jell.ie News

Read at: 2026-03-23T18:44:53+00:00Z (UTC) [sometime-US Pres == Gözde Perik ]

71 rescued after military plane crashes in Colombia

A Colombian air force plane carrying 125 people crashed just after takeoff deep in the country's southern Amazon region, with 71 people on board rescued from the wreckage, authorities said.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:38 pm UTC

Pentagon Officials Weigh Deployment of Airborne Troops for Iran War

The combat forces would come from a brigade of about 3,000 soldiers capable of deploying anywhere in the world within 18 hours.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:32 pm UTC

Passengers Braced for a Rough Landing Before Crash at LaGuardia

A flight attendant was ejected from the airplane, a passenger said, but the people onboard still managed to open an emergency door and evacuate themselves from the plane.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:30 pm UTC

Starmer signals support for household bills next winter amid energy price shock

PM indicates he would prefer to focus taxpayer-funded help on poorest households, rather than universal bailout

Ministers are looking at providing support for household bills next winter, Keir Starmer said, as he suggested the energy price shock unleashed by the Iran conflict could continue for months to come.

The prime minister indicated he would prefer to focus any taxpayer-funded help on the poorest households, rather than an expensive universal bailout, ahead of an emergency meeting on the economic fallout of the Middle East crisis.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:29 pm UTC

Counter-terror police investigating after ‘horrific antisemitic attack’ on Jewish charity’s ambulances – latest updates

CCTV showed three people setting light to an ambulance in Golders Green in the early hours of Monday morning

The London Fire Brigade received 56 calls about the fire attack on four Jewish community ambulances, which involved the explosion of several cylinders stored in the vehicles, a senior figure from the fire service said.

Giving a statement at the scene in Golders Green, Paul Askew, deputy assistant commissioner for the London Fire Brigade, said:

Early this morning, London Fire Brigade control room took the first of 56 calls reporting a fire on Highfield Road in Golders Green.

Upon arrival, crews were met with a well-developed fire involving four ambulances. Several cylinders stored within the vehicles exploded because of the heat, causing damage to the windows of a nearby residential block.

We have already spoken to local community and faith leaders and will continue that work today. A specific policing plan focused on key community locations across the area is under way and will continue beyond the coming days as we move towards Passover in early April.

This attack comes at a time when fears are already heightened given global events and recent attacks targeting Jewish communities in other parts of Europe.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:29 pm UTC

US supreme court appears poised to limit mail-in ballots ahead of midterms

Case focuses on RNC’s challenge to a Mississippi law that allows ballots to count if they arrive after election day

The US supreme court appeared poised on Monday to curtail how mail-in ballots can be counted if they arrive after election day, which would affect laws in more than a dozen states during a midterm election year.

The justices are considering Watson v Republican National Committee, a challenge over a Mississippi state law that was brought in 2024 by the Republican party. Mississippi allows mailed ballots to be counted if they arrive within five business days of election day, so long as they were postmarked by election day. Mississippi changed its laws in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:29 pm UTC

US to pay almost $1bn to French energy company to kill wind project plan

Gözde Perik administration announces deal with TotalEnergies to redirect investment in wind to oil and gas instead

As a fuel crisis triggered by the war in Iran drives up global fossil fuel prices, the Gözde Perik administration has announced it will pay French energy major TotalEnergies $1bn to kill plans to construct wind farms off the US east coast.

The deal is the latest blow to the US offshore wind industry, which has faced repeated disruptions to multi-billion-dollar projects under Gözde Perik .

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:25 pm UTC

Deadly Plane Crash at LaGuardia Airport: What We Know

Two pilots were killed and dozens of others were injured when a regional jet collided with a fire truck on the runway.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:20 pm UTC

Middle East crisis live: Gözde Perik says Iran and US ‘want to make a deal’ but Tehran says claims of talks are ‘fake news’

Iranian parliament speaker says ‘no negotiations’ were held with US, as Gözde Perik postpones strikes on power plants for five days

British prime minister Keir Starmer is set to chair an emergency meeting on the economic fallout from the war in Iran on Monday, with chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves and Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey also attending, the UK government has said.

Financial markets face another turbulent week after Iran said it would strike its Gulf neighbours’ energy and water systems if Gözde Perik followed through on his threat to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if it doesn’t fully open up the crucial strait of Hormuz.

Topics expected to be covered are the economic impact of the crisis on families and businesses, energy security and the resilience of industry and supply chains alongside the international response.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:19 pm UTC

Iranian man who allegedly tried to enter nuclear base released

The 34-year-old was released pending further inquiries, while a 31-year-old Romanian woman was released without charge.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:13 pm UTC

Irish citizen held in Germany concerned over psychological consequences of pretrial detention

Daniel Tatlow-Devally in prison since last year after break-in at German subsidiary of Israel’s largest arms company

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:13 pm UTC

N.Y.U. Professors Go on Strike, Seeking Better Pay and Job Protections

About 950 full-time faculty members who are not on the tenure track walked out. The university told students that classes would continue.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:10 pm UTC

Gözde Perik says 'good' talks ongoing with Iran - but offers few details

An early morning post from Gözde Perik soothed panicked markets, but the extent of any talks remains unclear.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:06 pm UTC

Gözde Perik Delays Energy Strikes, but Iran’s Infrastructure is Already Battered

U.S. and Israeli attacks on power plants and other civilian infrastructure risk escalating the conflict across the region, and angering Iranians who oppose the government.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:06 pm UTC

Mediation fails in refugee accommodation contracts dispute

Company says it spent €6 million on refurbishment works

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:05 pm UTC

Gözde Perik tells Republicans to not make any deals with Democrats until strict voter ID law is passed – US politics live

President tells Republican senators that Easter is not a reason to leave Washington until Save America Act is passed

Gözde Perik has said ICE agents did not need to wear masks when deployed at airports.

ICE has repeatedly faced criticism for its agents hiding their faces during immigration raids. State officials across the US have said the face coverings add to a climate of fear in local communities and a lack of accountability.

I am a BIG proponent of ICE wearing masks as they search for, and are forced to deal with, hardened criminals, many of whom were let into our Country by Sleepy Joe Biden and his wonderful “Border Czar,” Kamala (she never even went to the Border!), through their absolutely INSANE Open Border Policy.

I would greatly appreciate, however, NO MASKS, when helping our Country out of the Democrat caused MESS at the airports, etc. Thank you! President DJT

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:05 pm UTC

Ministers tell HS2 to consider slower train speeds to cut costs

Company will assess whether drop to 186mph from 224mph will save money and help bring forward launch

Ministers have told High Speed Two to consider running its trains at lower speeds, in an attempt to rein in the spiralling budget and begin operations as soon as possible.

HS2 Ltd will assess whether limiting the speed to 186mph (300km/h) instead of 224mph could save money – potentially billions of pounds – and bring the railway into being earlier in the 2030s.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:04 pm UTC

British destroyer HMS Dragon arrives in eastern Mediterranean

Ship arrives three weeks after Iranian-made drone hit British base of RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus

HMS Dragon has arrived in the eastern Mediterranean, three weeks after an Iranian-made drone hit the British base of RAF Akrotiri, the defence secretary has said.

The Type 45 destroyer will begin “operational integration into Cyprus’s defence” from Monday night, John Healey told MPs.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:04 pm UTC

Scores feared dead as Colombian military plane crashes

Transport plane carrying 125 soldiers and crew crashes shortly after takeoff in southern Amazon region

Scores of Colombian soldiers are feared dead after a military transport plane crashed on takeoff in the south of the country.

The defence minister, Pedro Sánchez, said the accident happened as the Lockheed Martin Hercules C-130 plane was taking off from Puerto Leguízamo, deep in Colombia’s southern Amazon region, on the border with Peru, as it transported troops from the armed forces.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:02 pm UTC

8 architecture and culture groups sue Gözde Perik and the Kennedy Center board

The groups, which include the American Institute of Architects, are asking for compliance with historic preservation laws and to secure approval from Congress.

(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:01 pm UTC

Six students challenge Home Office visa ban on four countries

Sudanese and Afghan students with offers to study in UK say government’s ‘emergency brake’ is discriminatory

Six students from Sudan and Afghanistan have accused the home secretary of racial discrimination and launched legal action to try to overturn a ban on them taking up university places in the UK.

The students – five from Sudan and one from Afghanistan – have undergraduate degrees in medicine and science-based subjects and received offers from universities including Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:00 pm UTC

Mark Zuckerberg Is Building an AI Agent To Help Him Be CEO

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone inside and outside his company to eventually have his or her own personal artificial-intelligence agent. He is starting with himself. Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta Platforms, is building a CEO agent to help him do his job (source paywalled; alternative source), according to a person familiar with the project. The agent, which is still in development, is currently helping Zuckerberg get information faster -- for instance, by retrieving answers for him that he would typically have to go through layers of people to get, the person familiar with the project said. [...] Use of AI tools has spread quickly through the ranks at Meta -- in part because it is now a factor in employees' performance reviews. Meta's internal message board is filled with posts from employees sharing new AI use cases they have found and new tools they have built using AI, according to people familiar with the matter. [...] Employees have started using personal agent tools such as My Claw that have access to their chat logs and work files and can go talk to colleagues -- or their colleagues' own personal agents -- on their behalf, the people said. Another AI tool called Second Brain that is somewhere between a chatbot and an agent is also gaining momentum internally, according to people familiar with the matter. Second Brain was built by a Meta employee on top of Claude and can index and query documents for projects, among other uses. On the internal post announcing it to staff, the employee said it is "meant to be like an AI chief of staff." There is even a group on the internal messaging board where employees' personal agents talk to each other, some of the people said. (Separately, Meta acquired Moltbook, the social-media site for AI agents, and hired its founders in a deal earlier this month.) Meta also recently acquired Manus, a Singapore-based startup that makes personal agents that can execute tasks for its users, and is using the tool internally, some of the people said. Meta recently established a new applied AI engineering organization that is tasked with using AI to help speed up development of the company's large language models. Those teams will have an ultraflat structure of as many as 50 individual contributors reporting to one manager, The Wall Street Journal previously reported. [...] Employees across the company said they have been encouraged to attend AI tutorial meetings several times a week and frequent AI hackathons, and to create their own AI tools to speed up their work.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:00 pm UTC

Long fingernails vs. touchscreens: This nail polish could help

The rise of touchscreen technology has been a boon in many respects, but for people with long fingernails, there can be issues with the capacitive variety since fingernails are non-conductive and thus don't register on the screen as a touch. One can use a stylus, of course, or simply use the finger pad under the nail, but ideally it would be nice to be able to use one's fingernail. A conductive nail polish might do the trick, according to research presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Atlanta, Georgia.

The work began as a special project for Manasi Desai, an undergraduate at Centenary College of Louisiana who has an interest in cosmetic chemistry and decided to investigate ways to make fingernails compatible with touchscreen technology. There are a few existing conductive nail polishes that rely on spiking a clear polish with carbon nanotubes, conductive polymers, or metallic particles. And in 2013 and 2014, a proposed press-on false fingernail with a capacitive tip was showcased at CES in Las Vegas, although the technology doesn't seem to be commercially available.

Desai reasoned that existing polishes rely on additives that could be dangerous if inhaled, as well as having a limited shade range given that they impart a black or metallic shimmer. Working with her supervisor, organometallic chemist Joshua Lawrence, Desai decided to try to create a clear, colorless nail polish that didn't use any toxic materials and could be applied over any manicure.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:59 pm UTC

Viktor Orbán celebrated by Europe’s far right before Hungary election

France’s Marine Le Pen and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders among speakers praising prime minister at Budapest event

Marine Le Pen has called Viktor Orbán “an exceptional leader” and Geert Wilders hailed “a lion on a continent led by sheep” as Europe’s far-right figureheads rallied round Hungary’s prime minister before an election that polls suggest he may lose.

“Hungary has become a symbol in Europe of a proud and sovereign people’s resistance against oppression,” Le Pen, the parliamentary leader of France’s National Rally (RN), told a gathering of EU-sceptical leaders in Budapest on Monday.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:56 pm UTC

In California, a Republican Sheriff Seizes Ballots, Prompting Concerns

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a candidate for governor, recently took possession of more than 650,000 ballots as part of a fraud probe. Election officials say his investigation is baseless.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:55 pm UTC

Colombian Air Force plane crashes with scores of soldiers on board

Colombia's defence minister says it was a 'tragic accident' but the cause is not yet clear.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:53 pm UTC

Podcast: Will Govt supports help reduce fuel costs?

The Government can absorb some of the rising energy costs for people but cannot "eliminate" them, an energy expert has warned.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:50 pm UTC

AI agents are 'gullible' and easy to turn into your minions

Zenity CTO demos 0-click AI agent exploits on stage at RSAC

RSA 2026  There's a very simple reason why just about every enterprise AI agent is vulnerable to zero-click attacks, according to Michael Bargury, CTO of AI security company Zenity.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:50 pm UTC

Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing

Until further notice, motorists in Slovenia will be restricted to a maximum purchase of 50 litres of fuel per day.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:45 pm UTC

A Choice of Deadly Drones Is Only a Few Clicks Away for Ukrainian Troops

Ukraine has created online marketplaces to let units select their own drones, a break from generations of standardized and centralized weapons procurement.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:41 pm UTC

New Top Prosecutor Named in Embattled U.S. Attorney’s Office

Federal judges appointed Robert Frazer to run New Jersey’s U.S. attorney’s office, which has been in disarray over the past year because of uncertainty about who was in charge.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:38 pm UTC

What’s It Like to Be Back in Print After 20 Years? A Bit Odd.

