Bondi Doesn’t Commit to Deposition With House Panel Over Epstein Files
Under the rules of the oversight committee, Attorney General Pam Bondi received a subpoena requiring her to appear. The panel’s Republican chairman said he sent the summons reluctantly.
Iranian Missile Attack Leaves 3 Palestinians Dead in West Bank
Several others were injured in the strike, which hit a caravan being used as a hair salon in the town of Beit Awwa, according to Palestinian officials.
Fed Holds Rates Steady as War in Iran Upends the Economic Outlook
Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, emphasized the high degree of uncertainty stemming from the conflict as he acknowledged the potential for surging energy prices to lift inflation and dent growth.
Cloudflare Appeals Piracy Shield Fine, Hopes To Kill Italy's Site-Blocking Law
Cloudflare is appealing a 14.2 million-euro fine from Italy for refusing to comply with its "Piracy Shield" law, which requires blocking access to websites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS service within 30 minutes. The company argues the system lacks oversight, risks widespread overblocking, and could undermine core Internet infrastructure. Ars Technica's Jon Brodkin reports: Piracy Shield is "a misguided Italian regulatory scheme designed to protect large rightsholder interests at the expense of the broader Internet," Cloudflare said in a blog post this week. "After Cloudflare resisted registering for Piracy Shield and challenged it in court, the Italian communications regulator, AGCOM, fined Cloudflare... We appealed that fine on March 8, and we continue to challenge the legality of Piracy Shield itself." Cloudflare called the fine of 14.2 million euros ($16.4 million) "staggering." AGCOM issued the penalty in January 2026, saying Cloudflare flouted requirements to disable DNS resolution of domain names and routing of traffic to IP addresses reported by copyright holders.
Cloudflare had previously resisted a blocking order it received in February 2025, arguing that it would require installing a filter on DNS requests that would raise latency and negatively affect DNS resolution for sites that aren't subject to the dispute over piracy. Cloudflare co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince said that censoring the 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver would force the firm "not just to censor the content in Italy but globally."
Piracy Shield was designed to combat pirated streams of live sports events, requiring network operators to block domain names and IP addresses within 30 minutes of receiving a copyright notification. Cloudflare said the fine should have been capped at 140,000 euros ($161,000), or 2 percent of its Italian earnings, but that "AGCOM calculated the fine based on our global revenue, resulting in a penalty nearly 100 times higher than the legal limit."
Despite its complaints about the size of the fine, Cloudflare said the principles at stake "are even larger" than the financial penalty. "Piracy Shield is an unsupervised electronic portal through which an unidentified set of Italian media companies can submit websites and IP addresses that online service providers registered with Piracy Shield are then required to block within 30 minutes," Cloudflare said. Cloudflare is pushing for the law to be struck down, arguing that it is "incompatible with EU law, most notably the Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires that any content restriction be proportionate and subject to strict procedural safeguards."
In addition to appealing the fine, Cloudflare says it will continue to challenge Piracy Shield in Italian courts, engage with EU officials, and seek full access to AGCOM's Piracy Shield records.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
What’s a Threat? Gabbard Says It’s Up to Trump, on Iran and Elsewhere.
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, was left to square the president’s comments about an imminent nuclear threat from Iran with a letter from one of her trusted aides.
NASA’s Hubble Telescope Spots Comet K1 Exploding Into Fragments
In a stroke of luck, astronomers saw the comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) break into four or five fragments in November after it passed close to the sun.
Palestinian Man Recounts Brutal Sexual Assault by Israeli Settlers
The man said his attackers stripped him naked, beat him and zip-tied his genitalia, an account corroborated by family members and a rights activist who were also beaten.
How Trump Should Extricate Himself From His Iran Quagmire
Declaring victory and ending the war might not be so easy.
Following Trump, Republicans in Congress Propose to Ban Most Voting by Mail
A restrictive voter I.D. bill under consideration in the Senate could severely limit mail-in voting. Conservatives are pressing to end the practice outright, taking aim at an option that is widely used by voters.
