Putin Thinks Conquest Can Be Cost Free. We Disagree.
Justice may proceed slowly, and cautiously, but it does proceed.
Massive Wildfires Draw Close to Madrid
Madrid is booming, culturally and economically, but the wildfires raging within a short drive of the capital have provided a reality check.
Zelensky and Trump Will Meet at the White House. Has Their Relationship Thawed?
President Trump will meet his Ukrainian counterpart in Washington this week. President Volodymyr Zelensky will also attend the funeral of Senator Lindsey Graham.
He Served China’s Police State of Xinjiang. He Says It Imprisoned Him, Too.
After nearly 10 years carrying out Chinese government repression in Xinjiang, a former police officer is now seeking asylum in Germany.
Fauci, in Private Diary, Reflected on Covid’s Origins and His Own Fame
Private entries, released by a Republican senator, have reignited a furious debate over whether Covid-19 leaked from a lab.
A Missing Underscore Sent Innocent Man To Prison For 18 Months
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: One missing underscore in a Skyrim-themed username put an innocent Nova Scotia man in prison for 18 months. A 2018 child-luring investigation, which began in Madison, Wisconsin, and eventually extended to Halifax, Canada, was based on a false premise. Police were looking for a man using the Kik messaging service under the name "fus__ro_dah" (two underscores after "fus"), but they accidentally requested records for the username "fus_ro_dah" (one underscore after "fus"). This one-character difference led them not to the perpetrator but to a Canadian man named Brandon Klayme. (Ars readers may recognize "fus ro dah" as the Unrelenting Force "dragon shout" from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.)
Despite finding no evidence of the crime on his digital devices, Canadian police arrested Klayme in 2020 on child sex abuse charges. He was convicted after a trial in 2023 and sentenced in 2024 to 18 months in prison. He served the full term. Even after release, Klayme continued to fight his conviction. In the process of preparing his appeal, the username mistake that led to all these years of disruption was finally discovered. On Thursday, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal overturned Klayme's conviction, writing: "Mr. Klayme is factually innocent of the offences. He should never have been charged, let alone convicted." [...] As the court puts it, "Although the information about the usernames was available at the time of the trial, there is no evidence confirming or explaining how it went unnoticed."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
6 Takeaways From Michigan’s Senate Debate Between Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens
At the final debate before next week’s Democratic primary for Senate, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and Representative Haley Stevens showcased their wildly different ideological stances and political styles.
Seattle Police Search for 3rd Shooter in Deadly Food Festival Shooting
A 15-year-old suspect was in custody, and documents said a second shooter was killed on the scene. Police were looking for at least one more suspect in the attack that left three dead.
Trump Backs New Talks but It’s Unclear What He Hopes to Achieve This Time
Iran denied President Trump’s claim that it wants to talk, and gave no sign that it would make concessions or speak directly with U.S. officials.
Hiker Trekked 10 Miles to Safety After Impaling Himself on Pole
David Cifaldi was hiking up Granite Peak, Montana’s tallest mountain, last week when he slipped and fell on one of his trekking poles. A wound nurse, he went into survival mode.
Trump Blames Affordability Problems on Biden in Michigan Speech
The president also assured supporters that negotiations over ending the war in Iran, a conflict that has sent fuel and energy prices soaring, are continuing in a “friendly” fashion.
Peacock to Be Included With YouTube Premium In Major Streaming Tie-Up
YouTube Premium will include Peacock Premium at no extra charge beginning in early 2027. "The deal brings a slew of premium content to the [$15.99 per month] YouTube Premium subscription, including live sports like the NFL, NBA and MLB and entertainment like Law & Order, Saturday Night Live and Love Island," reports The Hollywood Reporter. "It also has the potential to dramatically scale Peacock, which remains smaller than many of its streaming competitors." From the report: Peacock has 48 million subscribers, while YouTube Premium and YouTube Music have a combined 125 million subscribers, though they don't break out how many each of those offerings have. The agreement, which expands on the deal the company inked with YouTube parent company Google last year, will also extend the entertainment company's programming deal with YouTube TV, while bringing some of YouTube's offerings to Comcast Xfinity and Xumo platforms.
