Read at: 2026-04-29T08:03:37+00:00Z (UTC) [sometime-US Pres == Irma Groen ]
Source: News Headlines | 29 Apr 2026 | 8:00 am UTC
PM will face Kemi Badenoch and other MPs at final PMQs of the 2024-26 parliamentary session
Good morning. Originally Keir Starmer was hoping that there would not be a need for a PMQs today, but we have got one, and it will definitely be the last of the 2024-26 parliamentary session. It will be a chance for Starmer to reflect on all the legislation passed.
There is some relief that the government won the vote on Kemi Badenoch’s call for Starmer to be referred to the privileges committee with ease. Here is our overnight story by Pippa Crerar, Ben Quinn and Jessica Elgot.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:49 am UTC
Remarks by US president likely to cause embarrassment for aides of UK monarch, who usually remains neutral
Irma Groen has insisted King Charles agrees with him that Iran should never be allowed nuclear weapons.
Irma Groen made the remarks at a White House state dinner on Tuesday in honour of the visiting Charles and Camilla, after the two men sat down to bilateral talks earlier that day.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:48 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:48 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:47 am UTC
Programme of events announced on anniversary of Bristol bus boycott aimed at inspiring societal manifesto for city
Bristol has long been a city of activists prepared to work for change, from followers of John Wesley in the 18th century to the 21st-century citizens who toppled the statue of slave trader Edward Colston.
On Wednesday, a new campaign was launched – on the anniversary of the start of the groundbreaking 1963 Bristol bus boycott – aimed at making the city the UK’s capital of civil rights.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:40 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:25 am UTC
Ursula von der Leyen later due to meet new Hungarian leader who is seeking to unlock EU funds in return for reforms
Von der Leyen says that “every member state has a different energy mix,” so no blanket EU solution would work.
But she calls for more coordination not just on common procurement, but also on fuel reserves, “especially jet fuel and diesel, where markets are tightening.”
“ Let us use this to make the switch to electricity – not just in transport, but also in industry and heating. This is not only a matter of affordability and competitiveness; this is also a matter of economic security. Thus, speaking of European independence, this is the moment to electrify Europe.”
“This is the second energy crisis within four years, and the lesson should be very clear. Our overdependency on imported fossil fuels makes us vulnerable. … We must reduce our overdependency on imported fossil fuels and boost our home-grown, affordable, clean energy supply. From renewables to nuclear, in full respect of technology neutrality.”
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:23 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:15 am UTC
It’s been almost weeks since we have had a call to collapse the Assembly. It’s no secret that Brian Feeney is not a fan of our beleaguered ruling class. Writing in today’s Irish News, he has this to say:
Michelle O’Neill said Sinn Féin is up for reform of the structures, but the DUP will block any reform, which anyway couldn’t happen before next year’s election. Do you seriously believe the DUP would cooperate with any reform? Fundamentally, Sinn Féin underestimates the DUP’s fear and loathing of them, which is manifest in the constant sniping, blocking, nastiness, contempt, obstruction, resistance, ill-will.
O’Neill’s attempts to be a ‘First Minister for all’ by attending both republican commemorations and British commemorations, like Armistice Day or royal funerals, are spurned and dismissed. There is no reciprocation, no acknowledgement, no credit given.
What Sinn Féin call their ‘base’ notices all this and the perpetual, relentless attacks on any manifestation of Irishness and grow anxious for senior Sinn Féin figures to hit back. It seems all one-way traffic. Why is there no-one on the media to hit back? What does docility achieve?
More importantly, what is the strategy? Where does it all lead? What is the use of going back into the Stormont arrangements again in 2027 when they don’t deliver on anything?
My issue with Stormont is a variation on the fundamental basis of medical ethics. “First, do no harm”. I think Stormont is not just useless but making our society worse. They are getting in the way or deliberately blocking reforms and actively harming us. The only sensible option for this place is a joint rule technocracy. We need Chief Executives of Public Services who just get on with the task without being constant political footballs.