Google Is Trying To Make 'Vibe Design' Happen
With today's latest Stitch updates, Google is trying to make "vibe design" happen, reports The Verge's Jay Peters. The AI-native design platform encourages users to describe goals, feelings, or inspiration in "natural language," rather than starting with traditional blueprints.
In a blog post, Google Labs Product Manager Rustin Banks says that Stitch can turn those inputs into interactive prototypes, automatically map user flows, and support real-time iteration. It introduces voice capabilities that allow users to "speak directly to [the] canvas" for feedback or changes. Tools like DESIGN.md also help users create reusable design systems across various projects.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Powell Says He Will Remain as Fed Chair Until Successor Is Confirmed
Jerome H. Powell, who leads the central bank, also said he would not leave the Fed until a criminal investigation into his handling of renovations was over.
The Tropical St. Patrick’s Day That Honors African History
Montserrat treats the holiday as both a national celebration and a more somber milestone: a commemoration of a failed slave rebellion.
He Tried to Rob 6 Banks, Police Say. His Total Takings: $605.
A man is accused of handing tellers notes, demanding money at six Chase branches in five days. In three of the attempts, he left empty-handed.
Mullin Signals He Would End Noem Policy That Slowed Disaster Aid
The president’s nominee, Markwayne Mullin, said he would avoid “micromanaging” FEMA.
New Windows 11 Bug Breaks Samsung PCs, Blocking Access To C: Drive
Longtime Slashdot reader UnknowingFool writes: Users of Samsung PCs are reporting the inability to access the C: drive after the Windows 11 February update. The bug seems to be in connection with the Samsung Galaxy Connect app, which allows Samsung phones and tablets to connect to Windows machines. [A previous stable version of the app has been re-released to prevent this problem from spreading.] This parody explains the situation with humor. The issue stems from update KB5077181 and is impacting Samsung PCs running Windows 11 25H2 or 24H2. Microsoft and Samsung have confirmed the issue and published a workaround, but as PCWorld notes, it will take some time. The workaround "requires removing the Samsung application, then asking Windows to repair the drive permissions and assigning a new owner, then restoring the Windows default permissions, including patching in some custom code that Microsoft wrote."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Carol Kitman, 96, Dies; Photographer Documented the Vindman Twins
A chance encounter in Brooklyn led to a decades-long project following the boys’ lives, from childhood to national prominence as critics of President Trump.
Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years
An investigation by The New York Times found extensive evidence that the United Farm Workers co-founder groomed and sexually abused girls who worked in the movement.
UK Plans To Require Labels On AI-Generated Content
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Britain plans to consider requiring labels on AI-generated content to protect consumers from disinformation and deepfakes, the government said on Wednesday, as it outlined other areas of focus to tackle the evolving global challenge. Technology minister Liz Kendall stressed the need to strike the right balance between protecting the creative industries and allowing the AI sector to innovate, saying in a statement that the government would take time to "get this right."
The next phase of the government's work on copyright and AI would also look at the harms posed by digital replicas without consent, ways for creators to control their work online and support for independent creative organizations, she said. [...] Louise Popple, a copyright expert at law firm Taylor Wessing, noted that the government had not ruled out a broad exception that would allow AI developers to train on copyright works. "That's a subtle difference of approach and could be interpreted to mean that everything is still up for grabs" she said. "It feels very much like the hard issues are being kicked down the road by the government."
In 2024, Britain proposed easing copyright rules to let developers train models on lawfully accessed material, with creators able to reserve their rights. On Wednesday, Kendall said that having engaged with creatives, AI firms, industry bodies, unions and academics, the government had concluded it "no longer has a preferred option." "We will help creatives control how their work is used. This sits at the heart of our ambition for creatives – including independent and smaller creative organizations -- to be paid fairly," she said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Joe Kent’s Resignation Letter Is Dangerous Because It’s Half True
Kent’s resignation letter is partly rooted in truth, even if it taps into old antisemitic tropes about occult Jewish control.
Silicon Valley Musters Behind-the-Scenes Support for Anthropic
Tech companies have been reluctant to directly confront Trump administration officials over their contract feud with the A.I. start-up.