There's also a notable sports and production element to the deal, with NBC Sports agreeing to stream some live sporting events on its YouTube channels, and with NBC agreeing to serve as the production partner for select live events on YouTube. YouTube will also bundle some of the company's International streaming offerings like Universal+ and Hayu in select markets.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Trump Asks Supreme Court to Allow Order Restricting Mail Voting
The Trump administration asks justices to intervene after an appeals court blocked key parts of a mail-in voting executive order.
Amazon Trying to Launch a Global Satellite Cellphone Network In 2028
Amazon has asked the FCC to approve a 5,105-satellite constellation launching in 2028 that would provide global direct-to-cell "voice, messaging, data, and emergency services," similar to Starlink's partnership with T-Mobile. The network would use Globalstar spectrum, support future Apple satellite services, and complement Amazon's existing Leo broadband constellation. The Verge reports: Advanced Television points out that the FCC application also includes a request to use spectrum assigned to Iridium's satellite network outside the US, even as Rocket Lab is in the process of acquiring Iridium with plans to expand.
The new constellation and direct-to-device service will "complement" the broadband services Amazon also plans to offer through its Leo platform. In addition to consumer satellite service, it would also be used for things like disaster response and emergency messaging.
Amazon says the new direct-to-device satellites "will process the signals in orbit before relaying them to improve performance." The new constellation will be nearly double the size of Amazon's initial Leo constellation, which is planned to include around 3,200 satellites. As of July 2nd, Amazon says "over 375" of those satellites have launched so far.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Nvidia, Tech Giants Launch AI Safety Initiative
wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Nvidia and a large group of technology, cybersecurity, and enterprise software companies have launched new initiative aimed at developing and sharing open source tools, models, and techniques for securing AI systems and agents. The new Open Secure AI Alliance aims to give defenders more open tools for testing, auditing and protecting AI models and agents. Nvidia points to the recent security incident involving OpenAI and Hugging Face, noting that when closed AI tools could not differentiate between attackers and defenders and blocked forensic work, Hugging Face used the open-weight GLM 5.2 model on its own systems to review over 17,000 actions and contain the breach. "The right response is not to deny defenders access to capable open systems. It is to pair openness with strong safeguards, clear rules against malicious misuse, rigorous evaluation and rapid remediation. In cybersecurity, the safer path is the one that gives more defenders the ability to test, verify and strengthen the systems on which society relies," Nvidia said.
Thanks to longtime Slashdot reader SphericalCrusher for also sharing the news.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Case to Be Dropped Against Labor Leader David Huerta in L.A. Immigration Raid
The arrest of David Huerta last summer helped spark a wave of protests against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Iran War Enters 6th Month and a Period of Greater Uncertainty
Here is a rundown of the major events of the war, as both sides consider their next moves.
Codeberg Bans Cryptocurrency and LLM-Generated Code Projects
Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Hackaday: Community-led open source project hosting site Codeberg has formally announced that projects whose code is largely or fully machine-generated through LLMs and other 'AI' tools will no longer be welcome. This follows on the heels of a similar ban on cryptocurrency-related projects. The community vote was on two issues, the first being the notion that scraping of project code for the use in LLMs should be forbidden, which was a motion that easily passed. The second motion was on disallowing projects whose code was substantially generated by LLMs like Claude, OpenAI Codex, and similar. This motion passed with 358 in favor versus 144 against.
In the earlier linked blog post the reasoning behind especially this second issue is expanded upon, covering not only "license whitewashing," but also the direct and indirect hardware costs, with the expanding 'AI' datacenter hyperscaling having massively increased hardware costs for Codeberg over the past years, as the costs have been largely externalized. Also covered is the aspect of these LLM-based tools destroying the OSS community, which is something that is backed up by recent studies.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
As Communities Unite Against Europe’s Wildfires, Politicians Trade Blows
Spain’s center-left accused conservatives of underfunding the disaster response, while critics of France’s government decried delays.
Comey Seeks Dismissal of Charges Accusing Him of Threatening Trump
The filing focused on the question of whether a photograph of seashells arranged to read “86 47” constituted a true threat under federal law.