifications can update their devices to stop what Apple characterized as 'notifications marked for deletion' that 'could be unexpectedly retained on the device,'" reports Ars Technica. "According to Apple, the push notifications should never have been stored, but a 'logging issue' failed to redact data." From the report: Vulnerable users hoping to evade law enforcement surveillance often use encrypted apps like Signal to communicate sensitive information. That's why users felt blindsided when 404 Media reported that Apple was unexpectedly storing push notifications displaying parts of encrypted messages for up to a month. This occurred even after the message was set to disappear and the app itself was deleted from the device. 404 Media flagged the issue after speaking to multiple people who attended a hearing where the FBI testified that it "was able to forensically extract copies of incoming Signal messages from a defendant's iPhone, even after the app was deleted, because copies of the content were saved in the device's push notification database." The shocking revelation came in a case that 404 Media noted was "the first time authorities charged people for alleged 'Antifa' activities after President Trump designated the umbrella term a terrorist organization." "We're grateful to Apple for the quick action here, and for understanding and acting on the stakes of this kind of issue," Signal's post said. "It takes an ecosystem to preserve the fundamental human right to private communication." In their post, Signal confirmed that after users update their devices, "no action is needed for this fix to protect Signal users on iOS. Once you install the patch, all inadvertently-preserved notifications will be deleted and no forthcoming notifications will be preserved for deleted applications."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel’s Revenues Soar, Aided by A.I. Boom

NY Times - Thu, 04/23/2026 - 18:35
The chip maker reported a 7 percent rise to $13.6 billion in its latest quarter, more than $1 billion more than Wall Street expected.

Doug Allan, Polar Cameraman for David Attenborough’s Films, Dies at 74

NY Times - Thu, 04/23/2026 - 18:16
He was renowned for his skill at capturing candid scenes of penguins, polar bears and other cold-weather creatures — and for his ability to tolerate extreme discomfort.

Warner Bros Shareholders Approve Paramount's $81 Billion Takeover

SlashDot - Thu, 04/23/2026 - 18:00
Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders have approved Paramount Skydance's takeover bid, moving the massive Hollywood merger a step closer to completion. It's not a done deal quite yet, though, as it still faces regulatory scrutiny and fierce opposition from critics who warn it will further concentrate media power. The Associated Press reports: Per a preliminary vote count Thursday, Warner Bros. Discovery said the overwhelming majority of its stakeholders voted in support of selling the entire business to Skydance-owned Paramount for $31 a share. Including debt, the deal is valued at nearly $111 billion based on Warner's current outstanding shares. That means Warner-owned HBO Max, cult-favorite titles like "Harry Potter" and even CNN could soon find themselves under the same roof with Paramount's CBS, "Top Gun" and the Paramount+ streaming service. David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, said in a statement that stockholder approval marks "another key milestone toward completing this historic transaction." Paramount added that it looks forward to closing in the coming months, and "realizing the creation of a next-generation media and entertainment company." [...] Meanwhile, Warner shareholders rejected a separate measure Thursday outlining post-merger payments for company executives.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

How the Iran War Is Morphing Into a Volatile Standoff in the Strait of Hormuz

NY Times - Thu, 04/23/2026 - 17:59
The conflict has morphed into a volatile standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, as the economic costs mount and President Trump faces a political backlash at home.

Communication Failures Preceded Deadly Crash at LaGuardia, N.T.S.B. Says

NY Times - Thu, 04/23/2026 - 17:32
The report focuses on the lack of transponders in the fire trucks, which investigators suggested could have allowed an automatic warning system to alert the controller of an imminent collision.

OpenAI Says Its New GPT-5.5 Model Is More Efficient and Better At Coding

SlashDot - Thu, 04/23/2026 - 17:00
OpenAI released its new GPT-5.5 model today, which the company calls its "smartest and most intuitive to use model yet, and the next step toward a new way of getting work done on a computer." The Verge reports: OpenAI just released GPT-5.4 last month, but says that the new GPT-5.5 "excels" at tasks like writing and debugging code, doing research online, making spreadsheets and documents, and doing that work across different tools. "Instead of carefully managing every step, you can give GPT-5.5 a messy, multi-part task and trust it to plan, use tools, check its work, navigate through ambiguity, and keep going," according to OpenAI. The company also notes that GPT-5.5 will have its "strongest set of safeguards to date" and can use "significantly fewer" tokens to complete tasks in Codex. GPT-5.5 is rolling out on Thursday for Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise ChatGPT tiers and Codex, with GPT-5.5 Pro coming to Pro, Business, and Enterprise users.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Trump’s Dreams for a Battleship Led to His Navy Secretary’s Ouster

NY Times - Thu, 04/23/2026 - 16:51
The Navy secretary, John Phelan, was supposed to deliver the first of the president’s ships by 2028. The timeline was nearly impossible.

New Gene Therapy Enables Children With a Rare Form of Deafness to Hear

NY Times - Thu, 04/23/2026 - 16:38
The treatment, the first of its kind, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday. “Our baby was born deaf, and now he can hear,” said one parent.

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