Judge Opens Door to Releasing Mahmoud Khalil as Soon as This Week

NY Times - mer, 06/11/2025 - 20:12
Mr. Khalil, a legal permanent resident, has been held in Louisiana for more than three months. The judge suggested he could be released as early as Friday unless the government successfully appeals.

New China Trade ‘Deal’ Takes U.S. Back to Where It Started

NY Times - mer, 06/11/2025 - 20:07
If a handshake agreement holds, it will merely undo some of the damage from the trade war that President Trump started.

David Hogg to Exit DNC After Backlash to His Primary Plan

NY Times - mer, 06/11/2025 - 20:05
Mr. Hogg said he would not run again for vice chair after the party voted for a new election. Democrats have been furious at his plan to challenge the party’s sitting lawmakers in primary races.

Talen Energy and Amazon Sign Nuclear Power Deal To Fuel Data Centers

SlashDot - mer, 06/11/2025 - 20:02
Amazon Web Services has signed a long-term deal with Talen Energy to receive up to 1,920 megawatts of carbon-free electricity from the Susquehanna nuclear plant through 2042 to support AWS's AI and cloud operations. The partnership also includes plans to explore new Small Modular Reactors and expand nuclear capacity amid rising U.S. energy demand. Utility Drive reports: Under the PPA, Talen's existing 300-MW co-location arrangement with AWS will shift to a "front of the meter" framework that doesn't require Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval, according to Houston-based Talen. The company expects the transition will occur next spring after transmission upgrades are finished. FERC in November rejected an amended interconnection service agreement that would have facilitated expanded power sales to a co-located AWS data center at the Susquehanna plant. The agency is considering potential rules for co-located loads in PJM. Talen expects to earn about $18 billion in revenue over the life of the contract at its full quantity, according to an investor presentation. The contract, which runs through 2042, calls for delivering 840 MW to 1,200 MW in 2029 and 1,680 MW to 1,920 MW in 2032. Talen will act as the retail power supplier to AWS, and PPL Electric Utilities will be responsible for transmission and delivery, the company said. Amazon on Monday said it plans to spend about $20 billion building data centers in Pennsylvania. "We are making the largest private sector investment in state history -- $20 billion-- to bring 1,250 high-skilled jobs and economic benefits to the state, while also collaborating with Talen Energy to help power our infrastructure with carbon-free energy," Kevin Miller, AWS vice president of global data centers, said.

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Apple Quietly Launches Container On GitHub To Bring Linux Development To macOS

SlashDot - mer, 06/11/2025 - 19:20
BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Apple has released a new developer tool on GitHub called Container, offering a fresh approach to running Linux containers directly on macOS. Unlike Docker or Podman, this tool is designed to feel at home in the Apple ecosystem and hooks into frameworks already built into the operating system. Container runs standard OCI images, but it doesn't use a single shared Linux VM. Instead, it creates a small Linux virtual machine for every container you spin up. That sounds heavy at first, but the VMs are lightweight and boot quickly. Each one is isolated, which Apple claims improves both security and privacy. Developers can run containerized workloads locally with native macOS support and without needing to install third-party container platforms.

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Ehud Olmert on Israel’s Catastrophic War in Gaza

NY Times - mer, 06/11/2025 - 19:11
The former prime minister of Israel discusses why he believes Israel’s war in Gaza can no longer be justified.

Trump Crossed the Line at Fort Bragg

NY Times - mer, 06/11/2025 - 19:10
Donald Trump’s Fort Bragg speech was the latest in a string of high-profile efforts to reshape the military more in his own likeness.

Anti-Immigrant Riots Set Northern Irish Town on Edge

NY Times - mer, 06/11/2025 - 19:00
Homes, businesses and cars have been attacked and 32 police officers injured during violence in Ballymena and several other areas in Northern Ireland.

23andMe Says 15% of Customers Asked To Delete Their Genetic Data Since Bankruptcy

SlashDot - mer, 06/11/2025 - 18:40
Since filing for bankruptcy in March, 23andMe has received data deletion requests from 1.9 million users -- around 15% of its customer base. That number was revealed by 23andMe's interim chief executive Joseph Selsavage during a House Oversight Committee hearing, during which lawmakers scrutinized the company's sale following an earlier bankruptcy auction. "The bankruptcy sparked concerns that the data of millions of Americans who used 23andMe could end up in the hands of an unscrupulous buyer, prompting customers to ask the company to delete their data," adds TechCrunch. From the report: Pharmaceutical giant Regeneron won the court-approved auction in May, offering $256 million for 23andMe and its banks of customers' DNA and genetic data. Regeneron said it would use the 23andMe data to aid the discovery of new drugs, and committed to maintain 23andMe's privacy practices. Truly deleting your personal genetic information from the DNA testing company is easier said than done. But if you were a 23andMe customer and are interested, MIT Technology Review outlines that steps you can take.