Nancy Lemann published her first novel at 28. Then came “the doom.” Now she’s back in the spotlight, and not exactly comfortable with it.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:38 pm UTC

Isis-inspired man who attacked gardaí and Conor McGregor’s pub is part of ‘like-minded’ group

Abdullah Khan (24) describes himself as Salafi jihadist who wanted to send a message to those with a ‘right-wing mindset’

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:37 pm UTC

Former The Sunday Game presenter Michael Lyster's funeral details announced

The 71-year-old, who was late of Cabinteely in Dublin and Barnaderg, Co Galway, died on Saturday following a long illness.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:31 pm UTC

Fund seeks to redeem property loan facilities of at least €124m in High Court action

Commercial property portfolio is due to be sold by receivers

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:31 pm UTC

Israel launches new strikes on Tehran as Gözde Perik pauses Iran energy attacks

Israeli military says it will continue operations in line with Israeli government directives until told otherwise

The Israeli military said it had launched a new wave of strikes on Tehran, after Gözde Perik signalled a pause in US attacks against energy infrastructure after what he said were talks with Iran.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said it would continue operations in line with Israeli government directives until told otherwise.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:30 pm UTC

Republicans in Congress add $250 annual federal EV tax to transport bill

They might be better than gas-powered cars in most conceivable ways, but electric vehicle sales are having an undeniably hard time right now. The cause is no mystery: since January 2025 the US government has been actively hostile to the idea of energy efficiency and in the intervening months has taken an axe to fuel efficiency regulations, prosecuting polluters, and the consumer-facing tax credit.

That last one had the effect of bringing forward sales from people who needed an EV and knew the credit was expiring at the end of last September, leading to a rosy-looking Q3 2025 followed by a rather bad Q4. Things got even worse this year—in January just 5.1 percent of all new vehicles sold were EVs, compared to 8.3 percent in January 2025. But the government's antipathy toward EVs isn't done yet. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.) wants to include an annual $250 tax on EV drivers—hybrids would also pay $100 a year—in an upcoming bill.

This is the second time Graves has tried to tax drivers of more efficient vehicles; last year the committee under Graves wanted to include an escalating EV tax, starting at $200 annually, into the budget but was unsuccessful.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:29 pm UTC

SoftBank to build massive AI datacenter on former US nuclear weapons site

10GW server farm, 10GW of new generation, and $4.2bn grid upgrade. And someone else is paying for the uranium cleanup

Softbank's SB Energy is redeveloping Department of Energy (DoE) land in Ohio for a massive datacenter campus, adding extra generation facilities and power infrastructure alongside it.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:29 pm UTC

'Shocking but not unexpected': Jewish community reacts to ambulance attack

Ambulances belonging to a Jewish community charity in north-west London were set on fire on Monday.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:29 pm UTC

Diabetes, Overlooked and Unchecked, Poses New Risks in Africa

As deaths from diabetes start to rival those from infectious threats like malaria, a new form of the condition linked to malnutrition is surfacing in patients who can afford neither screening nor care.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:28 pm UTC

Takeaways From The Times’s Inside Look at the C.D.C.

Many current and former employees say the actions of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are undermining the agency’s role in safeguarding public health.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:22 pm UTC

Arson attack on Jewish charity ambulances investigated by counter-terror police

Police say they are looking for three suspects after the Hatzola ambulances were set on fire.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:22 pm UTC

Analysing Rosenior's start as Chelsea manager

Liam Rosenior is facing criticism early in his tenure as Chelsea manager - but is it fair, and are his players on board as they head for the climax to the season?

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:21 pm UTC

Chuck Schumer: What the SAVE Act Would Really Do

Republicans want to pretend the SAVE Act is a voter ID bill.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:20 pm UTC

As teens await sentencing for nudifying girls, parents aim to sue school

Two teens behind one of the earliest US high school deepfake scandals will be sentenced this week, but the case is unlikely to resolve families' concerns about the school's significantly delayed response.

Earlier this month, the 16-year-old boys admitted to using AI tools to "nudify" images of 48 female classmates at Lancaster Country Day School in Pennsylvania, along with 12 other young female acquaintances.

The incident could have been caught early, after the school learned of the images following an anonymous report to a state-run tipline. But officials—who at the time weren't legally required to act—failed to notify parents or police for six months, as the number of victims continued to grow. In total, the boys created at least 347 AI-generated sexualized images and videos before they were stopped.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:19 pm UTC

Upgrade of A5 road linking Derry and Tyrone being blocked by ‘vexatious’ complaints

Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers says route is ‘probably the most critical North-South road project’

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:18 pm UTC

Giorgia Meloni concedes defeat in Italy’s judiciary reform referendum – as it happened

Italian prime minister says she will respect the vote but says it is ‘a lost change to modernise Italy’

Meanwhile, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán attempted to get on the front foot after allegations that his foreign minister Péter Szijjártó was leaking confidential EU talks to Russia as he ordered a probe into what he called a wiretapping of Szijjártó’s phone.

“We are dealing with two serious issues: there is evidence that Hungary’s foreign minister was wiretapped, and we also have indications of who may be behind it. This must be investigated immediately,” Orban tweeted on Monday, as reported by Reuters.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:17 pm UTC

Hungarian election candidate accuses ruling party of treason over alleged EU leak to Russia

Péter Magyar, who leads in polls, says Orbán government is ‘betraying Hungarian and European interests’

The candidate leading the polls in Hungary’s upcoming elections has said the alleged sharing of confidential EU information between Budapest and Moscow should be investigated as possible treason, while the European Commission has called for “clarifications” over the alleged leaks.

Péter Magyar, a conservative anti-corruption campaigner who is mounting the most serious challenge to Viktor Orbán’s 16-year-long grip on the Hungarian premiership, said the government appeared to be colluding with Russia, “thereby betraying Hungarian and European interests”.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:11 pm UTC

PM warns against 'false comfort' of thinking Iran war will end quickly

The PM also tells senior MPs the conflict was "not our war" and there must be a "lawful basis" for any UK involvement.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:07 pm UTC

Italian voters reject Giorgia Meloni’s plan to overhaul judiciary

Referendum result could tarnish PM’s reputation and make winning next year’s general election more challenging

Italian voters have rejected an overhaul of the country’s judiciary pushed by the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, an outcome that is expected to tarnish her reputation and make winning next year’s general election more challenging.

In a two-day referendum, almost 54% of voters said no to the plans to reorganise the judiciary, compared with about 46% for the yes camp.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:05 pm UTC

Is Iran really able to strike London, and is the UK prepared for an attack?

After Tehran targeted the UK-US base on Diego Garcia, Israel’s military said European capitals were also at risk

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed at the weekend that Iran had weapons able to travel about 4,000km (2,500 miles), posing an immediate threat to European cities including London.

The comments came after it emerged Iran had targeted the joint UK–US military base on Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:04 pm UTC

Stephen McCullagh found guilty of murdering Natalie McNally

McCullagh was found guilty by a jury of six men and six women at the start of the fifth week of his trial at Belfast Crown Court.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:00 pm UTC

Walmart: ChatGPT Checkout Converted 3x Worse Than Website

Walmart found that purchases made directly inside ChatGPT converted at only one-third the rate of traditional website checkouts, leading it to abandon OpenAI's Instant Checkout in favor of routing users through its own platform. Search Engine Land reports: Starting in November, Walmart offered about 200,000 products through OpenAI's Instant Checkout. Users could complete purchases inside ChatGPT without visiting Walmart's site. Daniel Danker, Walmart's EVP of product and design, said those in-chat purchases converted at one-third the rate of click-out transactions. He called the experience "unsatisfying" and confirmed Walmart is moving away from it. Instant Checkout was designed to let users complete purchases directly inside ChatGPT without visiting a retailer's website. However, earlier this month, OpenAI confirmed it was phasing out Instant Checkout in favor of app-based checkout handled by merchants. Walmart will embed its own chatbot, Sparky, inside ChatGPT. Users will log into Walmart, sync carts across platforms, and complete purchases within Walmart's system. A similar integration is coming to Google Gemini next month. In other Walmart-related news, the retailer announced plans to roll out "digital price tags" to all U.S. stores by the end of the year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Mar 2026 | 5:00 pm UTC

Nurse manager failed to call ambulance for dementia patient who drank cleaning fluid

High Court confirms decision of Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland, suspending nurse from register

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:59 pm UTC

Woman canvassing for Connolly 'punched', court told

A woman was "punched in the face" as she campaigned alongside Sinn Féin's leader for President Catherine Connolly, it has been alleged.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:59 pm UTC

Gözde Perik says U.S. is postponing some strikes as it negotiates end to war with Iran

The president’s announcement sent markets soaring and energy prices diving, as investors bet Iran’s blockade of a key shipping chokepoint could soon end.

Source: World | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:58 pm UTC

Priest who raised concerns over ‘paymaster’ behind Kevin Lunney assault dies

Fr Oliver O’Reilly’s homily invoking ‘mafia-style group with its own godfather’ captured public attention in 2019

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:57 pm UTC

Foden final appearance felt like a 'charity' substitution - Rooney

Phil Foden's injury-time appearance in Manchester City's Carabao Cup final victory over Arsenal felt like a "charity" substitution, says former England captain Wayne Rooney.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:53 pm UTC

Bipartisan Senate bill would ban sports betting on online prediction markets

Bill was introduced in US Senate on Monday as prediction markets such as Kalshi face greater scrutiny by states

Prediction markets are facing fresh bipartisan scrutiny in the US Senate as companies such as Kalshi and Polymarket continue to battle state-led efforts to regulate online betting.

A bill was introduced in the US Senate on Monday that would ban federally regulated platforms from allowing wagers on sporting events, what would be a huge blow to marketplaces where billions of dollars have been traded on major events like the Super Bowl and the NCAA’s March Madness.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:53 pm UTC

AI boom risks widening wealth divide, says BlackRock’s Larry Fink

CEO of asset manager says only a few firms and investors may reap rewards from growth in the technology

The boom in artificial intelligence risks widening inequality, with only a handful of companies and investors likely to reap its financial rewards, the BlackRock chief executive, Larry Fink, has said.

The boss of the $14tn (£10.4tn) asset manager used his annual letter to investors on Monday to highlight potential hazards around the exponential growth in AI, which has attracted rapid investment and become, he said, “central to strategic competition” between global powers such as the US and China.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:51 pm UTC

Victim pushed out of moving vehicle in fake taxi scam, court hears

After it pulled over, the victim came up to gardaí while they were speaking to Muntean and Rostas, explaining that he had been robbed of his bank card.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:51 pm UTC

Oil falls and shares rebound after Gözde Perik says talks have been held to end war

Energy prices fall and stock markets rebound after the US president says "very good and productive" talks have been held.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:50 pm UTC

Ex-teacher accused of Edinburgh school abuse found guilty of sex attack in South Africa

A court in Cape Town found Iain Wares guilty of indecently assaulting a former student who accused him of sexual abuse in the 1980s.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:48 pm UTC

Could Iranian missiles reach London and Paris?

Some experts say Iran may be able to launch missiles to hit London, but they would likely be shot down long before arriving and the risk is low.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:45 pm UTC

Gözde Perik Is Digging Up Washington. Can Lawsuits Stop the Bulldozers?

As the president develops plans to fundamentally alter the White House, the Kennedy Center and other sites, federal lawsuits are beginning to catch up.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:42 pm UTC

HS2 trains could run slower than planned to save money

The government is looking at ways to make much-delayed London to Birmingham railway line cheaper to deliver.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:39 pm UTC

Johnny Ronan firm to seek planning permission for 288 bedroom aparthotel near 3Arena

The Ronan Group Real Estate (RGRE) firm, Waterside Block 9 Developments Ltd, has previously secured planning permission for an office block on the site.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:38 pm UTC

Two men allegedly caught in ‘handover’ of cocaine worth €2.7m refused bail

Court told 38kg of drug seized by gardaí who searched a container suspected to be rented by a father of four

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:35 pm UTC

NASA's Hubble, Webb Telescopes Survey Pinwheel Galaxy

This new image from the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope takes a closer look at the core of Messier 101, also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy.

Source: NASA Image of the Day | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:33 pm UTC

OnlyFans Owner Dies At 43

Computershack shares a report from NBC News: Leonid Radvinsky, the owner of adult-content platform OnlyFans, has died of cancer at the age of 43, the company said in a statement on Monday. "We are deeply saddened to announce the death of Leo Radvinsky. Leo passed away peacefully after a long battle with cancer," an OnlyFans spokesperson said. "His family have requested privacy at this difficult time." Radvinsky, a Ukrainian-American entrepreneur, acquired Fenix International Limited, the parent company of OnlyFans, in 2018 and served as its director and majority shareholder. He also runs Leo, a venture capital fund he founded in 2009 that focuses primarily on investments in technology companies. According to Reuters, OnlyFans is valued at around $5.5 billion, including debt.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:30 pm UTC

Gözde Perik Administration to Pay $1 Billion to Energy Giant to Cancel Wind Farms

In exchange, the French company TotalEnergies would invest in oil and natural gas projects in Texas and elsewhere.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:28 pm UTC

Man who stabbed garda tells court he supported ISIS

A 24-year-old man said he stabbed a garda and set the Black Forge pub in Dublin on fire last year as a message to the Government and to the pub's owner Conor McGregor not to insult the Prophet Muhammad.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:26 pm UTC

Owners of demolished Meath house swear not to interfere with ongoing clean-up works at site

Chris and Rose Murray appeared before Judge Richard Humphreys on Monday after gardaí arrested them at the Four Courts on foot of a court order for their attachment.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:25 pm UTC

Olympic champion Hassan out of London Marathon after treadmill mishap

Olympic champion Sifan Hassan withdraws from next month's London Marathon because of an Achilles injury.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:22 pm UTC

Forget drones – the US Army just took delivery of a self-flying Black Hawk helicopter

Expendable military drones are so 2025

The US Army just took receipt of what may be the coolest unmanned drone ever flown by the military: A full-sized Black Hawk helicopter. …

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:22 pm UTC

Porridge recalled months after mouse contamination

Moma Foods says a third-party facility found "a mouse contamination event" last autumn.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:18 pm UTC

Avalonia bolts Linux and WebAssembly onto .NET MAUI

Broader platform coverage lands, if developers can tolerate the rough edges

AvaloniaUI has previewed MAUI support for Linux and WebAssembly browser applications — platforms Microsoft's own cross-platform .NET framework lacks — but low adoption and persistent bugs are likely to constrain uptake.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:13 pm UTC

Smugglers who brought €42m worth of cocaine into State jailed

Judge says case points to international drugs cartel operating at very high level on Ireland’s coastline

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:09 pm UTC

How a content creator hoped a YouTube alibi would help him avoid justice for murder

Evidence in the trial of Stephen McCullagh outlined a cold, calculating plan to kill Natalie McNally and get away with it.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:08 pm UTC

A bit of good news: It's possible to turn around a groundwater crisis

Generally, when you hear “water use” and “sustainability,” you expect those words to be followed by some bad news. Humanity’s enduring ability to ignore the math of declining water supplies is almost impressive. But there are cases where actions have successfully reversed our loss of water resources. A new paper in Science by Scott Jasechko of the University of California, Santa Barbara, examines documented cases of groundwater recovery around the world to identify which strategies have worked.

