Gallego Dismissed Rumors of a ‘Flirty’ Swalwell, Highlighting a Culture of Silence
The admission by Senator Ruben Gallego that he had heard, but disbelieved, rumors about Eric Swalwell and women showed the attitude on Capitol Hill toward men accused of behaving badly.
JD Vance Heckled In Antiwar Protest at Turning Point USA Event
Vice President JD Vance appeared to express sympathy with critics of the war with Iran: “I recognize that young voters do not love the policy we have in the Middle East, OK. I understand.”
Vance Says Pope Leo Should Be More Careful When Talking About Theology
The vice president, who is Catholic, took issue with Pope Leo XIV’s statement that disciples of Christ are “never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”
Rubio Hosts Israel and Lebanon for Rare Meeting Shadowed by U.S.-Iran War
The gathering ended with encouraging words, even as Israel continued to refuse to halt its military campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Surgeon Who Removed Wrong Organ From Patient Is Charged in His Death
Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky tried to persuade his colleagues in the operating room that the liver he removed from a 70-year-old patient was a spleen, according to Florida’s Health Department.
Hampshire College Will Close Amid Student Enrollment Declines
Other small private colleges like Hampshire have closed in recent years as financial pressures and competition for students increase.
Resignations of Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales Set Up Special Election Fights in Texas and California
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California called a special election to replace Mr. Swalwell, while Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas had yet to announce one for Mr. Gonzales’s successor.
A New Accuser Says Eric Swalwell Sexually Assaulted Her
The woman said Mr. Swalwell, who resigned from Congress on Tuesday afternoon, raped her in a West Hollywood hotel room in 2018. She said she believed she was drugged.
How Peter Magyar Defeated Viktor Orban, a Former Ally, In Hungary’s Election
For years, Peter Magyar was a loyal ally of Viktor Orban, the far-right Hungarian leader. Then he changed sides — and defeated his former boss in a landslide victory on Sunday. Does he represent real change?
FCC Grants Netgear Conditional Approval For Routers
The FCC has granted (PDF) Netgear the first exemption from its foreign-made router ban, allowing the company to keep selling new consumer router models made outside the U.S. through Oct. 1, 2027. PCMag reports: The Defense Department reviewed Netgear's application for an exemption and found that its products "do not pose risks to US national security." The FCC's order doesn't elaborate on why. Netgear is based in San Jose, California, although its products are made in Asia. The exemption, known as a conditional approval, lasts until Oct. 1, 2027. It covers a large range of future Wi-Fi models from Netgear, spanning the R, RAX, RAXE, RS, MK, MR, M, and MH series, the Orbi consumer mesh, mobile, and standalone routers under the RBK, RBE, RBR, RBRE, LBR, LBK, and CBK series, as well as cable gateways and cable modems under the CAX and CM series.
The exemption isn't a full green light for the future product models from Netgear. The FCC says the company still needs to go through the normal Commission-regulated equipment authorization process for each device. The Oct. 1, 2027 date effectively amounts to a deadline for Netgear to receive FCC certification for the router models; each certification is also permanent, enabling the product to be sold in the US on an ongoing basis. This also suggests that Netgear has an 18-month period to receive FCC certifications for future products.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
51 Percent of Americans Think Trump’s Military Action in Iran Has Not Been Worthwhile
A survey from Ipsos and Reuters, released on Tuesday, found few Americans — 24 percent — think the war in Iran has been worth the costs and benefits.
Justice Dept. Moves to Vacate Jan. 6 Convictions for Far-Right Extremists
Defending the convictions would likely have required administration officials to assert that far-right groups were acting on behalf of President Trump on Jan. 6, 2021.
Microsoft Reveals Major Price Increase For All Surface PCs
Microsoft has sharply raised prices across its Surface lineup as RAM and component costs keep climbing. "Both its midrange and flagship Surface lines are now significantly more expensive than they were just a few weeks ago, with the flagship Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11 now starting at $500 more than they launched at in 2024," reports Windows Central. From the report: The Surface Pro 12-inch, which was previously Microsoft's cheapest modern Surface PC at $799, now starts at $1,049. The flagship Surface Pro 13-inch, which originally launched for $999, now starts at an eyewatering $1,499. It's the same story for the Surface Laptop lines, with the entry-level 13-inch model originally priced at $899, now starting at $1,149. The 13.8-inch flagship Surface Laptop launched at $999, but now costs $1,499, with the 15-inch model now starting at $1,599. This means that Microsoft's midrange devices now cost more than the flagships did when they launched in 2024.
[...] Microsoft has raised prices for all SKUs on offer, meaning the high end models are now more expensive too. A top end Surface Laptop 15-inch with Snapdragon X Elite, 64GB RAM and 1TB SSD storage now costs a staggering $3,649. To compare, the 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 Pro, 64GB RAM, and 1TB SSD is $3,299, and that comes with a significantly better display and much more power under the hood.
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Ricky Cobb Has Built a Mini-Empire Through ’70s Nostalgia
Ricky Cobb has built a big online following with his irreverent postings about the absurdities of the 1970s.