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Trump Bends Military’s Role, Suggesting More Troops in More Cities

NY Times - mer, 06/11/2025 - 18:36
President Trump has expanded domestic use of the armed forces, testing the limits on involving troops at protests and the border.

Betsy Jochum, Last Original Member of Women’s Baseball League, Dies at 104

NY Times - mer, 06/11/2025 - 18:24
Playing in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which inspired the film “A League of Their Own,” she won a batting title and stole 127 bases in 1944.

Nintendo Switch 2 Is Fastest-Selling Game Console of All Time

SlashDot - mer, 06/11/2025 - 18:00
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Polygon: Nintendo Switch 2 is off to a roaring start. Early on Wednesday, Nintendo announced that it had sold 3.5 million units of its new console in just four days, making it Nintendo's fastest-selling console ever. In fact, this is likely the biggest console launch of all time -- by quite some margin. For comparison, PlayStation 5 shipped 4.5 million units in its first seven weeks, PlayStation 4 sold 2.1 million in a little over two weeks, and Nintendo Switch sold 2.74 million in its first month. [...] Nintendo has predicted it will sell 15 million Switch 2s during its current financial year. It's well on the way to that figure already, although Nintendo still faces the challenges of maintaining stock availability and extending this expensive console's reach past the first wave of early adopters. If Switch 2 hits its first-year target, it will join Nintendo's other fasters sellers over the first year on sale: Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 3DS, and the original Switch. Over the weekend, the Switch 2 beat the record for the "most-sold console within 24 hours and is on track to shatter the two-month record," according to TweakTown.

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McConnell Tells Hegseth U.S. Reputation Is at Stake in Ukraine War

NY Times - mer, 06/11/2025 - 17:54
A testy exchange between a senator who strongly supports Ukraine aid and the defense secretary revealed a deepening split among G.O.P. officials on the war.

No, Not That Lee. Pentagon Finds Black Hero to Rechristen Base Long Named for Robert E.

NY Times - mer, 06/11/2025 - 17:45
The Army unveiled a list of seven installations that the Trump administration is reverting, sort of, to earlier names venerating Confederate heroes.

Amazon Is About To Be Flooded With AI-Generated Video Ads

SlashDot - mer, 06/11/2025 - 17:20
Amazon has launched its AI-powered Video Generator tool in the U.S., allowing sellers to quickly create photorealistic, motion-enhanced video ads often with a single click. "We'll likely see Amazon retailers utilizing AI-generated video ads in the wild now that the tool is generally available in the U.S. and costs nothing to use -- unless the ads are so convincing that we don't notice anything at all," says The Verge. From the report: New capabilities include motion improvements to show items in action, which Amazon says is best for showcasing products like toys, tools, and worn accessories. For example, Video Generator can now create clips that show someone wearing a watch on their wrist and checking the time, instead of simply displaying the watch on a table. The tool generates six different videos to choose from, and allows brands to add their logos to the finished results. The Video Generator can now also make ads with multiple connected scenes that include humans, pets, text overlays, and background music. The editing timeline shown in Amazon's announcement video suggests the ads max out at 21 seconds.. The resulting ads edge closer to the traditional commercials we're used to seeing while watching TV or online content, compared to raw clips generated by video AI tools like OpenAI's Sora or Adobe Firefly. A new video summarization feature can create condensed video ads from existing footage, such as demos, tutorials, and social media content. Amazon says Video Generator will automatically identify and extract key clips to generate new videos formatted for ad campaigns. A one-click image-to-video feature is also available that creates shorter GIF-style clips to show products in action.

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U.N. Report Says We’re Missing the Real Fertility Crisis

NY Times - mer, 06/11/2025 - 17:02
Policymakers in many countries assume that birthrates have fallen because people want fewer children, but a global study says financial insecurity is driving those decisions.