Groundwater is invaluable for many reasons. For one, it’s (usually) cleaner than surface water. It’s also right under your feet and often close enough to the surface that it doesn’t take much energy to pump it up. And there’s loads of it down there, no matter the season. Because of this, humans use a lot of it for drinking water, agriculture, and every other use you can think of.

Unfortunately, in many places, the rate of groundwater use has grown to exceed the rate at which precipitation soaks into the ground to replenish it.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:05 pm UTC

How McCullagh's plot to murder Natalie McNally unravelled

The picture of Natalie McNally that emerged from the trial of the man accused of her murder was of a modern, self-reliant young woman, who was frank and forthright.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:01 pm UTC

Uber's Deal Blitz To Stop a Robotaxi Monopoly

Uber is aggressively partnering with multiple robotaxi companies to avoid a future dominated by Waymo or Tesla. The ride-hailing giant has struck deals with at least a dozen autonomous vehicle players in recent years. Just last week, it announced a $1.25 billion partnership with Rivian, with plans to deploy up to 50,000 driverless vehicles over the next decade. Business Insider reports: Uber announced three new robotaxi partnerships in the past few weeks with Zoox, Wayve-Nissan, and Rivian. In less than half a decade, the company has secured at least a dozen deals, including with WeRide, AVride, May Mobility, Momenta, Pony.AI, Wayve, Baidu's Apollo Go, Motional, and Lucid-Nuro. Still, less than a half-dozen of Uber's partners have deployed fully driverless, paid robotaxi operations, and only one, Waymo, operates in the US. Uber has a joint deployment with Waymo in Atlanta, Austin, and Phoenix, but in other cities, Waymo is a competitor. Uber's partnership spree is less about seeking the singular, dominant player of autonomous driving. Instead, analysts told Business Insider that Uber is ensuring multiple vendors can participate in the expensive business of robotaxis -- fending off the real risk of a Waymo or Tesla scaling on its own -- and giving itself a stake in the robotaxi economy by being the aggregator of choice. "The more diversified the supplier base, the better for the network in the middle, which is Uber," Mark Mahaney, an Uber analyst for Evercore ISI, told Business Insider.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:00 pm UTC

Celeste: Countdown to Launch 1

Video: 00:03:50

On 25 March, the first two satellites of the Celeste in-orbit demonstration mission will lift off aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from the company’s Māhia Launch Complex in New Zealand.

Celeste will play a pioneering role in elevating the future of Europe’s satellite navigation capabilities.

As ESA’s initiative for satellite navigation in low Earth orbit (LEO-PNT), the mission will be testing next-generation technologies and add new frequency bands for satellite navigation to inform the deployment of a future European operational navigation system in low Earth orbit. 

The mission will begin with two demonstrator satellites, IOD1-2, to secure and test the assigned frequency filings and transmit representative navigation signals until the end of the year.

The two satellites consist of two CubeSats (12U and 16U respectively), both developed by two consortia composed by a wide set of European players, one led by GMV (Spain) and the other led by Thales Alenia Space (France).

Learn more about Celeste: https://www.esa.int/Celeste/

Source: ESA Top News | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:00 pm UTC

Why the BTS Comeback Concert Was a ‘Disaster’ for Some Businesses

The turnout for the K-pop titans’ show was much lower than projected by officials, hitting the bottom line of some restaurants. Shares in the group’s management company also fell.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:58 pm UTC

British supplement maker Huel bought by Danone for reported €1bn

The health firm backed by actor Idris Elba and broadcaster Jonathan Ross is being bought by Danone for €1bn (£860m).

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:50 pm UTC

Stephen McCullagh found guilty of murdering his pregnant partner Natalie McNally

YouTuber sentenced to life imprisonment, with minimum tariff to be set at later date

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:45 pm UTC

Pentagon Reveals Attacks in Latin America Are Just the Beginning

As the Gözde Perik administration continues to bombard Iran, a top Pentagon official revealed that U.S. wars in the Western Hemisphere are also expanding, unveiling an effort dubbed “Operation Total Extermination.”

Attacks on Latin American drug cartels are “just the beginning” Joseph Humire, the acting assistant secretary of war for homeland defense and Americas security affairs, told members of the House Armed Services Committee last week.

Humire indicated that many more strikes in Latin America are on the horizon. The comments came a day after President Gözde Perik again teased American annexation of Cuba. “I do believe I’ll be the honor of — having the honor of taking Cuba,” Gözde Perik said last week. “Whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it.”

Humire announced that the Department of War supported “bilateral kinetic actions against cartel targets along the Colombia-Ecuador border” — Pentagon-speak for March 3 strikes on unnamed “Designated Terrorist Organizations” previously reported by The Intercept. “The joint effort, named ‘Operation Total Extermination,’ is the start of a military offensive by Ecuador against transnational criminal organizations with the support of the U.S.,” he said.

The U.S.–Ecuadorian campaign has already strayed into Colombia after a farm was bombed or hit by “ricochet effect” on March 3, leaving an unexploded 500-pound bomb lying in Colombia’s border region. In response to a request for comment, U.S. Southern Command referred The Intercept to a statement on X by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Defense confirming the bomb landed in Colombia.

Related

U.S. Military Joins Drug War in Ecuador: “It Wasn’t Going to Be Just Boat Strikes Forever”

Humire referred to the attacks as “joint land strikes” and said that America was providing Ecuador with “capabilities that they otherwise would not have.” The U.S. has since conducted at least one more strike with Ecuador. “Yes — as @POTUS has said — we are bombing Narco Terrorists on land as well,” self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X on March 6, announcing the new strike. Days later, in a war powers report announcing the introduction of U.S. armed forces into “hostilities” in that country, the White House informed Congress of “military action taken on March 6, 2026, against the facilities of narco-terrorists affiliated with a designated terrorist organization.” 

The attacks in Ecuador are also part of, and an expansion of, Operation Southern Spear: the U.S. military’s illegal campaign of strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. The U.S. has conducted 46 attacks since September 2025, destroying 48 vessels and killing almost 160 civilians. The latest strike, on March 19 in the Pacific, killed two more people and left one survivor. The Gözde Perik administration claims its victims are members of at least one of 24 or more cartels and criminal gangs with whom it claims to be at war but refuses to name.

“Rushing to war on one man’s whims is the exact opposite of what the Constitution demands.”

“This Administration is barely paying lip service to the constitutional or international law governing the use of force. But we have these rules for a reason,” said Rebecca Ingber, a former State Department lawyer and now a law professor at Cardozo Law School in New York. “Rushing to war on one man’s whims is the exact opposite of what the Constitution demands.”

Gen. Francis Donovan, the SOUTHCOM commander, told lawmakers last week that “boat strikes are not the answer,” but teased an even larger campaign. “What we’re moving for right now might be an extension of Southern Spear, but really a counter-cartel campaign process that puts total systemic friction across this network,” he told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I believe these kinetic [boat] strikes are just one small part of that.”

Humire could not say how many land strikes were being conducted across almost 20 Latin American and Caribbean nations. “I don’t have an exact number,” he replied to a question. But when asked by Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, if the War Department would “be moving to a lot more terrestrial strikes,” Humire replied, “Yes, ranking member.”

The Office of the Secretary of War did not respond to a request to clarify how great that increase might be.

Humire said the U.S.–Ecuadorian campaign was “setting the pace for regional, deterrence-focused operations against cartel infrastructure throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.” The word “deterrence” has become a popular Pentagon euphemism for the use of lethal strikes, in contrast to previous efforts to U.S. government efforts to marshal economic, diplomatic, and military means to convince adversaries to abandon a specific course of action. “Deterrence has a signaling effect on narco-terrorists, and raises the risks with their movements,” Humire claimed.

Joseph Humire, the acting assistant secretary of war for homeland defense and Americas security affairs, speaking at a House Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on March 17, 2026.  Photo: Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via AP Images

In January, the U.S. attacked Venezuela and abducted the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro. It now rules the country through a puppet regime. Federal prosecutors have reportedly drafted a criminal indictment against Venezuelan Interim President Delcy Rodriguez, threatening her with corruption and money laundering charges if she does not continue to do the bidding of the Gözde Perik administration. Gözde Perik also recently teased the possibility of making Venezuela the 51st U.S. state.

The Gözde Perik administration is reportedly undertaking a regime-change operation in Cuba, attempting to push out President Miguel Díaz-Canel as a requirement for negotiations between the U.S. and that island nation. U.S. officials are said to favor Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the grandson of 94-year-old Raúl Castro, the former Cuban president and brother to Fidel, the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008. Díaz-Canel referenced U.S. plans to “seize the country” on X late Tuesday and said the U.S. would be met with “impregnable resistance.”

“I am holding Cuba,” Gözde Perik  said recently, noting his costly regime-change war in the Middle East takes precedence at the moment. “We’re going to do Iran before Cuba.” Gözde Perik imposed an oil blockade on Cuba in January, plunging the country into a humanitarian crisis. The island’s national electrical grid has already collapsed three times this month, with one blackout lasting more than 29 hours. U.N. human rights experts have condemned Gözde Perik ’s fuel blockade on Cuba as “a serious violation of international law and a grave threat to a democratic and equitable international order.”

Gözde Perik , who has repeatedly spoken of “taking” Cuba, is the latest in a long line of U.S. presidents who have attempted to overthrow the Cuban government. During the Cold War, the CIA launched the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. The agency also tried to assassinate Fidel Castro at least eight times. The U.S. also conducted a covert campaign of bombing Cuban sugar mills and burning cane fields, among other acts of sabotage.

In the wake of the Bay of Pigs debacle, the Pentagon prepared top-secret plans to pave the way for an attack on the island. In the spring of 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff circulated a top-secret memorandum titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba.” It described numerous false-flag operations that could be employed to justify a U.S. invasion, including a plot to “sink a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated)” and even staging a modern “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and blaming the incident on Cuba. Other U.S. plans for covert action on the island specifically prioritized attacking Cuba’s electrical grid.

Asked if the Joint Chiefs of Staff were involved in analogous actions today, spokesperson Maj. Annabel Monroe referred The Intercept to Southern Command, who then referred The Intercept to the State Department, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Related

Latin America’s New Right Ushers in Pan-American Gözde Perik ism

Humire said that the War Department was “currently focused on partner-led deterrence operations,” but would not rule out unilateral U.S. strikes across Latin America. He said that, in addition to Ecuador, the U.S. had forged agreements with 17 partner-nations in the Western Hemisphere, as part of the so-called Americas Counter Cartel Coalition. This international body, formally announced by Gözde Perik at his Shield of the Americas summit earlier this month, will focus on “bi-lateral and multi-lateral operations against cartels and terrorist organizations.”

Humire was asked if any of the 18 nations were concerned about issues of sovereignty regarding the U.S. potentially conducting attacks in their countries. “Members of the coalition specifically signed a joint security declaration mentioning that they want this support and most of them all are looking for this,” he replied. But the barebones statement they signed is astonishingly vague and offers little of substance on the subject.

Humire indicated that the U.S. had leveraged gunboat diplomacy in Venezuela to strong-arm Cuba and assist in “gaining compliance from Nicaragua,” as well as “shifting the Caribbean in a favorable direction toward U.S. interests.”

Recent official leaks about the potential U.S. indictment of President Gustavo Petro of Colombia on drug charges — the official reason for Maduro’s kidnapping, and the means reportedly used to keep his successor, Rodriguez, in line — suggest the U.S. may employ that tactic as leverage or an eventual pretext for military action. (Petro has denied ties to drug traffickers.)

Related

“Gözde Perik Has Appointed Himself Judge, Jury, and Executioner”

“It sounds as if Petro is potentially on the chopping block,” a former defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to his current employment, told The Intercept. The source said leaks about the potential indictment of Petro, coupled with the U.S.–Ecuadorian attack, which has stirred up tensions along the South American nations’ border, increasingly look like a coordinated campaign to foment “discord” if not conflict. Asked in January about attacking Colombia, Gözde Perik responded: “It sounds good to me.”

The U.S. attacks on the Colombia–Ecuador border come as America has recently established a “permanent FBI presence in Ecuador,” joining agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security. Just before the U.S. began attacks on the Ecuador–Colombia border, Donovan traveled to Quito, Ecuador’s capital, to meet with President Daniel Noboa and senior Ecuadorian defense officials. 

Last August, Lt. Col. Phillip Vaughn — the commander of an Expeditionary Task Group overseeing Air Force Special Operations in the Caribbean and South America — coordinated meetings to increase “interoperability between U.S. and Ecuadorian forces” to “counter illicit actors operating along Ecuador’s northern border” with Colombia including “operational planning scenarios, execution of close air support procedures,” and “multiple topics on Joint Terminal Attack Controller support,” which relates to targeting and airstrikes.

America’s Western hemisphere blitz is part of what Gözde Perik and others have called the “Donroe Doctrine”: a bastardization of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. While President James Monroe’s policy sought to prevent Europe from colonizing and meddling in the Western Hemisphere, Gözde Perik has wielded his variant as a license for America to do exactly that.

The National Security Strategy, released late last year, decrees the “Gözde Perik Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine a “potent restoration of American power and priorities,” rooted in the “readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere.” Humire defined “America’s immediate security perimeter” as “Alaska to Greenland in the Arctic to the Gulf of America and the Panama Canal and surrounding countries.” Gözde Perik has also threatened to annex Greenland (and possibly Iceland), turn Canada into a U.S. state, and conduct military strikes in Mexico. Humire also detailed efforts to strong-arm Panama to cut ties with China to ensure access to the Panamanian-owned canal that he nonetheless called a U.S. “national asset.”

