Latest News
Last updated 03 Feb, 09:52 AM
BBC News
Sarah Ferguson's charity to close days after new Epstein revelations - Sarah's Trust announced it was shutting "for the foreseeable future" after "some months" of discussion.
Families of children with cancer to have travel costs covered - The government sets aside £10 million a year to help families and young people under 24 access cancer treatment.
EU has 'open mind' on UK customs union debate, says commissioner - Valdis Dombrovskis says the EU is willing to engage with Britain amid mounting global uncertainty.
Clintons agree to testify on Epstein as vote looms to hold them in contempt of Congress - The couple bows to the House Oversight Committee's demands after arguing for months that its subpoenas were invalid.
Rape trial begins for son of Norway's crown princess in tense moment for royal family - Marius Borg Høiby is accused of 38 charges including four counts of rape in one of the biggest cases in Norway for years.
The Register
British military to get legal OK to swat drones near bases - Armed Forces Bill would let troops take action against unmanned threats around defense sites Britain's defense personnel will be given the authority to neutralize drones threatening military bases under measures being introduced in the Armed Forces Bill, currently making its way through Parliament.…
Microsoft kills standalone SharePoint and OneDrive plans, because they’re not suite enough - Blames ‘unintended or nonstandard usage’ and the cost of keeping them alive Microsoft has slipped out news that it’s killing some standalone SharePoint and OneDrive plans.…
South Korea enlists AI to spot pump and dump schemes on social media, or in Spam - Main stock exchange targets shares, government agency looks for crypto crooks South Korea’s government and main stock exchange have developed and deployed AI-powered tools to detect schemes that aim to send the price of cryptocurrencies and shares soaring so that unscrupulous investors can cash in.…
Elon Musk merges xAI into SpaceX to spread universal consciousness via a sentient sun - Burning Man woo woo values House of Grok at $250 billion Elon Musk on Monday revealed his space company SpaceX has acquired his AI outfit xAI, and that the two will work together to escape the surly bonds of Earthly powers by tapping the sun's enduring glow.…
Notepad++ hijacking blamed on Chinese Lotus Blossom crew behind Chrysalis backdoor - The group targets telecoms, critical infrastructure - all the usual high-value orgs Security researchers have attributed the Notepad++ update hijacking to a Chinese government-linked espionage crew called Lotus Blossom (aka Lotus Panda, Billbug), which abused weaknesses in the update infrastructure to gain a foothold in high-value targets by delivering a newly identified backdoor dubbed Chrysalis.…
New Scientist - Home
Ants attack their nest-mates because pollution changes their smell - Ants rely on scent to recognise their comrades, and when they are exposed to common air pollutants, other members of their colony react as if they are enemies
Melatonin gummies as sleep aids for children: What are the risks? - To eliminate bedtime struggles, a growing number of parents have turned to melatonin gummies, but these hormone supplements are largely unregulated. Columnist Alice Klein digs into the evidence on the risks of regularly using melatonin as a sleep aid for children
A huge cloud of dark matter may be lurking near our solar system - For the first time, researchers have found what seems to be a cloud of dark matter about 60 million times the mass of the sun in our galactic neighbourhood
Treating cancer before 3pm could help patients live longer - The most robust evidence to date shows that people with a type of lung cancer lived longer if they received immunotherapy before 3pm
The secret signals our organs send to repair tissues and slow ageing - Your organs are constantly talking to each other in ways we’re only beginning to understand. Tapping into these communication networks is opening up radical new ways to boost health
Hacker News
From Tobacco to Ultraprocessed Food: How Industry Fuels Preventable Disease - Comments
What's up with all those equals signs anyway? - Comments
Floppinux – An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy, 2025 Edition - Comments
Astrological CPU Scheduler - Comments
The Codex App - Comments
Slashdot
Hidden Car Door Handles Are Officially Being Banned In China - sinij writes: Automakers have increasingly implemented door handles that retract into the bodywork for aerodynamic reasons, but they are now off limits in China. My issue is with electronic-only door latch mechanism. It should be possible to open the door from both inside and outside the car in case of complete power loss. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