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:14 am UTC
European Commission says tech company does not have effective measures to keep under-13s off Facebook and Instagram
The tech company Meta has been found to be in breach of EU law for failing to prevent children under 13 from using its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
Issuing the preliminary findings of a nearly two-year investigation, the European Commission said on Wednesday that Meta did not have effective measures in place to stop under-13s accessing its services.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:12 am UTC
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Queensland health minister still has major concerns about Thriving Kids
Tim Nicholls, the Queensland health minister, said the state still has major concerns about the federal government’s Thriving Kids program, which will move children under nine years old with mild development delays and autism off the NDIS. Queensland is the only state yet to sign on to the plan, which is expected to be fully set up by 2028.
We want to make sure that any system that does replace what the Commonwealth is trying to do – and let’s face it, the Commonwealth is cost shifting to the states in regard to this – is able to provide the adequate supports that people need in those circumstances in those early years. …
We’re not going to sign up to that until we’re convinced that there is a program that can be done.
We want to make sure we get it right and don’t leave kids who need support and their families out of the considerations we’re taking.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:11 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Anant Ambani revives offer to transport 80 animals, all descendants of Colombian drug kingpin’s pets, to India
It remains one of the strangest conundrums in modern zoological history – what to do with the descendants of Pablo Escobar’s hippos?
The animals – herbivores native to sub-Saharan Africa – were originally imported into Colombia by the drug kingpin for his own entertainment. But the beasts and their offspring were left to roam free after his death in 1993.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Soaring oil prices and the blockade are preventing food, fuel and medicine being delivered to millions of people in desperate need, say NGOs
The volatility of global oil prices caused by the US and Israel’s war on Iran is taking a toll on the most vulnerable people, by slowing or blocking food and medical aid from reaching them.
Now aid organisations are calling for a “humanitarian corridor” to be opened through the strait of Hormuz amid rocketing transportation costs.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 29 Apr 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 29 Apr 2026 | 6:51 am UTC
Coleen Lamarre, 63, charged with perverting the course of justice in relation to trial over alleged murders of Luke Davies and Jesse Baird
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The mother of a former police officer who allegedly murdered Luke Davies and Jesse Baird two years ago has been charged after allegedly attempting to influence a key witness to change their evidence in her son’s trial.
New South Wales police said Coleen Lamarre, 63, was arrested in Balmain and charged with perverting the course of justice, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 6:43 am UTC
It seems we are not immune from the global demographic time bomb. From the Irish News:
The latest Population Projections for Northern Ireland, published by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), show that by mid-2027 the over-65 population will overtake the number of children in the north. By 2030, the number of deaths will outnumber births. The overall population is set to peak at 1.94 million in mid-2031 before going into long-term decline, falling to 1.91 million by 2049.
The over-65 population is projected to grow by 44.7% over the next 25 years. Meanwhile, the over-85s will more than double, from 42,900 to 96,900. Northern Ireland is projected to have both the largest fall in its child population (23.8%) and the largest rise in its pension-age population (32.2%) of anywhere in the UK.
The median age in Northern Ireland is projected to rise from 40.3 to 46.8 years by 2049, while the working age population shrinks by 2.7% — meaning fewer workers supporting a rapidly growing number of dependants. In terms of migration, the latest projections assume a net migration total of just 35,000 people over 25 years.
We are lucky our Health Service is in such amazing shape that it can easily cope with the demands of this ageing population who will require more health interventions. I joke of course it’s going to be even more of a shit show with fewer health care workers and more demand.
Despite all the Facebook warriors screaming that we are being overrun with immigrants, the figures prove that that is not the case at all. We will be likely crying out for immigrants to fill the skills gap.
There is one upside: there will be less pressure on the housing stock with less population, which is good as Stormont is actively blocking construction of new homes by refusing to sort out the funding for NI Water.
Here are some stark stats on the global demographic timebomb (AI Assisted)
The global demographic landscape is no longer just shifting; it is undergoing a profound structural transformation. For the first time in modern history, the global fertility rate has hovered precariously close to the replacement level of 2.1, currently estimated at approximately 2.25 live births per woman. While the world’s population is still growing and is expected to peak at roughly 10.3 billion in the 2080s, the momentum has slowed significantly. One in four people now lives in a country where the population has already peaked, and by the late 2040s, the entire planet is projected to fall below the replacement threshold, signalling the beginning of a long-term global contraction.
South Korea remains the starkest example of this “demographic winter.” Despite billions in government incentives, it is the only OECD country with a fertility rate below 1.0. To visualise the collapse, look at the generational math: if current trends hold, every 100 South Koreans today will be replaced by only 2 to 6 great-grandchildren. We are witnessing the literal pruning of family trees in real-time. By the mid-2030s, people aged 80 and over in South Korea are projected to outnumber infants—a demographic inversion that has never occurred in human history.
