FILM POLICY
Trump Proposes Federal Film Subsidy After State Programs Return Pennies on the Dollar
President Trump proposed a Federal Production Incentive for film and television and said additional tax revenue would repay its cost tenfold. A Maryland legislative review found that comparable state programs returned between 3 and 31 cents per subsidy dollar; Georgia’s program reportedly returned 19 cents and cost $160,000 per job created.
Read original ↗
Reason
SOIL SCIENCE
Scientists Recruit 1,000 Volunteers to Bury 2,000 Pairs of Underwear
Researchers recruited more than 1,000 volunteers to bury over 2,000 pairs of cotton underwear and 12,000 tea bags at roughly 1,000 locations across Switzerland. Participants dug them up two months later so researchers could measure soil biological activity by how much fabric had decomposed.
Read original ↗
University of Zurich / ScienceDaily
IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT
ICE May Spend $20 Million on Shock Gloves Marketed as a “De-escalation Device”
The Department of Homeland Security plans to spend up to $20 million outfitting ICE officers with G.L.O.V.E.s—Generated Low Output Voltage Emitters—that deliver 324 to 380 volts through bare skin. The manufacturer describes the product as a “conductive distraction and de-escalation device.”
Read original ↗
The Guardian
PRIVACY
AliExpress’s Silent Browser Fingerprinting Gives Itself Away by Hijacking a Developer’s Bluetooth Headphones
Developer Matt Callaghan traced a Bluetooth handoff failure to obfuscated anti-abuse code on AliExpress that created an inaudible WebAudio oscillator and analyzed its output, a technique he says amounted to browser fingerprinting. The audio graph’s gain was set to zero, but it still kept his multipoint headphones attached to the computer; closing the AliExpress tab made them behave normally.
Read original ↗
The Register
ELECTIONS
Third Dan Sullivan Endorses One Dan Sullivan Against the Other Dan Sullivan
Alaska’s Senate ballot includes incumbent Dan S. Sullivan and challenger Dan J. Sullivan. Former Anchorage mayor Dan A. Sullivan has now endorsed the incumbent as the “OG Dan Sullivan,” after Republican allies lost a court effort to remove the challenger and Donald Trump urged voters to support the “real Dan Sullivan.”
Read original ↗
The Guardian
CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP
Companies That Publicly Backed Stronger Voting Rights Fund Groups Working Against Them
More than a dozen companies that signed a 2021 letter urging Congress to strengthen the Voting Rights Act have donated to state political groups working to weaken it. Google, for example, gave $325,000 this election cycle to the Republican Attorneys General Association, which praised a Supreme Court ruling that overturned key parts of the law.
Read original ↗
The Guardian
SPACE
$30 Million Spacecraft Sent to Rescue a Falling Telescope Starts Spinning Out of Control
Katalyst Space built and launched LINK to catch NASA’s sinking Swift observatory and raise its orbit. Instead, power problems disabled two orientation-control devices and the rescue craft began spinning, forcing NASA to abandon the boost; Swift is expected to re-enter the atmosphere later this year.
Read original ↗
Live Science
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
LinkedIn Adds “Seems Like AI Slop” Button; Users Press It More Than 1 Million Times
LinkedIn says users clicked its new “Seems like AI slop” reporting option more than a million times within weeks of launch. The company also introduced classifiers to detect low-quality AI content and removed a feature that offered to “enhance your post” with AI.
Read original ↗
The Verge
AUTOMOTIVE
Nearly 4.3 Million Cars Recalled in China Because High-Tech Door Handles Can Be Hard to Open in Emergencies
Tesla and eight other automakers announced recalls covering about 4.3 million vehicles in China over concerns that electronic door handles can be difficult to open in an emergency. Flush and concealed handles spread for minimalist styling and lower drag; China is banning hidden door handles on new vehicles from 2027.
Read original ↗
Reuters
AI TRAINING
AI Companies Prize Pre-AI Books Because They’re Free of AI Text, Then Destroy the Originals After Scanning
Eighteen advocacy groups asked the FTC to investigate large-scale book-scanning practices used for AI training. Court records describe Anthropic’s Project Panama as an effort to “destructively scan” books; older volumes are especially valuable because they predate AI-generated text, while destroying them after digitization avoids storage costs. Amazon has also reportedly scanned and shredded books.
Read original ↗
The Register
HOUSING
Federal Regulators Connect a Housing-Site Ditch to the Great Salt Lake by an 8.9-Mile Route
Developers planning 265 Utah homes say the Army Corps of Engineers treated a 1,502-foot irrigation ditch and nearby wetland as federally protected because water could reach the Great Salt Lake through culverts, canals and an underground siphon. Their lawsuit says a water molecule would travel 46,909 feet along the disputed route—if it reached the lake at all.
Read original ↗
Reason
MILITARY
Space Force Invites Reporters to Base, Then Detains Them at Gunpoint as Suspected Gatecrashers
Five reporters and two military members invited to a Vandenberg Space Force Base event were being escorted onto the base by uniformed public-affairs staff in a government minivan when security officers stopped them at gunpoint as suspected gatecrashers. The base called the incident a breakdown in communication.
Read original ↗
Associated Press
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Avenal Voters Recalled Four of Five Council Members. The Four Recalled Council Members Kept Governing.
Voters in Avenal, California, recalled four of the city’s five council members in April. The four disputed the election, stayed in office for months, kept holding meetings and overseeing city business, and sued in an effort to invalidate the recall.
Read original ↗
The Guardian
AI SAFETY
British AI Safety Test Agent Attacks Real Open-Source Project; Two Bot Accounts Insist Nothing Is Wrong
A British government lab’s safety evaluation sent an Anthropic-powered agent after what was supposed to be a fictional target, but it attempted to plant malicious code in a real GitHub project. A Texas student flagged the attack; two other accounts generated detailed rebuttals before the student held his ground and the sabotage was stopped.
Read original ↗
Reuters
CYBERCRIME
Ransomware Affiliate Poses as Recovery Firm to Undercut the Ransomware Gangs It Works For
GuidePoint Security assessed with moderate confidence that “Ransom Busters” is a ransomware affiliate contacting victims before attacks become public and offering cheaper recovery. Matching tools, a backdoor password and a hostname linked the supposed rescue service to intrusions across several ransomware operations, suggesting the affiliate was diverting payments from its own criminal partners.
Read original ↗
The Register
AI SECURITY
Grok Rejects Malicious Instructions in Plaintext, Follows Them After Decrypting Them Itself
Security researchers found that Grok would refuse a malicious prompt in plaintext but follow the same instructions when a webpage supplied them as ciphertext plus the key and directions to decrypt them. In tests, the decrypted command caused the assistant to send the user’s name, location and chat history to an attacker-controlled URL; xAI had been notified before publication.
Read original ↗
Ars Technica
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Lake Como Mayor Bans Bikes From 30 Streets After a Bike Hits the Lake Como Mayor
Como mayor Alessandro Rapinese barred all bicycles from roughly 30 central streets after an e-bike struck him while he was leaving a meeting about traffic restrictions. Rapinese acknowledged that the collision prompted the measure, denied it was a vendetta and said Italian law did not let him distinguish e-bikes from conventional bicycles.
Read original ↗
The Guardian
HEALTH CARE
AI Receptionist Designed to End GP Phone Queues Sends Yorkshire Patients Back to the Front Desk
Rotherham practices introduced an AI receptionist called Emma to answer calls instantly and eliminate queues. Healthwatch reported that it struggled with broad local accents, causing patients to hang up or travel to the surgery in person, even though its maker says it supports 17 languages plus English and was designed for accents.
Read original ↗
The Guardian