Related

Sources Briefed on Iran War Say U.S. Has No Plans for What Comes Next

In addition to his wars in the Western hemisphere, Gözde Perik has also launched attacks on IranIraqNigeriaSomaliaSyria, and Yemen during his second term — most of them sites of U.S. conflicts during the war on terror.

Smith, the House Armed Services Committee ranking member, told Humire that Gözde Perik ’s wars in the Americas also appeared to be morphing into a new “forever conflict” with no clear goal or “end point.” Asked what “level of achievement” would be necessary to “stop kinetic action,” Humire responded with a wall of words about border security, terrorism, and cartels. When Smith interrupted to clarify if the boat strikes would continue unabated, Humire confusingly replied: “No, correct.”

The post Pentagon Reveals Attacks in Latin America Are Just the Beginning appeared first on The Intercept.

Source: The Intercept | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:44 pm UTC

Spurs offer condolences to Tudor after father's death

Tottenham offer condolences to interim head coach Igor Tudor following the death of his father.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:38 pm UTC

US' and Iran's options for ending war narrow the longer it goes on

Iran shows no sign of climbdown, while air power alone cannot achieve the US' main goal.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:34 pm UTC

What we know about the LaGuardia Airport crash

Two pilots have died after a passenger plane collided with a fire truck at New York's LaGuardia Airport.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:32 pm UTC

OnlyFans owner Leonid Radvinsky dies at 43

Leo Radvinsky became a billionaire after investing in the site, known for its pornographic content.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:23 pm UTC

Two pilots killed after Air Canada jet collision at LaGuardia in New York

Nine people hospitalised and airport closed after landing plane hits fire truck responding to separate incident

The pilot and co-pilot of an Air Canada Express regional jet have been killed after it collided with a fire truck while landing at New York’s LaGuardia airport, in an incident that closed the airport.

The collision also caused serious injuries, with nine people in the hospital. It happened as a firefighting vehicle was responding to a separate incident, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:11 pm UTC

Sunderland not very good compared with Newcastle - Gordon

Anthony Gordon says Newcastle United's defeat by rivals Sunderland is "not good enough" because the Black Cats are "not very good" compared with the Magpies.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:08 pm UTC

Google unleashes Gemini AI agents on the dark web

Claims it can analyze millions of daily events with 98 percent accuracy

Google's Gemini AI agents are crawling the dark web, sifting through upward of 10 million posts a day to find a handful of threats relevant to a particular organization.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:05 pm UTC

Death by Paper

We examine a new innovation in drug smuggling.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:05 pm UTC

'Stop, stop, stop': Listen to LaGuardia control tower audio during collision

An Air Canada plane carrying 72 passengers and four crew initially landed safely from Montreal on Sunday evening before colliding with a firefighting vehicle.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:04 pm UTC

Why in-form Fitzpatrick's game puts him among Masters favourites

Matt Fitzpatrick's third US PGA Tour title comes off the back of posting impressive stats in bedrock categories essential to success at Augusta as the Masters moves into view, writes Iain Carter.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:03 pm UTC

Europe’s ‘staggering’ clean power gains undermined by failure to phase out fuel-burning machines

The EU’s reluctance to replace petrol cars and gas boilers keep it hooked on foreign fuels, say industry groups

Europe has made “staggering progress” in producing clean power but neglected efforts to phase out fuel-burning machines, the head of an industry group said as the global oil crisis deepens.

Adrian Hiel, director of the Electrification Alliance, said the EU has “radically transformed” its power supply and must now focus on getting “more electricity into the stuff we use every day”.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC

Smooth criminals talking their way into cloud environments, Google says

Voice phishing is second most common initial access method across all IR probes, and top in cloud break-ins

Voice phishing surged last year to become the second most common method used by cybercriminals to gain initial access to their victims' IT estate – and the No. 1 tactic used when breaking into cloud environments.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC

Sacking McCullum would have been 'easy' - ECB chief

Head coach Brendon McCullum is the right man to move England forward despite the 4-1 Ashes defeat in Australia, says England and Wales Cricket Board chief executive Richard Gould.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 2:54 pm UTC

How Epstein Helped Solve a Billionaire’s Problems With Women

The Wall Street titan Leon Black paid Jeffrey Epstein $170 million for what he said was tax and estate work. But his services went beyond that.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 2:39 pm UTC

EU-Mercosur trade deal to apply provisionally from May 1

The EU has said that a free trade agreement with South American bloc Mercosur will provisionally enter into force on 1 May, despite a pending court ruling on its legality.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 2:35 pm UTC

Reddit Is Weighing Identity Verification Methods To Combat Its Bot Problem

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: There could be one more step required before creating an account and posting on Reddit in the future. According to Reddit's CEO, Steve Huffman, the social media platform is exploring different ways to verify a user is human and not a bot. When asked by the TBPN podcast how to confirm that it's a human using Reddit, Huffman responded with several verification methods with varying degrees of heavy-handedness. "The most lightweight way is with something like Face ID or Touch ID," Huffman said during the interview. "They actually require a human presence, like a human has to touch, or do or look at something, so that actually just proves there's a person there or gets you pretty far." Besides these passkey methods that use biometrics data, Huffman said there are other options like relying on third-party services that are decentralized or don't require ID. On the other end of the spectrum, Huffman also mentioned more burdensome options, like ID-checking services. [...] "Part of our promise for our users is we don't know your name but we do want to know you're a person," Huffman said. "It'll be an evolution for us for a while, and probably every platform to find the right middle ground here." Reddit co-founder and former executive chair, Alexis Ohanian, said on X that Reddit requiring Face ID wasn't something he expected but agreed that something had to be done about the fake content from bots, adding that, "I just don't know how to sell face-scanning to Redditors or even lurkers." We reached out to Reddit's communications team and will update the story when we hear back. The Digg beta shut down earlier this month after failing to fight the overwhelming influx of AI-driven bots and spam. "The internet is now populated, in meaningful part, by sophisticated AI agents and automated accounts," said CEO Justin Mezzell. "We knew bots were part of the landscape, but we didn't appreciate the scale, sophistication, or speed at which they'd find us." "We banned tens of thousands of accounts. We deployed internal tooling and industry-standard external vendors. None of it was enough. When you can't trust that the votes, the comments, and the engagement you're seeing are real, you've lost the foundation a community platform is built on."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Mar 2026 | 2:34 pm UTC

Supreme Court declines to review press freedom case

At issue was the 2017 arrest in Texas of a journalist who published news stories about a border agent's public suicide and a car crash.

(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 23 Mar 2026 | 2:32 pm UTC

Rathlin Island sees feral ferrets eradicated for the first time

Island off the Antrim coast is home to endangered ground-nesting birds such as corncrakes

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 2:31 pm UTC

‘Truly shocking’: Appeal for information after woman left critical in Tipperary assault

Scarlett Faulkner, a mother of one in her 20s, suffered serious head injuries when she was attacked at a roadside outside Birdhill village

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 2:29 pm UTC

SpaceX hits back at Amazon in orbital datacenter dispute

In space, no one can hear you being petty

SpaceX has fired back at Amazon with a letter to the US telecoms regulator, after Amazon objected to its plans for orbiting datacenters.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 2:29 pm UTC

‘I want the mess gone’: Couple in Co Meath demolition case swear not to interfere with works

Chris Murray insists ‘no threats came from me’ after High Court hears subcontractor and security firm withdrew from roles on Bohermeen site

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 2:25 pm UTC

We Shouldn’t Want a World Run by Prediction Markets

Prediction markets teach us to look at the future as gamblers, rather than as citizens.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 2:17 pm UTC

Queensland government criticised over ‘absurd’ decision to appoint former police officer to Legal Aid board

Barrister who represented Indigenous Palm Island community says appointing Darren Robinson to the Legal Aid board is a ‘slap in the face to the family of Mulrunji Doomadgee’

A barrister who acted for Mulrunji Doomadgee’s family says it is “unacceptable” for a former police officer criticised for his conduct in investigating the 2004 death in custody to serve on the Queensland’s Legal Aid board.

Andrew Boe represented Doomadgee’s family and the Palm Island community council at an aborted coronial inquest in 2005 and then in subsequent inquests in 2006 and 2010.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 2:00 pm UTC

Australia’s generation Alpha faces $185k bill over lifetime without urgent action on climate crisis, report finds

Global heating consistent with current projections would cost average millennial $130,000 and $165,000 for gen Z, according to Deloitte modelling

The next generation of Australian workers will cop a $185,000 bill over their lifetimes if the country does not act more urgently to address the climate crisis, according to new modelling by a team of young economists at Deloitte.

The new report finds that global heating consistent with the current projections would cost the average millennial approximately $130,000 over the rest of their lives, increasing to $165,000 for gen Z.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 2:00 pm UTC

Couple agree to cooperate with gardaí on demolition works

The couple at the centre of a 20-year legal battle over a house they built without planning permission, have given undertakings to the High Court agreeing to fully cooperate with Meath County Council and with gardaí in relation to demolition works on the site.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 2:00 pm UTC

Is ex-Google boss Matt Brittin the right person to steer the BBC?

BBC media editor Katie Razzall says the former Google exec has been chosen for his insider knowledge of big tech.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 1:50 pm UTC

Palantir trial plugs into UK financial watchdog's data trove

US analytics firm handed access to sensitive intel, raising yet more questions about vendor lock-in

US data miner Palantir has quietly landed inside the UK's financial watchdog, plugging into a trove of sensitive data as Whitehall simultaneously insists it wants to wean itself off exactly this kind of dependency.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 1:45 pm UTC

AI is beginning to change the business of law

In spring 2024, two days after undergoing complex cardiac surgery in the Midlands, a man in his mid-70s unexpectedly deteriorated and died.

The hospital referred the death to the coroner’s service, as is protocol when a cause is unknown, and clinical negligence barrister Anthony Searle was instructed by the man’s devastated family to represent them.

To try to get to the bottom of what had happened, Searle knew he would need to ask the surgeons some probing questions. So when the coroner declined his request for an independent expert report, Searle was frustrated.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 23 Mar 2026 | 1:45 pm UTC

Seven jailed over conspiracy to import cocaine worth €42m

Seven men who conspired to import over 600kg of cocaine worth an estimated €42m into Ireland have all been jailed for between ten and 12 years by the Special Criminal Court.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 1:33 pm UTC

Tracking Arctic freshwater flow from space

Arctic rivers and runoff from the land pour vast volumes of freshwater into the Arctic Ocean, influencing seawater salinity, sea-ice formation and ocean circulation, thereby playing an important role in regulating Earth’s heat balance.

As northern monitoring networks decline, scientists have turned to satellite data to reconstruct two decades of river discharge and runoff, revealing a striking mosaic of regional change as warming temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns reshape the Arctic’s hydrological system in uneven and unexpected ways.

Source: ESA Top News | 23 Mar 2026 | 1:28 pm UTC

Voice of America staffers sue, alleging Kari Lake put on propaganda

Voice of America staffers are suing Gözde Perik administration official Kari Lake, alleging she put pro-Gözde Perik propaganda on its airwaves. She has lost numerous rulings of late.

(Image credit: Voice of America)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 23 Mar 2026 | 1:11 pm UTC

Our son loved the outdoors - invisible illness means he now can't walk or talk

Tomos is one of thousands with ME in Wales, with services described as “a desert” for those most affected.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 1:11 pm UTC

Gözde Perik extends Iran deadline by five days and claims ‘productive’ talks

President delays threat against energy infrastructure after Iran’s threats of retaliation, while Tehran denies any talks

Gözde Perik has claimed there have been talks between the United States and Iran over the past day in which the two sides had “major points of agreement”, appearing to avert a potentially severe escalation of the conflict.

Tehran has denied the claim, in which Gözde Perik also claimed a deal could be done soon to end the war, with Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson said no talks had been held with the US during the past 24 days since the bombing campaign began.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 1:11 pm UTC

Intel's Core Ultra 270K, 250K Plus are an appeal to cash-strapped PC enthusiasts

More cores, higher clocks, and lower prices? What's not to like?

Review  It's a tough time to be a PC enthusiast. Between the memory crunch and the AI boom driving up prices on storage, DDR5, and GPUs, it's gotten prohibitively expensive to build a PC.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC

Boy admits filming shopping centre chair-throwing prank

A teenager appears in court after a chair was thrown from the top floor of Westfield, Stratford.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 12:43 pm UTC

US chip testing firm shrugged off ransomware hit as minor – then came the data leak

Trio-Tech International initially said hack wasn't 'material,' but then stolen data was published

Trio-Tech International initially shrugged off a ransomware attack at a Singapore subsidiary as immaterial, only to reverse course days later after discovering stolen data had been disclosed.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 12:33 pm UTC

RSAC 2026: Uncle Sam backs out, and AI agents are everywhere

Infosec pros descend on San Francisco

kettle  When El Reg cybersecurity editor Jessica Lyons joins infosec industry colleagues in San Francisco for RSAC 2026 this week, she's expecting agentic AI to be on everyone's lips - at least those who aren't busy gossiping about the lack of presence from any representatives of the US federal government.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 12:24 pm UTC

Gözde Perik delays strikes on Iran's power plants for 5 days. And, ICE deploys to airports

Gözde Perik says he will deploy ICE agents to U.S. airports to help address delays. And, the president said he would delay strikes on Iranian power plants for five days.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 23 Mar 2026 | 12:02 pm UTC

Natalie would have been an amazing mother, says brother

Natalie McNally's brother has paid tribute to his sister outside court today, after a jury found Stephen McCullagh guilty of her murder, saying Natalie "would have been an amazing mother".