N.F.L. Reporter Resigns From The Athletic Amid an Investigation
The publication, which is owned by The New York Times, was investigating the conduct of Dianna Russini after photographs showed her with the head coach of the New England Patriots.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla Will Visit D.C., New York and Virginia
The planned four-day state visit comes at a fraught time in the U.S.-U.K. relationship, following President Trump’s frequent belittling of the British prime minister.
California Ghost-Gun Bill Wants 3D Printers To Play Cop, EFF Says
A proposed California bill would require 3D printer makers to use state-certified software to detect and block files for gun parts, but advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) say it would be easy to evade and could lead to widespread surveillance of users' printing activity. The Register reports: The bill in question is AB 2047, the scope of which, on paper, appears strict. The primary goal is clear and simple: to require 3D printer manufacturers to use a state-certified algorithm that checks digital design files for firearm components and blocks print jobs that would produce prohibited parts. [...] Cliff Braun and Rory Mir, who respectively work in policy and tech community engagement at the EFF, claim that the proposals in California are technically infeasible and in practice will lead to consumer surveillance.
In a series of blog posts published this month, the pair argued that print-blocking technology -- proposals for which have also surfaced in states including New York and Washington - cannot work for a range of technical reasons. They argued that because 3D printers and other types of computer numerical control (CNC) machines are fairly simple, with much of their brains coming from the computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software -- or slicer software -- to which they are linked, the bill would establish legal and illegal software. Proprietary software will likely become the de facto option, leaving open source alternatives to rot.
"Under these proposed laws, manufacturers of consumer 3D printers must ensure their printers only work with their software, and implement firearm detection algorithms on either the printer itself or in a slicer software," wrote Braun earlier this month. "These algorithms must detect firearm files using a maintained database of existing models. Vendors of printers must then verify that printers are on the allow-list maintained by the state before they can offer them for sale. Owners of printers will be guilty of a crime if they circumvent these intrusive scanning procedures or load alternative software, which they might do because their printer manufacturer ends support."
Braun also argued that it would be trivial for anyone who uses 3D printers to make small tweaks to either the visual models of firearms parts, or the machine instructions (G-code) generated from those models, to evade detection. Mir further argued that the bill offers no guardrails to keep this "constantly expanding blacklist" limited to firearm-related designs. In his view, there is a clear risk that this approach will creep into other forms of alleged unlawful activity, such as copyright infringement. [...] Braun and Mir have a list of other arguments against the bill. They say the algorithms are more than likely to lead to false positives, which will prevent good-faith users from using their hardware. Many 3D printer owners also have no interest in printing firearm components. Most simply want the freedom to print trinkets and spare parts while others use them to print various items and sell them as an income stream.
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Camp Mystic Hearing in Texas Weighs Reopening After Deadly Flooding
Testimony at a hearing this week has focused on what camp leaders knew and did as floodwaters rose in July, killing at least 116 people.
Audit Finds Google, Microsoft, and Meta Still Tracking Users After Opt-Out
alternative_right shares a report from 404 Media: An independent privacy audit of Microsoft, Meta, and Google web traffic in California found that the companies may be violating state regulations and racking up billions in fines. According to the audit from privacy search engine webXray, 55 percent of the sites it checked set ad cookies in a user's browser even if they opted out of tracking. Each company disputed or took issue with the research, with Google saying it was based on a "fundamental misunderstanding" of how its product works.
The webXray California Privacy Audit viewed web traffic on more than 7,000 popular websites in California in the month of March and found that most tech companies ignore when a user asks to opt-out of cookie tracking. California has stringent and well defined privacy legislation thanks to its California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) which allows users to, among other things, opt out of the sale of their personal information. There's a system called Global Privacy Control (GPC), which includes a browser extension that indicates to a website when a user wants to opt out of tracking.
According to the webXray audit, Google failed to let users opt out 87 percent of the time. "Google's failure to honor the GPC opt-out signal is easy to find in network traffic. When a browser using GPC connects to Google's servers it encodes the opt-out signal by sending the code 'sec-gpc: 1.' This means Google should not return cookies," the audit said. "However, when Google's server responds to the network request with the opt-out it explicitly responds with a command to create an advertising cookie named IDE using the 'set-cookie' command. This non-compliance is easy to spot, hiding in plain sight."
The audit said that Microsoft fails to opt out users in the same way and has a failure rate of 50 percent in the web traffic webXray viewed. Meta's failure rate was 69 percent and a bit more comprehensive. "Meta instructs publishers to install the following tracking code on their websites. The code contains no check for globally standard opt-out signals -- it loads unconditionally, fires a tracking event, and sets a cookie regardless of the consumer's privacy preferences," the audit said. It showed a copy of Meta's tracking data which contains no GPC check at all.
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Inside the Radical Zionist Group Linked to an N.Y.C. Assassination Plot
The Jewish Defense League had long been largely inactive. But an arrest in a plan to kill a Palestinian activist shed light on an apparent resurgence of far-right Zionism, inspired by the J.D.L.