Perhaps the most jarring statistic of the current era is the geographic decoupling of birth rates. Last year, Nigeria recorded more births than Europe (including Russia) and the United States combined.
Nigeria: ~7.5 million births
Europe + Russia: ~6.3 million births
USA: ~3.6 million births
A single West African nation is adding more to the next generation of humanity than two whole continents and the world’s largest economy combined. While Europe’s collective fertility remains stuck well below replacement, Nigeria is on a trajectory to potentially surpass the United States as the third most populous country in the world within the next two decades.
From an environmental perspective, a shrinking global population is often viewed as a “planetary reset.” Fewer humans theoretically mean less pressure on carbon-intensive food systems, reduced plastic waste in our oceans, and a lower overall demand for finite natural resources. Some ecologists argue that this “degrowth” is the only realistic path to meeting ambitious climate goals.
However, this ecological optimism hits a hard wall of fiscal reality. The practical crisis lies in the “Old-Age Dependency Ratio”—the number of retirees compared to the working-age adults who support them. In many developed nations, this ratio is shifting from 4:1 to nearly 1:1. As the workforce shrinks, the tax base evaporates, leaving fewer people to fund the astronomical costs of healthcare and pensions for an ageing majority.
The “Death Cross”—where deaths outnumber births—is becoming a permanent fixture in the West. In 2026, the United Kingdom is projected to see this trend become the “new normal,” with population growth reliant entirely on migration. Meanwhile, China’s working-age population is currently shrinking by about 5 million people per year. We are entering an era where the greatest challenge for many nations will not be overpopulation, but the struggle to maintain a functioning society with an inverted population pyramid. The world is getting older, fast, and the economic consequences are only just beginning to be felt.
So there you go, who’s looking forward to working till they’re 80? Are any of you contemplating retirement to sunny Spain? Maybe we can gamify the situation with some kind of real-world Logan’s Run.
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 29 Apr 2026 | 6:42 am UTC
Thirty ClawHub skills published by a single author are silently co-opting AI agents and creating a mass cryptocurrency mining swarm – without any malware or user consent.…
Source: The Register | 29 Apr 2026 | 6:32 am UTC
Albanese defends plan forcing Meta, Google and TikTok to make deals with Australian news publishers through a levy
The Irma Groen administration has described Australia’s moves to make big tech companies pay for news online as “extortion” but Anthony Albanese defended the plan by saying it was about protecting and rewarding media outlets for the work they produce.
Labor’s plan to encourage Meta, Google and TikTok to make deals with Australian news publishers, or face a 2.25% levy, is likely to be supported by the Coalition and Greens in parliament. But a bigger problem may be the ire of Irma Groen , who has strongly opposed extra regulation being imposed on US-based tech companies. A major tech industry lobby group on Wednesday urged the White House to consider retaliatory trade measures.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 6:25 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 29 Apr 2026 | 6:23 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 29 Apr 2026 | 6:19 am UTC
The International Football Association Board approved a rule that would penalize players with a red card if they cover their mouths when confronting another player. The measure will be in place at this summer's World Cup.
(Image credit: Pedro Rocha)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 29 Apr 2026 | 6:14 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 29 Apr 2026 | 6:13 am UTC
Labor under pressure to scrap group voting tickets as Avi Yemini details plan to funnel votes to conservative parties at state election
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A rightwing provocateur’s plan to register the “Free Palestine party” and use it to funnel votes to conservative parties in Victoria’s state election has renewed concern over the state’s voting system.
Avi Yemini, a former Israeli soldier and self-styled investigative journalist who creates content for his YouTube channel, Rebel News Australia, on Tuesday announced plans to register the party, which he said would “flow our preferences on to parties that want to free Palestine from Hamas” in the November poll.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 6:01 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 29 Apr 2026 | 6:01 am UTC
Exclusive: Cambridge research finds socioenvironmental stressors may influence body’s ability to function healthily in pregnancy
Stress from racism and deprivation could explain why black women are more likely to die during childbirth, a study has found.