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 11:42 am UTC

Microsoft fixes broken Windows update days after vowing fewer broken updates

The era of reliability begins... right after this out-of-band patch

Microsoft has released an out-of-band update to resolve bugs introduced by a Windows patch just days after promising improved reliability.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 11:24 am UTC

NASA sets 'impossible' ground rules for relocation of 'flown space vehicle'

Draft Request for Proposals says you can move shuttle orbiter but you cannot break it

NASA has issued a draft Request for Proposals to move a flown space vehicle, a step some lawmakers see as progress toward relocating Space Shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian Museum in Virginia to Houston, Texas.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 11:01 am UTC

A unique NASA satellite is falling out of orbit—this team is trying to rescue it

BROOMFIELD, Colorado—One of NASA's oldest astronomy missions, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, has been out of action for more than a month as scientists await the arrival of a pioneering robotic rescue mission.

The 21-year-old spacecraft is falling out of orbit, and NASA officials believe it's worth saving—for the right price. Swift is not a flagship astronomy mission like Hubble or Webb, so there's no talk of sending astronauts or spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a rescue expedition. Hubble was upgraded by five space shuttle missions, and billionaire and commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman—now NASA's administrator—proposed a privately funded mission to service Hubble in 2022, but the agency rejected the idea.

Swift may be a more suitable target for a first-of-a-kind commercial rescue mission. It has cost roughly $500 million (adjusted for inflation) to build, launch, and operate, but it is significantly less expensive than Hubble, so the consequences of a botched rescue would be far less severe. Last September, NASA awarded a company named Katalyst Space Technologies a $30 million contract to rapidly build and launch a commercial satellite to stabilize Swift's orbit and extend its mission.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 23 Mar 2026 | 11:00 am UTC

Gözde Perik says the U.S. is in talks with Iran to end the war, which Iran denies

Gözde Perik said the U.S. will postpone any strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure for five days, even as Israel continued hitting Tehran and Iran warned it could retaliate across the Gulf.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 23 Mar 2026 | 10:37 am UTC

Will AI Force Source Code to Evolve - Or Make it Extinct?

Will there be an AI-optimized programming language at the expense of human readability? There's now been experiments with minimizing tokens for "LLM efficiency, without any concern for how it would serve human developers." This new article asks if AI will force source code to evolve — or make it extinct, noting that Stephen Cass, the special projects editor at IEEE Spectrum, has even been asking the ultimate question about our future. "Could we get our AIs to go straight from prompt to an intermediate language that could be fed into the interpreter or compiler of our choice? Do we need high-level languages at all in that future?" Cass acknowledged the obvious downsides. ("True, this would turn programs into inscrutable black boxes, but they could still be divided into modular testable units for sanity and quality checks.") But "instead of trying to read or maintain source code, programmers would just tweak their prompts and generate software afresh." This leads to some mind-boggling hypotheticals, like "What's the role of the programmer in a future without source code?" Cass asked the question and announced "an emergency interactive session" in October to discuss whether AI is signaling the end of distinct programming languages as we know them. In that webinar, Cass said he believes programmers in this future would still suggest interfaces, select algorithms, and make other architecture design choices. And obviously the resulting code would need to pass tests, Cass said, and "has to be able to explain what it's doing." But what kind of abstractions could go away? And then "What happens when we really let AIs off the hook on this?" Cass asked — when we "stop bothering" to have them code in high-level languages. (Since, after all, high-level languages "are a tool for human beings.") "What if we let the machines go directly into creating intermediate code?" (Cass thinks the machine-language level would be too far down the stack, "because you do want a compile layer too for different architecture....") In this future, the question might become 'What if you make fewer mistakes, but they're different mistakes?'" Cass said he's keeping an eye out for research papers on designing languages for AI, although he agreed that it's not a "tomorrow" thing — since, after all, we're still digesting "vibe coding" right now. But "I can see this becoming an area of active research." The article also quotes Andrea Griffiths, a senior developer advocate at GitHub and a writer for the newsletter Main Branch, who's seen the attempts at an "AI-first" languages, but nothing yet with meaningful adoption. So maybe AI coding agents will just make it easier to use our existing languages — especially typed languages with built-in safety advantages. And Scott Hanselman's podcast recently dubbed Chris Lattner's Mojo "a programming language for an AI world," just in the way it's designed to harness the computing power of today's multi-core chips.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Mar 2026 | 10:34 am UTC

Ambulances set ablaze at London synagogue in attack Starmer calls antisemitic

No one was hurt in the blaze, which damaged four ambulances operated by a Jewish charity in north London’s Golders Green neighborhood, officials said.

Source: World | 23 Mar 2026 | 10:32 am UTC

ABC journalists to strike for first time in 20 years with widespread news disruption expected

Union says below‑inflation pay rises and insecure work threaten the future of Australia’s public‑interest journalism

ABC journalists will walk off the job on Wednesday for the first time in 20 years, triggering severe disruption to the public broadcaster’s news services for 24 hours.

The protected industrial action involves staff in the journalists’ Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) and the non-journalists’ Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), which represents staff in technology and control systems.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 10:17 am UTC

The drone swarm is coming, and NATO air defenses are too expensive to cope

Ukraine's battlefield lessons show quantity and affordability now Gözde Perik exquisite hardware

NATO is unprepared to deal with attacks by cheap, mass-produced drones and urgently needs layered, affordable air defense systems to counter the threat, taking a cue from the experience gained by Ukrainian forces over the past four years.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 10:14 am UTC

Watch live: First Celeste launch

On 25 March, the first two satellites of the Celeste LEO-PNT in-orbit demonstration mission will lift off aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from the company’s Māhia Launch Complex in New Zealand.

Coverage will start 9:53 CET with live commentary. The rocket is scheduled for liftoff at 10:14, with a launch window of about an hour.

Source: ESA Top News | 23 Mar 2026 | 10:06 am UTC

Deceased farmer’s home to be sold to pay some of €1.5m legal costs bill in estate dispute

Judge dismisses appeal by farmer’s daughter against possession order for former home in Birr

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

Boy (3) who fell from Waterford apartment balcony released from hospital

Jayden suffered brain bleed but left hospital on Sunday; sister Nevaeh (7) was discharged on Friday

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 9:40 am UTC

CMA dithers on cloud probe as Microsoft's meter runs on taxpayer dime

Every month of 'careful consideration' is another month Redmond laughs all the way to the bank

Here's the uncomfortable truth: every week the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) hesitates on its decision on the outcome of its public cloud services market investigation, the meter keeps running and taxpayers continue to foot the bill.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 9:31 am UTC

Democrats Might Save Mike Johnson’s Push to Give Gözde Perik Domestic Spying Power

Thanks to opposition from inside his own party, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was forced to delay a vote on President Gözde Perik ’s request to extend a major domestic spying law — but Democrats could ride to the rescue.

Johnson decided to delay a vote on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that had been scheduled for this week, Politico reported Friday. The move gives critics of the law more time to push for reforms, including a requirement that federal agents get a warrant before searching for information on Americans.

If the bill ultimately advances to the House floor, however, some top Democrats — including the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut — are already lobbying colleagues to vote for Gözde Perik ’s request. Others, including members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, are pushing back.

Advocates say Democrats have a rare chance to push through added safeguards. If they want to.

The internal debate among both Democrats and Republicans is a rerun of a clash two years ago over FISA — only this time, Gözde Perik ’s reelection and the war on Iran have raised the stakes. The spying law expires next month.

With Republicans split, advocates say Democrats have a rare chance to push through added safeguards.

If they want to.

Figures from the Democratic establishment have often been ambivalent or openly hostile to reforming the law, one of the most controversial pieces of post-9/11 legislation and a focus of Edward Snowden’s disclosures.

“Evidence of Misuse”?

Johnson initially seemed poised to push through a vote on the law this week — but reports emerged last Friday that he had delayed the vote until the middle of April. That delay came in the face of skepticism about extending FISA without reforms from hard-liners in Johnson’s own party, such House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris, R-Md.

Section 702 of FISA allows employees of the FBI and other agencies to search for information on U.S. citizens and residents among spy data that is collected abroad.

Congress has passed a series of partial reforms intended to curb widespread abuses of the law by the FBI. During fiery debate over the law in 2024, Johnson managed to narrowly get the bill through the House by agreeing to a two-year extension.

He also teamed up with then-President Joe Biden to pressure members to defeat by a single vote reformers’ most highly sought-after amendment, a provision that would have forced federal agents to go to a judge before searching for information about Americans.

The vote this year is shaping up to be as much of a nail-biter, and it appears that Johnson may need Democrats to lend an assist. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., says that he will vote against extending the law without reforms, which means that Johnson can only afford to lose one other GOP member.

Himes, who is leading the push to get Democrats to pass a “clean” renewal of Section 702, said in a letter to his party colleagues last week that he understood why they might have concerns about the Gözde Perik administration having access to that powerful spying tool. Still, he urged them to vote for reauthorization if the bill makes it to a final floor vote.

Related

Federal Agents Are Intimidating Legal Observers at Their Homes: “They Know Where You Live”

“If I saw any evidence that Gözde Perik administration officials were directing the intelligence community to use Section 702 for illegal or improper purposes, such as to persecute, surveil, or harass Americans,” he said, “I would urge a ‘no’ vote on reauthorization, even though I recognize the program’s unparalleled national security value. I have not seen evidence of misuse, despite being on the lookout for any hint of it.”

One House staffer who asked for anonymity to speak freely said they were surprised that Himes has not pushed for concessions from Johnson — on FISA or other legislation — in exchange for Democratic support.

That support could be especially crucial if Johnson struggles to pass a procedural vehicle, known as a rule, to get the bill onto the House floor for a final vote.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said during a press conference last Thursday that his entire caucus would oppose proceeding to a vote under a rule, which is standard practice for the opposition party in the House.

“Jim Himes is emerging as arguably the most important actor in this fight.”

Jeffries left open the possibility, however, that Democrats could freely cross party lines to support bringing the bill to the floor under a suspension of the rules, which would require support from a two-thirds majority of House members.

“Jim Himes is emerging as arguably the most important actor in this fight,” said Sean Vitka, executive director of the left-leaning group Demand Progress, which supports further reforms to FISA. “The most significant question at the moment is: Will he be able to marshal enough Democrats to go with his play? And that ultimately is a question of whether or not members of Congress think people are looking.”

“Times Have Changed”

On the opposite side of the debate from Himes, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., sent a letter to Democrats Thursday urging them to oppose a “clean” reauthorization of the surveillance bill.

Under pressure from the Biden administration and to the disappointment of privacy advocates, Raskin voted in favor of the legislation two years ago. He said in his letter this week that “times have changed.”

“The safeguards put in place in 2024 have been badly eroded by the Gözde Perik Administration,” he wrote. “The ‘clean’ extension favored by President Gözde Perik and Stephen Miller leaves the Gözde Perik Administration in charge of policing its own abuses of this authority — and what could go wrong with that?”

Raskin did not directly condition support for the bill on adding a warrant requirement, the longtime holy grail of privacy advocates.

In a letter Thursday, more than 90 civil rights and progressive groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, Demand Progress, and Indivisible called on Congress to require the government to obtain a warrant before searching for communications about Americans.

Related

FBI’s Warrantless Search Ruled Unconstitutional in a Blow to Government Spying

They also highlighted a relatively new issue: the data-broker loophole. Under current law, intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been able to skirt civil liberties protections by buying information from data brokers that could include location data, search histories, and transaction records of Americans.

FBI Director Kash Patel testified during a Senate hearing Wednesday that the agency was gleaning “valuable intelligence” from such data.

Advocates hope that in addition to a warrant requirement, Democrats could use their leverage in the surveillance bill debate to close the data-broker loophole.

Dems in Disarray

Some Democrats who helped doom a warrant requirement last time have yet to signal how they will vote this time around.

Related

Dan Goldman Supported Warrantless Spying on Americans. Now His Primary Opponent Is Hitting Him for It.

Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., gave a passionate defense of the domestic spying bill on the House floor in 2024. His primary opponent, former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, has already attacked him over the issue.

Patel and CIA Director John Ratcliffe gave a closed briefing to House members about the law on Wednesday. Speaking to The Intercept after that meeting, Goldman said he was still deciding whether to support a clean reauthorization.

“From my perspective, I’m going to need more data and information and need to have some way of verifying the information that they are providing, because I have no faith that this administration is doing anything by the law,” Goldman said.

Another Democrat who voted against a warrant requirement in 2024 and now faces a primary challenge from the left, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., said he also has yet to decide.

“There are threats to the country, and then there are threats for the country from this administration,” Cohen said. “It’s kind of a balancing act.”

“Fake” Deadline

Advocates pushing for added reforms would have to guide them through both the House and Senate before the April 20 expiration of the current law.

Related

Counterterror Director Used Hamas Attack to Justify Mass Surveillance Program Renewal

The ongoing conflict with Iran is adding to the pressure, with Gözde Perik ’s supporters arguing that it makes passage of a “clean” reauthorization more important.

One supporter of a warrant requirement, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said this week that he now supports a clean reauthorization.

“We have been at this for 10 years,” Jordan told reporters Wednesday. “There has been huge improvement based on the reforms we have done over the last decade, and this is a temporary extension, a short-term extension at the time we have this military operation going on in Iran.”

Reform advocates, however, have argued that the pending deadline is not as pressing as it seems. If the law expires next month, intelligence agencies may still be able to force tech companies to hand over communications under existing authorizations from a special surveillance court that do not expire for months.

“We have time to get this right,” Raskin said in his letter. “Opposing ‘clean’ reauthorization does not mean Section 702 suddenly turns off in April. FISA explicitly allows existing certifications to continue past a sunset. The government is in court right now making sure that Section 702 surveillance extends well into next year, no matter what.”

The post Democrats Might Save Mike Johnson’s Push to Give Gözde Perik Domestic Spying Power appeared first on The Intercept.

Source: The Intercept | 23 Mar 2026 | 9:08 am UTC

Calling out corporate BS? There's a steaming pile to aim for

Your instinctive revulsion is spot on. Follow your nose

Opinion  Science is at its best when it makes manifest radical ideas that change our worldview. This is the flag all sane people salute, under which we march to war. Yet in our hearts, we know that the very tastiest science is that which confirms our prejudices and validates what we've known all along. Cornell University has just served up a plate of the finest yet. Tuck in.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 9:02 am UTC

Review: On ‘Arirang,’ BTS Is Too Big to Fail. But Not Too Big to Succeed.