Hong Kong Bans Video Game Using National Security Laws

SlashDot - mer, 06/11/2025 - 16:40
Hong Kong authorities have invoked national security laws for the first time to ban the Taiwan-made video game Reversed Front: Bonfire, accusing it of promoting "secessionist agendas, such as 'Taiwan independence' and 'Hong Kong independence.'" Engadget reports: Reversed Front: Bonfire was developed by a group known as ESC Taiwan, who are outspoken critics of the China's Communist Party. The game disappeared from the Apple App Store in Hong Kong less than 24 hours after authorities issued the warning. Google already removed the game from the Play Store back in May, because players were using hate speech as part of their usernames. ESC Taiwan told The New York Times that that the game's removal shows that apps like theirs are subject to censorship in mainland China. The group also thanked authorities for the free publicity on Facebook, as the game experienced a surge in Google searches. The game uses anime-style illustrations and allows players to fight against China's Communist Party by taking on the role of "propagandists, patrons, spies or guerrillas" from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, Mongolia and Xinjiang, which is home to ethnic minorities like the Uyghur. That said, they can also choose to play as government soldiers. In its warning, Hong Kong Police said that anybody who shares or recommends the game on the internet may be committing several offenses, including "incitement to secession, "incitement to subversion" and "offenses in connection with seditious intention." Anybody who has downloaded the game will be considered in "possession of a publication that has a seditious intention," and anybody who provides financial assistance to it will be violating national security laws, as well. "Those who have downloaded the application should uninstall it immediately and must not attempt to defy the law," the authorities wrote.

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World Bank Ends Its Ban on Funding Nuclear Power Projects

NY Times - mer, 06/11/2025 - 16:15
The decision, a major reversal, could help poorer nations industrialize, cut planet-warming emissions and boost U.S. competitiveness on next-generation reactors.

Scientists Built a Badminton-Playing Robot With AI-Powered Skills

SlashDot - mer, 06/11/2025 - 16:00
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The robot built by [Yuntao Ma and his team at ETH Zurich] was called ANYmal and resembled a miniature giraffe that plays badminton by holding a racket in its teeth. It was a quadruped platform developed by ANYbotics, an ETH Zurich spinoff company that mainly builds robots for the oil and gas industries. "It was an industry-grade robot," Ma said. The robot had elastic actuators in its legs, weighed roughly 50 kilograms, and was half a meter wide and under a meter long. On top of the robot, Ma's team fitted an arm with several degrees of freedom produced by another ETH Zurich spinoff called Duatic. This is what would hold and swing a badminton racket. Shuttlecock tracking and sensing the environment were done with a stereoscopic camera. "We've been working to integrate the hardware for five years," Ma said. Along with the hardware, his team was also working on the robot's brain. State-of-the-art robots usually use model-based control optimization, a time-consuming, sophisticated approach that relies on a mathematical model of the robot's dynamics and environment. "In recent years, though, the approach based on reinforcement learning algorithms became more popular," Ma told Ars. "Instead of building advanced models, we simulated the robot in a simulated world and let it learn to move on its own." In ANYmal's case, this simulated world was a badminton court where its digital alter ego was chasing after shuttlecocks with a racket. The training was divided into repeatable units, each of which required that the robot predict the shuttlecock's trajectory and hit it with a racket six times in a row. During this training, like a true sportsman, the robot also got to know its physical limits and to work around them. The idea behind training the control algorithms was to develop visuo-motor skills similar to human badminton players. The robot was supposed to move around the court, anticipating where the shuttlecock might go next and position its whole body, using all available degrees of freedom, for a swing that would mean a good return. This is why balancing perception and movement played such an important role. The training procedure included a perception model based on real camera data, which taught the robot to keep the shuttlecock in its field of view while accounting for the noise and resulting object-tracking errors. Once the training was done, the robot learned to position itself on the court. It figured out that the best strategy after a successful return is to move back to the center and toward the backline, which is something human players do. It even came with a trick where it stood on its hind legs to see the incoming shuttlecock better. It also learned fall avoidance and determined how much risk was reasonable to take given its limited speed. The robot did not attempt impossible plays that would create the potential for serious damage -- it was committed, but not suicidal. But when it finally played humans, it turned out ANYmal, as a badminton player, was amateur at best. The findings have been published in the journal Science Robotics. You can watch a video of the four-legged robot playing badminton on YouTube.

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Judge Ordered Jury in Weinstein Trial to Cool Down Amid Infighting

NY Times - mer, 06/11/2025 - 15:37
Harvey Weinstein said infighting in the jury was denying him a fair trial.

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