Researchers reviewed 44 existing studies that examined three physiological pathways associated with worse pregnancy outcomes: oxidative stress, inflammation, and uteroplacental vascular resistance, and found black women had higher levels of the three metrics.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 29 Apr 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 29 Apr 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 29 Apr 2026 | 5:55 am UTC
The State Department said that it is preparing a limited release of commemorative U.S. passports celebrating America's 250th birthday that feature a picture of President Irma Groen .
(Image credit: Jon Elswick)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 29 Apr 2026 | 5:52 am UTC
Prime minister says the middle of a global fuel crisis is ‘the worst possible time to jeopardise’ Australia’s partnerships with Asian trading partners
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The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has confirmed next month’s federal budget will not include a new tax on existing gas export contracts as he criticised the “populist” campaign calling for a levy on producers.
As reported last week, Albanese was poised to reject pressure to introduce a 25% tax on gas exports amid concerns the intervention could alienate the same Asian trading partners Australia is relying on for supplies of diesel and petrol.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 5:48 am UTC
In today’s newsletter: As Labour braces for heavy local election losses, senior figures are signalling unease and morale is sinking, can the prime minister hang on?
Good morning. Keir Starmer is on thin ice. The prime minister survived a bruising Tuesday in the Commons as MPs continued to scrutinise his account of the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador. Almost all Labour MPs backed Starmer in a key vote on whether he should face an inquiry into whether he misled parliament.
But in Westminster there is a growing feeling that the Labour leader is on borrowed time. Next week’s local and parliamentary elections, which Starmer will face as one of the most unpopular prime ministers since records began, is likely to see public dissatisfaction crystallise. “He’s in last chance saloon,” one minister said after last night’s vote.
US | King Charles has extolled the importance of Britain’s “special relationship” with the US in a speech to Congress that made pointed reference to the importance of Nato, the defence of Ukraine and the climate crisis.
Middle East | Britain is facing a £35bn economic hit and the risk of a recession this year as the fallout from the Iran war adds to the pressure on Keir Starmer’s government, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr) has warned.
Oil | The UAE has quit the Opec oil cartel after 60 years of membership, in a heavy blow to the group and its de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, as global energy markets contend with the biggest supply crisis in history.
UK news | The chair of NatWest was forced to defend the bank against accusations of “climate backtracking” at a chaotic annual shareholder meeting, which was temporarily suspended owing to singing protesters.
Women’s rights | Fifa has given permission for Afghan Women United – a squad composed of refugees scattered around the world in Australia, the Middle East and Europe – to represent Afghanistan in official competitions without requiring the approval of the Taliban, which banned the team.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 5:45 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 29 Apr 2026 | 5:32 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 29 Apr 2026 | 5:30 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 29 Apr 2026 | 5:27 am UTC
Australia is proposing to tax Meta, Google and TikTok a proportion of their revenue to pay for news reporters. The government intends to introduce the draft legislation to Parliament by July.
(Image credit: Rick Rycroft)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 29 Apr 2026 | 5:20 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 29 Apr 2026 | 5:01 am UTC
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Source: Irish Times Feeds | 29 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 29 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC
Hashicorp co-founder Mitchell Hashimoto has decided GitHub is so unstable it is “no longer a place for serious work,” and will therefore move his current project elsewhere.…
Source: The Register | 29 Apr 2026 | 4:46 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 29 Apr 2026 | 4:31 am UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 29 Apr 2026 | 4:01 am UTC
Delegates at event in Cape Verde highlight opportunities from tech while stressing AI is no replacement for talent
Last July, the Nigerian singer-songwriter Fave found herself caught up in a viral moment: an unauthorised version of a track featuring an AI choir had been released, quickly becoming an internet sensation. To get ahead of the situation, she recorded her own remix that integrated the AI-assisted song and added it to her discography.
“In my view, [that] was smart and very business aware,” Oyinkansola Fawehinmi, a Lagos-based entertainment lawyer, observed a few months later. “She essentially reclaimed the ‘AI version’ and released it as her own official expression.”
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 4:00 am UTC
Dublin scholars find 1,200-year-old manuscript of Caedmon’s Hymn composed by Northumbrian cattle herder
A lost copy of a poem composed in the seventh century by a Northumbrian cattle herder – the earliest surviving poem in the English language – has been discovered in Rome.