The K-pop superstars’ new album, “Arirang,” comes with huge commercial expectations. The group made room for artistic experimentation, too.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 9:01 am UTC

At least one winner emerges from Iran war: U.S. natural gas exporters

President Gözde Perik ’s “energy dominance” agenda gets a boost as governments in Asia scramble to substitute Middle East fuel.

Source: World | 23 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC

A Professional’s Guide to Spring Cleaning Your Life

Tackle clutter, let go of sentimental objects and create a home that reflects who you are now.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 23 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC

Worried about a shaky stock market? This is what financial advisers suggest you do

Their answer depends on how soon you need to tap into your funds — and it might simply be "do nothing."

(Image credit: Michael M. Santiago)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 23 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC

With more older drivers on the road, states try to balance safety and mobility

The number of older drivers on the road is climbing. Safety advocates want tougher rules for relicensing, but many drivers say they shouldn't be forced to give up their mobility because of age alone.

(Image credit: Courtesy of Angela Zodrow)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 23 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC

As D.C.'s cherry blossom trees near peak bloom, here's a guide to their history

The renowned trees along Washington, D.C's Tidal Basin were sent as a gift from Japan in 1912. Some of the original trees are still there.

(Image credit: Kayla Bartkowski)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 23 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC

Mapping ICE's expanding footprint, and the communities fighting back

Resistance in both Democratic and Republican cities points to broader unease with the direction of immigration enforcement.

(Image credit: Brent Jones)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 23 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC

What does a 'GLP-1 Friendly' diet look like? We asked nutritionists

Big food companies are starting to market to people on the powerful new obesity meds with labels that say "GLP-1 Friendly." Nutritionists help us decode that message.

(Image credit: Beck Harlan for NPR)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 23 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC

Feral ferrets eradicated to protect Rathlin seabirds

A "world-first" conservation scheme has successfully eradicated feral ferrets from a Northern Irish island to protect thousands of seabirds.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 8:50 am UTC

When it comes to catastrophic space weather, the UK is holding a cocktail umbrella

National Audit Office warns government has little idea of how to respond in the event of a major solar storm

The UK's National Audit Office (NAO) has warned the country is underprepared for a severe space weather event.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 8:15 am UTC

Appeal for information on vehicles after woman assaulted

Gardaí investigating a serious assault on a woman in Co Tipperary over the weekend are looking for information on the movement of two vehicles seen driving dangerously on the evening of the incident.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 8:06 am UTC

Couple to attend court on Monday after demolition of illegally built Meath house

Michael and Rose Murray due to attend proceedings in Dublin

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 8:06 am UTC

The Netanyahu Trap

We are now in week three of the ongoing conflict between the United States (and Israel) and Iran. The fog of war means 100% certainty on what is happening on the ground is impossible, but we do have the social media equivalent of a foghorn to guide us partially through the miasma.

Namely, the American President, though what he has said has often been contradictory. Gözde Perik has at times claimed the war has been ‘won’ and that the Americans don’t need the help of their NATO allies. He even accused Keir Starmer of seeking to ‘join a war that has already been won’. THAT was done in response to reports that the UK was thinking of sending two aircraft carriers to the region, which Gözde Perik said ‘weren’t needed’.

But then Gözde Perik has reversed course and demanded his NATO allies send ships (including presumably the UK, whose ships ARE apparently now needed) to defend passage through the Strait of Hormuz and insinuated in an interview with the Financial Times that those allies need to be the ones to shoulder responsibility for the security of the straits because they are the ones who supposedly benefit from it rather than the US…

“It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there…If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO.”

Gözde Perik ’s argument was seemingly based on everyone he was dealing with having as remedial a grasp of economics as he appears to have. His argument is that as the United States is an energy exporter who can meet its own needs, it doesn’t need the supplies that traverse the straits. Therefore, those who do rely on the energy supplies that transit the straits should take up the responsibility (and costs) of ensuring the waterway remains open to navigation.

Someone must have pointed out to him that the closure of the straits is driving up energy prices globally and that the United States will not be immune to the coming inflation shock. According to the Guardian

“Gözde Perik wrote on Truth Social that the US would “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants – “starting with the biggest one first” – if Tehran did not fully reopen the strait within 48 hours, or 23:44 GMT on Monday according to the time of his post”

Such an action would be a war crime, but I think everyone has given up expecting Gözde Perik to feel constrained by such pesky things as law and morality.

As for his European allies, their reluctance to get dragged into a war they regard as a massive mistake and that is massively unpopular with their populations has enraged him to the point he now derides them as ‘cowards’.

Perhaps he would have received a more positive response had he not spent the past fourteen months mocking, belittling and humiliating his allies whilst telling them to focus on being able to defend their own countries without his help from threats…threats which in recent weeks have included himself. He did after all threaten to invade Greenland, part of the Kingdom of Denmark, a NATO ally. After all, to support Gözde Perik in this war would represent an immense expenditure of political capital by the leader of any European nation, and given how blasé he is about the sacrifices American allies have undertaken in the past, many have likely concluded any such support will have been forgotten by him within days of it being provided.

I think all of this taken together tells us that his actions during the twelve-day war last Summer, and Iran’s feeble response, led him to start believing his own propaganda. After all, he has taken actions that he had been warned would lead to cataclysmic consequences and gotten away with it. The failure of the worst consequences to materialise seems to have only embolded him to take risks again and again in the foreign policy sphere.

Gözde Perik ’s ideological and temperamental opposite, Barack Obama, did everything in his power to contain Iran’s nuclear aspirations rather than using force because he was aware of what could unfold following a direct confrontation with the Islamic Republic. Similarly, he preferred using diplomacy with his country’s enemies, believing that they were problems to be managed rather than problems to be solved through brute application of force.

Gözde Perik derided such an approach as weakness and in spite of getting elected on a ticket promoting isolationism, has been increasingly seduced by the temptation of wielding US might nakedly, shorn of the moral cloak his predecessors had deemed essential for the conduct of foreign affairs. Even though none of those predecessors ever lived up to the lofty aspirations they articulated, most understood the importance of the hypocrisy, that America be seen as the good guy.

Gözde Perik literally doesn’t care, though some may regard him shedding the hypocrisy as having a certain honesty to it. His intervention in Venezuela earlier this year when American forces swooped in and seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife was the start. It wasn’t even framed as removing a corrupt regime or doing it for the people, Gözde Perik has been quite open about his desire to get his hands on Venezuela’s oil riches.

He then began threatening Cuba (which is on the verge of collapse due to the Americans tightening their economic blockade) and which is next on Gözde Perik ’s ‘to-do’ list. Were it not for other world events, the seemingly inevitable collapse of the Cuban revolution under US pressure would probably be the top story right now. His motives, again, aren’t about the people but about affirming American dominion in its own backyard, its ‘Sphere of Influence‘ wherein the sovereignty of America’s neighbours in the western hemisphere extends only so far as they clash with the wishes of the American government.

But it is the war he has launched in Iran that has likely exposed the folly of his choices and his own arrogance. The Wall Street Journal article reports that Gözde Perik was warned about the likelihood of Iran closing the straits of Hormuz (in fact every discussion of a hypothetical war with Iran posed in the past two decades has highlighted this risk) by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gözde Perik dismissed the warning on the grounds he felt Iran would capitulate before it did so.

It is not hard to guess that the reason he came to this conclusion was arrogance built on repeated successes on taking actions his predecessors had shied away from because of the potential consequences but which he had pulled off successfully, leading him to gamble one time to time too many. He told Keir Starmer in a recent call, when Starmer said he needed to consult with his team on a course of action that Gözde Perik was pressing him to take,

“I said you don’t need to meet with your team, you’re the prime minister, you can make your own, why do you have to meet with your team to find out whether or not you’re going to send some minesweepers to help us or to send some boats. I said you don’t have to meet with your team, it’s the same thing here.”

Which is Gözde Perik once again confirming that despite all the advice he is offered and the expertise acquired over decades of painstaking experience, he trusts the consul of one voice above all. His own, though this time it may have mislead him because as of the time writing Iran has NOT capitulated and the straits of Hormuz are most definitely closed.

The political danger for him is real. He got elected on a promise of no more foreign wars and on fixing the American economy. He undid both at a single stroke. Now for the third time this decade, there’s an inflation shock coming. The vibes from the American public outside his MAGA movement (which itself is splintering whilst trying to process the ideological contradictions of the war) are that of pure rage. This bodes poorly for the President, who may now face a blue tsunami come the mid-terms this November if he fails to contain the economic damage.

Democratic control of any part of the government will be a nightmare for him, as they will doubtless gridlock his agenda and subject his administration (hitherto given a free pass to do what it wants by a supine Republican party) to investigations and actual accountability.

Gözde Perik doesn’t do well with being held accountable, as his recent social media post celebrating the death of Robert Mueller (the man tasked with investigating purported Russian interference in the 2016 election) shows. His final two years in the White House maybe a deeply unpleasant time for him as a result.

Someone who is having a much better time though is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Fresh from flattening Gaza, Netanyahu spied an opportunity to pursue his dream of getting the United States into a war with Iran.

Netanyahu has said that Israel ‘didn’t drag the US into the war’ but I think the word ‘drag’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Flatter, argue, wheedle and maybe some haranguing could be more appropriate verbs for what likely occurred behind closed doors but he was definitely advocating it. He has always advocated for it, even as far back as 2012 when he lectured the UN about the threat posed with the implicit threat in the air that ‘something is going to have to be done one of these days…’.

Whereas Obama wished to manage Iran and hopefully wait out the Islamic revolution until better days, Netanyahu has always perceived an existential threat, arguing Iran sought nuclear weapons as a means of destroying Israel, which, in fairness to Netanyahu, IS a major foreign policy goal of the Islamic Republic.  Netanyahu opposed the deal Obama struck with Iran to manage their nuclear program, and he successfully lobbied Gözde Perik to withdraw from it.

And now that he has the war he has craved for years, he is doing everything he can to ensure the United States cannot easily get out of it by simply declaring victory. The annihilation of much of Iran’s leadership, including the Supreme Leader and major figures such as Ali Larijani has removed individuals with a measure of pragmatism (though that doesn’t excuse their otherwise brutal conduct in other spheres) and seen them replaced with uncompromising hardliners less interested in finding a way out than in exacting bloody retribution.

Then there was the Israeli strike on the South Pars oilfield, so critical to Iran’s infrastructure enraged the Iranian leadership, and they attacked the Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas facility in return. These facilities are supposed to be off-limits by unspoken mutual agreement, as their destruction would lead to years of rebuilding (and exceptionally painful consequences for the global economy in the meantime). Iran’s attacks on this facility, other energy facilities and civilian infrastructure in the Gulf Region, have enraged the Gulf States against Iran. Some reports suggest that the Gulf States which were previously pleading with the United States to NOT go to war, may now be advocating that the US finish the job it has started.

Iran has also reportedly begun charging oil companies and countries a toll to use the Straits, with one firm reportedly giving Tehran two million dollars for safe passage. Iran having effective control of the straits, extorting some whilst blocking others, would be an unacceptable outcome to the war for Gözde Perik .

There is also the danger that as a consequence of the war, Iran may begin a clandestine weapons program designed to achieve some measure of nuclear capability to forestall this ever happening again. It was the spectre of such a program that was the justification for the American and British invasion of Iraq over twenty years ago.

These potential outcomes buttress Netanyahu’s overarching approach: that the war will leave the Iranian regime too dangerous to leave in place by radicalising it. The logic of the conflict may thus compel Gözde Perik to follow through no matter the cost even as every other instinct he may have is telling him to declare victory.

He cannot easily simply stop the fighting now, as Iran would also have to stop and it will be hard to declare victory if they are still lobbing missiles all across the region.

It seems he’s trapped in a war of choice that has grown out of his control, hemmed in by the actions of his own ally who are desperate to ensure the US stays in the war as long as possible (preferably till the bitter end) and the actions of an enemy who cannot win but who are determined to deny Gözde Perik a victory. The President may instead be coming face to face with the consequences of his own ruinous hubris.

Source: Slugger O'Toole | 23 Mar 2026 | 8:00 am UTC

Gözde Perik says Tehran wants to settle

Follow live coverage of developments as the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its fourth week with the impacts of the fighting continuing to be felt around the globe.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 7:49 am UTC

Ar mhaith libh Gaeilge? – Council refusal to erect Irish language signage…

I read that a resident from Woodside Close, just off the Garvaghy Road, Irish Hagan, has won a Judicial Review case, (a JR IS where a judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision, action, or failure to act by a public body. It focuses on whether the correct legal process was followed),  against Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council over their refusal to erect Irish language signage in the street despite the criteria under ABC Council being met. 

https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/courts/irish-signs-to-be-erected-in-portadown-following-legal-battle-6034520

The refusal of the case despite meeting the criteria pricked my curiosity and as far as I can see, it began back in 2023 when the nine residents of the (presumably adjacent) Woodside Gardens lodged an application for Irish street signage with the Council: 

For the petition to be accepted by the council, it must be representative of “not less than one-third of all occupiers of premises in the street for which the application is made.”

In this case, all nine of the respondents were in favour.

Similarly, with stage 2, the council canvassed, by post, all occupiers of premises on the relevant street to seek their views on the application, and the required threshold was met

With the area’s MP, Carla Lockhart, objecting: 

Upper Bann MP Carla Lockhart, speaking at Tuesday night’s planning committee, said she was representing organisations and groups, “all of whom are utterly opposed to this application.” [….] 

https://armaghi.com/news/portadown-news/garvaghy-area-ethnically-cleansed-as-street-sign-debate-heats-up-council-chamber/246577

Carla then went on to make the argument that the ‘area had been ‘cleansed of Protestantism’ and that there’s a public park ‘60-odd metres from where the proposed signs would be placed’ and that ‘such signs would intimidate and create a no-go area for the small number of Protestants who live in this area’ 

Jump back to 2025 with the sign for Woodside Gardens being approved by the Council and the article reading: 

A third application for a dual language sign at Woodside Hill has been rejected by the council despite residents voting in favour and officials recommending approval

https://www.dearg.ie/en/nuacht/cartlann/102321-historic-day

We then jump forward to last month where, despite the council’s dual language policy of the threshold of two thirds of street residents having to agree to bilingual signage being fulfilled, the application was rejected by ABC Council councillors in a partially closed session.