SpaceX Acquires xAI in $1.25 Trillion All-Stock Deal - Elon Musk's SpaceX has acquired his AI startup xAI in an all-stock deal that values the combined entity at $1.25 trillion, ahead of what would be the largest initial public offering in history. SpaceX pegged its own valuation at $1 trillion -- a markup from the $800 billion it commanded in a December secondary stock sale -- and priced xAI at $250 billion based on a recent $20 billion funding round that valued the two-year-old AI company at $230 billion. SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen told investors on a call Monday that shares in the combined company would be priced at $527 and that xAI shares would convert into SpaceX stock at a roughly seven-to-one exchange rate. The company is still targeting a June IPO expected to raise as much as $50 billion, surpassing Saudi Aramco's $29 billion listing in 2019. Musk said the least expensive way to do AI computation within two to three years will be in space. "Global electricity demand for AI simply cannot be met with terrestrial solutions, even in the near term, without imposing hardship on communities and the environment," he wrote. SpaceX filed last Friday for permission to launch up to a million satellites into Earth's orbit. xAI merged with Musk's social media platform X last March in a $113 billion deal, and Tesla announced a $2 billion investment in xAI last week. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A Century of Hair Samples Proves Leaded Gas Ban Worked - Scientists at the University of Utah have analyzed nearly a century's worth of human hair samples and found that lead concentrations dropped 100-fold after the EPA began cracking down on leaded gasoline and other lead-based products in the 1970s. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, drew on hair collected from Utah residents -- some preserved in family scrapbooks going back generations. Lead levels peaked between 1916 and 1969 at around 100 parts per million, fell to 10 ppm by 1990, and dropped below 1 ppm by 2024. The decline largely tracks the phase-out of leaded gasoline after President Nixon established the EPA in 1970; before the agency acted, most gasolines contained about 2 grams of lead per gallon, releasing nearly 2 pounds of lead per person into the environment each year. The study arrives amid the Trump administration's broader push to scale back the EPA. Lead regulations have not yet been targeted, but the authors note concerns about loosened enforcement of the 2024 Lead and Copper rule on replacing old lead pipes. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Leica Camera's Owners Weigh $1.2 Billion Sale of Controlling Stake - The owners of Leica Camera AG -- Austrian billionaire Andreas Kaufmann and private equity giant Blackstone -- are considering a sale of a controlling stake in the German camera maker in a deal that could value the company at about $1.2 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. HSG, formerly known as Sequoia Capital China, and Altor Equity Partners are among a handful of bidders. The Kaufmann family could re-invest following a transaction. Leica traces its roots roughly 150 years to Ernst Leitz's microscope company and was publicly traded on the Frankfurt stock exchange until the Kaufmann family took it private in 2012. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Feds Skipping Infosec Industry's Biggest Conference This Year - An anonymous reader shares a report: The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency won't attend the annual RSA Conference in March, an agency spokesperson confirmed to The Register. Sessions involving speakers from the FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) have also disappeared from the agenda. "Since the beginning of this administration, CISA has made significant progress in returning to our statutory, core mission and focusing on President Trump's policies for maximum security for all Americans," CISA spokesperson Marci McCarthy told us. "CISA has reviewed and determined that we will not participate in the RSA Conference since we regularly review all stakeholder engagements, to ensure maximum impact and good stewardship of taxpayer dollars." McCarthy declined to comment on whether the decision had anything to do with former CISA director Jen Easterly being named chief executive of RSAC last week. Easterly, who was appointed to lead America's top cyber-defense agency under the Biden administration, joined her predecessor and CISA's first-ever director Chris Krebs in President Trump's line of fire back in July. Read more of this story at Slashdot.