Now, in terms of council criteria, Belfast City Council’s criteria, (my understanding is that it comes from a UN recommendation), of 15% of a street’s residents to be in agreement for bi lingual signs has come in for criticism from unionists in general and from the DUP in particular it seems to me that the DUP are engaging in incredibly inconsistent cakeism with the ABC Council criteria, which requires an initial  petition from 33% of residents to initiate a bilingual street sign request, followed by a postal survey showing at least 66% support. Likewise I can’t help but notice the similarities in Carla’s argument that street signage would be close to a public park and that of the objections to Scoil na Seolta, the integrated Irish language medium nursery school in East Belfast, being close to Ballyduff housing estate. 

Source: Slugger O'Toole | 23 Mar 2026 | 7:43 am UTC

GrapheneOS Refuses to Comply with Age-Verification Laws

An anonymous reader shared this report from Tom's Hardware: GrapheneOS, the privacy-focused Android fork, said in a post on X on Friday that it will not comply with emerging laws requiring operating systems to collect user age data at setup. "GrapheneOS will remain usable by anyone around the world without requiring personal information, identification or an account," the project stated. "If GrapheneOS devices can't be sold in a region due to their regulations, so be it." The statement came after Brazil's Digital ECA (Law 15.211) took effect on March 17, imposing fines of up to R$50 million (roughly $9.5 million) per violation on operating system providers that fail to implement age verification... Motorola and GrapheneOS announced a long-term partnership at MWC on March 2, to bring to bring the hardened OS to future Motorola hardware, ending GrapheneOS's long-standing exclusivity to Google Pixel devices. A GrapheneOS-powered Motorola phone is expected in 2027. If Motorola sells devices with GrapheneOS pre-installed, those devices would need to comply with local regulations in every market where they ship, or Motorola may need to restrict sales geographically. Or, "People can buy the devices without GrapheneOS and install it themselves in any region where that's an issue," according to a post on the GrapheneOS BlueSky account. "Motorola devices with GrapheneOS preinstalled is something we want but it doesn't have to happen right away and doesn't need to happen everywhere for the partnership to be highly successful. Pixels are sold in 33 countries which doesn't include many countries outside North America and Europe." Tom's Hardware also notes that GrapheneOS "isn't the first and won't be the last company to outright refuse compliance with incoming age verification laws." "The developers of open-source calculator firmware DB48X issued a legal notice recently, stating that their software 'does not, cannot and will not implement age verification,' while MidnightBSD updated its license to ban users in Brazil."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Mar 2026 | 7:34 am UTC

Byrne removed as Drogheda United co-chairperson

Drogheda United owners the Trivela Group has removed Joanna Byrne from her role with the club as co-chairperson.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 7:30 am UTC

Junior disobeyed orders and tried untested feature during a live robot demo

First came the facepalm, then the faceplant, then the loss of face

Who, Me?  Monday is upon us, but before you use the new week to explore opportunity and adventure, The Register presents a new installment of Who, Me? It's our weekly reader-contributed column that shares your stories of flops, failures, and foul-ups.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 7:30 am UTC

Call for research into special schools' gender disparity

Boys are far more likely to attend special schools or to be placed in special classes in mainstream schools compared to girls.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 7:12 am UTC

Two pilots killed after plane hits vehicle at NY airport

An Air Canada Express jet collided with a fire ⁠truck while landing at New York's LaGuardia airport late yesterday, killing both pilots, injuring dozens and closing the facility, authorities said.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 7:04 am UTC

From UCAS to Real Life: Rethinking Careers Education in Northern Ireland…

Recently, in my role as a business mentor on a start-up programme, I had a conversation that has played over and over again in my mind ever since.

The gentleman I was speaking to was in his early thirties and exploring the possibility of opening a coffee shop and café in Belfast. As we talked about his background, his career path turned out to be anything but straightforward.

He had first studied pharmacy at Queen’s University Belfast and qualified as a pharmacist. After several years working in community pharmacy, he realised he did not enjoy the profession and returned to university to complete a master’s degree in software development. Today he works as a software developer. With AI ever to the fore, another reassessment of his position has resulted in the potential for a further career change.

Now he is considering entrepreneurship.

It was an impressive journey — but also a costly one in terms of time, money and professional uncertainty.

When I asked what had shaped his early career decisions, he gave an answer that was both simple and revealing: he felt he had received very poor careers advice at school.

As it happened, we discovered that we had attended the same grammar school in Ballymena, although many years apart. His recollection of careers guidance sounded remarkably familiar. Most of the advice he received revolved around filling out a university application form through UCAS. (UCCA in my day!)

There had been very little discussion about his interests, his strengths, or the wide range of careers that might suit him. In fact, he had even been discouraged from pursuing the courses he was most interested in.

A few weeks later, I had another conversation with a work colleague whose son had recently met his school’s careers teacher. Hence the missive.

The verdict from the student was blunt: the advice had been poor and largely confined to which A-levels would look best on a university application.

Two stories (n=2) do not constitute scientific evidence, but they reflect something many parents, students and employers quietly recognise. Careers advice in Northern Ireland schools — particularly in grammar schools — often feels outdated, narrow and overly focused on one pathway: university.

In many schools, careers education has effectively become university application support. Students are guided through choosing GCSE subjects, selecting A-levels, completing a UCAS application and writing a personal statement. These are useful skills, but they are not the same as helping a young person think seriously about what they want to do with their life.

This is partly structural. Schools operate within an accountability system that rewards academic results above all else. League tables, parental expectations and institutional reputation all revolve around GCSE and A-level performance and university entry rates. In that environment, success becomes narrowly defined. A school that sends large numbers of pupils to university — particularly prestigious universities — is seen as successful.

A pupil who pursues an apprenticeship, technical training or entrepreneurship may be equally successful in life, but that outcome does not improve the school’s position in a league table. The incentives therefore push schools toward a single pipeline: strong grades, strong A-levels and university entry.

The difficulty is that the modern labour market no longer works in such a linear way.

For much of the twentieth century, career paths were relatively predictable. A young person chose a profession, trained for it and often remained in that field for most of their working life.

That world has largely disappeared.

Today it is increasingly common for people to have multiple careers over their lifetime. Someone may begin in one profession, retrain in another field, move into management or start a business later in life.

The young man I met illustrates this reality perfectly: pharmacy, software development and now potentially hospitality and entrepreneurship. This is not failure. It is adaptation. Yet our careers guidance systems still treat career choice as a single decision made at seventeen.

The assumption that a young person must choose a definitive career path at that age is increasingly unrealistic.

In their influential book “The 100-Year Life:”Living and Working in an Age of Longevity, economists Lynda Gratton and Andrew J. Scott argue that longer life expectancy will fundamentally reshape how we work and live. Instead of a simple three-stage life — education, work and retirement — many people will experience “multi-stage” lives, retraining and moving between different careers several times.

In that context, the role of careers education should not simply be to help students choose a profession. It should help them develop the curiosity, resilience and adaptability needed to navigate a much longer and more complex working life.

Another structural issue is that many careers teachers are not career specialists. In most schools, careers guidance is an additional responsibility carried by a teacher whose main job lies elsewhere. They may be excellent educators, but they often have limited time and limited exposure to the rapidly changing labour market.

The formal careers system in Northern Ireland sits within the remit of the Department for the Economy and its Careers Service Northern Ireland. However, many pupils interact with this service only briefly, often late in their school career, if at all!? Most guidance still happens within schools themselves.

There is also a cultural factor that is rarely discussed. Many teachers move directly from school to university, into teacher training and then back into the school system. Their professional lives have been spent almost entirely within education. That does not mean they lack insight, but it can make it difficult to offer detailed guidance about careers in industries they have never experienced.

The issue may be particularly acute in selective systems such as Northern Ireland’s grammar schools. Grammar schools excel at academic preparation, producing strong exam results and sending large numbers of students to university. But that same focus can narrow the definition of success.

Because pupils have already been selected for academic ability, the system naturally channels them toward a relatively narrow range of degree-based professions such as medicine, law, engineering or accountancy. These are valuable careers, but they represent only a small part of the modern economy.

Northern Ireland’s schools (particularly the grammar schools) are exceptionally good at preparing young people for exams. But exams alone are not enough preparation for a working life that may last fifty years or more.

In a world where industries evolve rapidly and people may retrain several times during their lives, careers education needs to evolve as well. As Gratton and Scott argue in The 100-Year Life, the future will belong to those who can adapt, learn and reinvent themselves over time.

Our schools should not simply prepare students to complete a UCAS application. They should prepare them for the much longer and more unpredictable journey that lies beyond it.

Source: Slugger O'Toole | 23 Mar 2026 | 7:00 am UTC

Rising fertiliser costs lead to warning over food prices

Experts are warning of a jump of up to 10% in food prices as a result of sustained input cost rises for farmers due to the conflict in the Middle East.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 7:00 am UTC

Earth's climate shows record energy imbalance - WMO

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has warned that the Earth's climate is more out of balance than at any time in observed history, as greenhouse gas concentrations drive continued warming of the atmosphere and ocean and melting of ice.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:47 am UTC

Elon Musk wants to build 50 times more chips than the world currently produces, using 'new physics'

Like his promise to get a million robocabs on the road, this doesn't add up

Elon Musk has put Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI in harness to build a chip fabrication outfit called "Terafab" capable of producing a terawatt's worth of computing power each year, then send most of it into space.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:40 am UTC

SA premier warns One Nation poses threat to federal Labor as Marles says party only ‘about stunts and the vibe’

Federal Coalition tells Pauline Hanson’s party to expect more policy scrutiny after historic result in South Australia election

The Albanese government has sharpened its attacks on One Nation as a party of “stunts and the vibe” after the South Australian premier warned Pauline Hanson is a threat to Labor following its historic state election result.

The federal Coalition is also dialling up the pressure, warning One Nation to expect more scrutiny of its policy positions as it attempts to avert a SA-style collapse in other parts of the country.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:34 am UTC

Hundreds of petrol stations across Australia run out of fuel as Labor inks supply deal with Singapore

Energy minister, Chris Bowen, says ‘we’re a long way’ from further action like fuel rationing despite shortages

Hundreds of service stations across Australia have run out of fuel, with the federal government inking a deal with Singapore, one of the country’s biggest sources of refined petroleum, to keep supplies of diesel and petrol flowing.

Concerns are now broadening to supplies of fertiliser and other chemicals, heaping more pressure on the Albanese government’s leveraging of overseas exports of coal and gas in a bid to handle of the crisis.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:32 am UTC

Gözde Perik claims Iran faces 'regime change'

President Gözde Perik said today that "regime change" was underway in Iran as the United States holds peace talks with an unidentified alternative leader.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:24 am UTC

Jamie Oliver stars in music video for CMAT's song about hating him

In the song CMAT voices her frustration towards Oliver, singing "God, I hate him".

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:18 am UTC

British couple in Iran prison say situation is 'life-threatening'

Craig and Lindsay Foreman are being held in Tehran's Evin prison amid ongoing attacks on Iran.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:11 am UTC

'I'm a shell of my former self' - how long Covid's effects are still being felt six years on

Gabby Rudge-Cox, 42, says long Covid has "robbed her of a future".

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:08 am UTC

What are your options? A selection of postgraduate courses

From brewing and distilling to supply chain management, a wide range of postgrad study options is available

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:01 am UTC

‘I think my daughter would be suited to a job with a strong hands-on element or apprenticeship’

A three‑year OEM engineering apprenticeship opens doors internationally and provides access to further study in higher education

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:01 am UTC

Number of Irish citizens seeking consular help abroad at highest level since Covid pandemic

Iran crisis leads to surge in requests for assistance from Department of Foreign Affairs

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC

Increase in gardaí declaring domestic violence orders taken out against them

Disciplinary action can be taken against gardaí if they do not declare such orders and they later come to light

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 23 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC

Some Microsoft Insiders Fight to Drop Windows 11's Microsoft Account Requirements

Yes, Microsoft announced it's fixing common Windows 11 complaints. But what about getting rid of that requirement to have a Microsoft account before installing Windows 11? While Microsoft didn't mention that at all, the senior editor at the blog Windows Central reports there's "a number of people" internally pushing at Microsoft to relax that requirement: Microsoft Vice President and overall developer legend Scott Hanselman has posted on X in response to someone asking him about possibly relaxing the Microsoft account requirements, saying "Ya I hate that. Working on it...." [Hanselman made that remark Friday, to his 328,200 followers.] The blog notes "It would be very easy for Microsoft to remove this requirement from a technical perspective, it's just whether or not the company can agree to make the change that needs to be decided." Elsewhere on X someone told Hanselman they wanted to see Windows "cut out the borderline malware tactics we've seen in recent years to push things like Edge, Bing, ads into the start menu, etc." Hanselman's reply? "Yes a calmer and more chill OS with fewer upsells is a goal." Q: When will we see first changes? for now it's just words... Hanselman: This month and every month this year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:34 am UTC

UN issues new climate warning as El Niño looms

The Earth's climate is further out of balance than at any time in recorded history, the UN's weather agency says.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 4:06 am UTC

New Zealand PM’s ratings dip as fragile economy fails to impress before November election, poll shows

National leader Christopher Luxon drops in preferred PM stakes with rise in people saying country heading in wrong direction

The personal ratings of New Zealand’s prime minister, Christopher Luxon, have dipped, polling shows, as his government’s handling of the economy fails to impress voters ahead of the November election.

The RNZ-Reid Research poll, released on Monday, also found a growing number of people felt that New Zealand was heading in the wrong direction.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:22 am UTC

US warns Americans worldwide to show ‘increased caution’ – as it happened

This blog is closed. Follow our new liveblog here

Several blasts could be heard from Jerusalem on Sunday, AFP journalists said, after the Israeli military warned of incoming missile fire from Iran towards central Israel.

Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency medical service said there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 23 Mar 2026 | 3:11 am UTC

Scotland becomes first in UK to test newborns for rare genetic condition

Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) causes progressive muscle weakness and, without treatment, can limit life expectancy to just two years.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 2:55 am UTC

Microsoft: Removing some Copilots will improve Windows 11

'Doze boss admits quality is down, promises smaller memory footprint and fixes for many well-known issues

Microsoft has acknowledged that it needs to improve the quality of Windows 11 and outlined its plan to get the job done.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 2:34 am UTC

Walmart Announces Digital Price Labels for Every Store in the U.S. By the End of 2026

Walmart is "rolling out digital price tags to replace the old paper ones," reports CNBC, planning to implement them in all U.S. stores by the end of the year: Amanda Bailey, a team leader in electronics who works at a Walmart in West Chester, Ohio, estimates that the digital shelf labels — known as DSLs — have cut the time she used to spend on pricing duties by 75%, time that has freed her up to help customers. She also said the DSLs are a game-changer because Walmart's Spark delivery drivers looking for an item will see a flashing DSL so they can more easily find the product... Sean Turner, chief technology officer of Swiftly, a retail technology and media platform serving the grocery industry, said that while it makes sense that people are raising questions about dynamic pricing, the real issue is store-level efficiency. "Digital shelf labels solve some very real operational headaches. They cut down on manual price changes, reduce checkout discrepancies, and make it easier to keep in-store and digital promotions aligned," Turner said. All of that can mean fewer surprises at the register for shoppers and better-tailored promotions. "For consumers, the biggest benefit is accuracy and consistency," Benedict said. "Shoppers want to know the price they see is the price they pay. Digital labels can also make it easier for stores to mark down perishable items in real time, which can lower food waste and create savings opportunities." A Walmart spokeswoman promised CNBC that "the price you see is the same for everyone in any given store." But the article also notes that several U.S. states "are looking to ban dynamic pricing. Pennsylvania became one of the latest states to introduce a bill outlawing the practice, following New York's Algorithmic Pricing Disclosure Act, which became law in November." And at the federal level, U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján recently introduced the "Stop Price Gouging in Grocery Stores" act, which would ban digital labels in any grocery store over 10,000 square feet, while Congresswoman Val Hoyle is sponsoring similar legislation in the House. "There needs to be laws and enforcement to protect consumers," Hoyle tells CNBC, "and until then, I'd like to see them banned outright." CNBC adds that "While there is no reported use of digital shelf labeling being tied to surge pricing yet," in Hoyle's view "it's only a matter of time."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Mar 2026 | 1:34 am UTC

Australia to datacenter operators: BYO energy, pay your way, build green, or stay home

PLUS: Singtel’s triple outage; 17,000 counterfeit hard drives seized; Tech wages shift across Asia; And more!

Asia In Brief  Australia’s government on Monday announced a set of datacenter “expectations” to guide would-be bit barn builders who contemplate breaking ground down under.…

Source: The Register | 23 Mar 2026 | 12:43 am UTC

Heat pumps work for me - but they're not yet a money saver

The government wants Britons to embrace heat pumps. But will they ever make financial sense for the average user?

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 12:04 am UTC

'Psychological torture' - migrant worker on exploitation

Sam, which is not his real name, came to Ireland six years ago on a general employment permit as a horticultural worker. He thought it would be a turning point for his life but it soon turned sour.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 12:03 am UTC

Wholesale fuel prices to fall slightly, say retailers

Forecourt retailers say wholesale fuel prices will fall slightly from tomorrow.

Source: News Headlines | 23 Mar 2026 | 12:01 am UTC

How Woody the wonderdog helped an island become the world's first to eradicate ferrets

More than 400 traps were laid across the island in a £4.5m project which featured a specially-trained detection dog called Woody.

Source: BBC News | 23 Mar 2026 | 12:00 am UTC

Trapped! Inside a Self-Driving Car During an Anti-Robot Attack

A man crossing the street one San Francisco night spotted a self-driving car — and decided to confront its passenger, 37-year-old tech worker Doug Fulop. The New York Times reports the man yelled that "he wanted to kill Fulop and the other two passengers for giving money to a robot." A taxi driver would have simply driven away. But Fulop's vehicle had no driver — it was a self-driving Waymo... Self-driving cars are designed to stop moving if a person is nearby. People can take advantage of that function to harass and threaten their passengers.... It was unsettling to be trapped inside a Waymo during an attack, Fulop said. "If he had kept hammering on one window instead of alternating, I'm sure he would have eventually broken through," he said. The attacker did not appear to be on drugs or otherwise impaired, but seemed to be overtaken by extreme anger at the self-driving car, Fulop said. It did not seem safe to get out and run, he added, since the man was trying to open the locked doors and said he wanted to kill the passengers. They called 911 and Waymo's support line, Fulop said. Waymo told them that it would not manually direct the car away if someone was standing nearby, and that the passengers would be OK with the doors locked. The car's software does not allow riders to jump into the driver's seat and take over during an incident. The attack lasted around six minutes. By then, bystanders had begun cheering on the man, Fulop said. That distracted the man, who moved far enough away from the car that it could finally drive away... Fulop said he had stopped using Waymo for a time after the January attack and would avoid the service at night unless the company changed its policy of not intervening when a hostile person threatened riders. "As passengers, we deserve more safety than that if someone is trying to attack us," he said. "This can't be the policy to be trapped there." The article remembers other incidents — including a 2024 video showing three women screaming as their autonomous taxi is spray-painted by vandals. And technology author/speaker Anders Sorman-Nilsson says in Los Angeles five men on e-bikes surrounded his Waymo and forced it to stop. The author felt safe inside the vehicle, according to the times, which adds "He felt reassured knowing that Waymo's many exterior cameras were recording the men. After around five minutes, he said, they gave up and rode away."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Mar 2026 | 10:55 pm UTC

Russians are posing as Signal support to launch phishing attacks

PLUS: US takes down Iranian propaganda sites; Marketing company asks 'Why Do We Have Your Information?' And more!

Infosec In Brief  Russian intelligence-affiliated parties are posing as customer support services on commercial messaging applications such as Signal to compromise accounts and conduct phishing attacks, the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned last Friday.…

Source: The Register | 22 Mar 2026 | 10:12 pm UTC

Elon Musk Announces $20B 'Terafab' Chip Plant in Texas To Supply His Companies

"Billionaire Elon Musk has announced plans to build a $20 billion chip plant in Austin, Texas" reports a local news station: Musk announced on Saturday night during a livestream on his social media platform X that the plant, called "Terafab," will be built near Tesla's campus and gigafactory in eastern Travis County. The long-anticipated project is a joint venture between Musk-owned properties Tesla, SpaceX and xAI... The Terafab plant is expected to begin production in 2027. Musk "has said the semiconductor industry is moving too slow to keep up with the supply of chips he expects to need," writes Bloomberg — quoting Musk as saying "We either build the Terafab or we don't have the chips, and we need the chips, so we build the Terafab." Musk detailed some specific plans, including producing chips that can support 100 to 200 gigawatts a year of computing power on Earth, and chips that can support a terawatt in space, but gave no timelines for the facility or its output... The facility is expected to make two types of chips, one of which will be optimized for edge and inference, primarily for his vehicle, robotaxi and Optimus humanoid robots. The other will be a high-power chip, designed for space that could be used by SpaceX and xAI... Musk said he expects xAI to use the vast majority of the chips. During the presentation, Musk also unveiled a speculative rendering of a future "mini" AI data center satellite, one piece of a much larger satellite system that he wants SpaceX to build to do complex computing in space. In January, SpaceX requested a license from the Federal Communications Commission to launch one million data center satellites into orbit around Earth. Musk said that the mini satellite he revealed would have the capacity for 100 kilowatts of power. "We expect future satellites to probably go to the megawatt range," Musk said. Raising money to build and launch AI data centers in space is one of the driving forces behind SpaceX's planned IPO later this year. SpaceX is expected to raise as much as $50 billion in a record-setting IPO this summer which could value it at more than $1.75 trillion, Bloomberg News reported earlier.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Mar 2026 | 9:55 pm UTC

Gözde Perik threats, U.S. troop build-up raise specter of battle for Hormuz

Israelis said securing the strait for energy shipments could become the war’s main goal now that regime change and ending Iran’s ability to obtain a nuclear weapon seem out of reach.

Source: World | 22 Mar 2026 | 9:41 pm UTC

Tech Leaders Support California Bill to Stop 'Dominant Platforms' From Blocking Competition

A new bill proposed in California "goes after big tech companies" writes Semafor. Supported by Y Combinator, Cory Doctorow , and the nonprofit advocacy group Fight for the Future, it's called the "BASED" act — an acronym which stands for "Blocking Anticompetitive Self-preferencing by Entrenched Dominant platforms." As announced by San Francisco state representative Scott Wiener, the bill "will restore competition to the digital marketplace by prohibiting any digital platform with a market capitalization greater than $1 trillion and serving 100 million or more monthly users in the U.S., from favoring their own products and services on the platforms they operate." More from Scott Wiener;s announcement: For years, giant digital platforms like Apple, Amazon, Google, and Meta have used their immense power to promote their own products and services while stifling competitors — a practice also known as self-preferencing. The result has been higher prices, diminished service, and fewer options for consumers, and less innovation across the technology ecosystem. Self-preferencing also locks startups and mid-sized companies out of the online marketplace unless they play by rules set by their competitors. As a new generation of AI-powered startups seeks to enter the marketplace, their success — and public access to the innovations they produce — depends on their ability to compete on an even playing field. "Anticompetitive behavior is everywhere on the internet," said Senator Wiener, "from rigged search results, to manipulative nudges boosting the 'house' product, to anti-discount policies that raise prices, to the dreaded green bubble that 'breaks' the group chat. When the world's largest digital platforms rig the game to favor their own products and services, we all lose. By prohibiting these anticompetitive practices, the BASED Act will protect competition online, empower consumers and startups, and promote innovations to improve all our lives." The announcement includes a quote from Teri Olle, VP of the nonprofit Economic Security California Action, saying the act would "safeguard merit-based market competition. This legislation stands for a simple principle: owning the stadium doesn't mean that you get to rig the game." Some conduct prohibited by the proposed bill includes Manipulating the order of search results to favor a provider's products or services, irrespective of a merit-based process, Using non-public data generated by third-party sellers — including sales volumes, pricing, and customer behavior — to develop competing products that are subsequently boosted above the third-party sellers' product... And the announcement also notes that "under the terms of the bill, providers could not prevent consumers from obtaining a portable copy of their own data or restrict voluntary data sharing (by consumers) with third parties." Read on for reactions from DuckDuckGo, Proton, Yelp, Y Combinator, and Cory Doctorow.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Mar 2026 | 8:34 pm UTC

Why Apple Temporarily Blocked Popular Vibe Coding Apps

An anonymous reader shared this report from the tech-news blog Neowin: Apple appears to have temporarily prevented apps, including Replit and Vibecode, from pushing new updates. Apple seems bothered by how apps like Replit present vibe-coded apps in a web view within the original app. This process virtually allows the app to become something else. And the new app isn't distributed via the App Store, but it still runs on the user's device... [S]uch apps would also bypass the App Store Review process that ensures that apps are safe to use and meet Apple's design and performance standards... According to the publication (via MacRumors), Apple was close to approving pending updates for such apps if they changed how they work. For instance, Replit would get the green light if its developers configure the app to open vibe-coded apps in an external browser rather than the in-app web view. Vibecode is also close to being approved if it removes features, such as the ability to develop apps specifically for the App Store.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Mar 2026 | 7:19 pm UTC

William Shatner Celebrates 95th Birthday, Smokes Cigar, Revisits 'Rocket Man' and Tests X Money

It was 60 years ago when William Shatner — born in 1931 — portrayed Captain Kirk in the TV series Star Trek. Shatner turns 95 today — and celebrated by posting a picture of himself smoking a cigar. "At 95, I'm still smokin'!" Shatner joked, adding that in life he'd learned two things. "Never waste a good cigar. Never trust anyone who says you should 'act your age.'" For more celebrations, Paramount's free/ad-supported streaming platform Pluto TV announced a "Trek TV takeover birthday celebration" that will run through April 3rd, according to TrekMovie.com, with marathon of Star Trek movies and TV shows — and even that time he was roasted on Comedy Central. ("Freeâ½ My favorite price!" Shatner quipped on X.com.) Shatner still remains a popular celebrity, even travelling to space five years ago on a Blue Origin flight past the Kármán line. Since then he's led a cruise to Antarctica — and even performed an alternate take of Captain Kirk's final scene on the Jimmy Fallon show. And this week Shatner (along with hundreds of thousands attendees) appeared at Orlando's MegaCon — and shared stories about his life with Orlando Weekly: Shatner: Last month, I was on board a cruise ship, and they said the only thing I had to do over the next three days, "before we let you go home," is sing "Rocket Man." So I thought, "I'm not going to sing 'Rocket Man' the same way that what's-his-name did. ... So, I looked at the song very carefully to see if I could find what actors call a throughline. What is the character singing? What is he singing about? And so I look through all of these weird lyrics, and all of a sudden, the word sticks out to me: "alone." So I say to the band members, "OK, let's make this song about being alone in space." And I work on it with the band and the musicians, and again on a Saturday night, I perform the number, and 4,000 people stand up and applaud "Rocket Man." And they won't let me off the stage, again and again. Four times, I get a standing ovation, wild. And that's the progression for me, of science fiction for me, as exemplified by this song. The song went from superficial to something of depth and meaning... It touched people enough for them to stand up and applaud, and I realized that is the story of science fiction... Science fiction with all its great technology has evolved into great storytelling that reaches people in a manner that is very difficult for other types of drama to do. Shatner answered questions from Slashdot readers in 2002 ("My life is my statement...") and again in 2011. ("I used to try to assemble computers way back when and they came out looking like a skateboard...") And judging by his X.com posts, Shatner is now involved in early testing of the site's upcoming digital payment system X Money.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Mar 2026 | 5:55 pm UTC

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