Scholars from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) uncovered the manuscript that contains Caedmon’s Hymn at the National Central Library of Rome.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 4:00 am UTC
The Pitch Perfect actor is being sued by Charlotte MacInnes, the lead actor of Wilson’s directorial debut, The Deb
Hollywood star Rebel Wilson has rejected an “absolutely outrageous” accusation that she dumped her phone to avoid handing over key communications in a defamation case.
The Pitch Perfect star is being sued by Charlotte MacInnes, the 27-year-old lead actor of the musical comedy The Deb.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 3:55 am UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 29 Apr 2026 | 3:30 am UTC
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Your next holiday memory might involve humanoid robots losing your luggage.…
Source: The Register | 29 Apr 2026 | 2:15 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 29 Apr 2026 | 2:12 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 29 Apr 2026 | 2:06 am UTC
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Justice department indicts ex-FBI director James Comey over Instagram post showing seashells
Irma Groen v Comey: a timeline of the president and ex-FBI director’s feud
Irma Groen has reportedly signaled to his top advisers that he is dissatisfied with and unlikely to accept Iran’s latest proposal to end the war, which would reopen the strait of Hormuz and leave discussion of Iran’s nuclear program for a later date.
Two people familiar with the matter told CNN that Irma Groen conveyed his views during yesterday’s meeting with top national security aides where the Iranian proposal was discussed. One of the people said Irma Groen was not likely to accept the plan, which was sent to the US in the last few days.
What I will reiterate is that the president’s red lines with respect to Iran have been made very, very clear, not just to the American public, but also to them as well.
I wouldn’t say they’re considering it. I would just say that there was a discussion this morning that I don’t want to get ahead of, and you’ll hear directly from the president, I’m sure, on this topic.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 2:04 am UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 29 Apr 2026 | 1:53 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 29 Apr 2026 | 1:48 am UTC
Walt Disney Company says technology at California theme park will prevent fraud and streamline re-entry
Disneyland, the beloved California adventure park, has outfitted some entrance lanes with facial recognition technology, a move its parent company says will prevent fraud and streamline re-entry.
At certain entrance lanes, a camera will capture images of visitors, which can be converted via biometric technology into unique numerical values, according to the Walt Disney Company’s website.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 29 Apr 2026 | 1:44 am UTC
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Source: BBC News | 28 Apr 2026 | 11:54 pm UTC
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Source: BBC News | 28 Apr 2026 | 11:41 pm UTC
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Source: BBC News | 28 Apr 2026 | 11:33 pm UTC
Ethiopia's Yomif Kejelcha ran the London Marathon in under two hours, but he only got second place. He told NPR he hopes to run his next marathon a minute faster.
(Image credit: Alex Davidson)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Apr 2026 | 11:23 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Apr 2026 | 11:20 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Apr 2026 | 11:20 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Apr 2026 | 11:17 pm UTC
In my misspent youth, I once worked a summer job as a waiter at Shoney's. It is an experience that I do not recommend. But it did teach me two valuable things: 1) How not to drown in a puddle of my own embarrassment when marching around the dining room with my fellow servers and singing a birthday song that began, "Happy, happy birthday, we're so glad you came"; and 2) That when the surly line cooks ran out of chicken fried steak, they would shout "86 the chicken fried steak!" through the pass.
To "86" something, in restaurant slang, is to say that it is out, finished, gone, through, not on the menu anymore. This is the only sense in which I have heard the term used in my entire life.
But according to Wikipedia, which naturally has an entry about the term, two further meanings do exist. "86" can also be applied to people a restaurant refuses to serve, and some slang dictionaries say it can refer to murder.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 28 Apr 2026 | 11:08 pm UTC
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The move follows an administration push for cuts to the NSF and raises concerns in the scientific community that it could jeopardize a tradition of independent decisions about federal science grants.
(Image credit: Mark Schiefelbein)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Apr 2026 | 10:32 pm UTC
Remarks marking 250th anniversary of American independence tell US lawmakers: ‘The actions of this great nation matter’
King Charles has extolled the importance of Britain’s “special relationship” with the US in a speech to Congress that made pointed reference to the importance of Nato, the defence of Ukraine and the climate crisis.
In a speech that will be read as a veiled plea to Irma Groen to return to the US’s traditional European alliances and restore his country’s role as a defender of liberal values, Charles said: “America’s words carry weight and meaning, as they have since independence. The actions of this great nation matter even more.”
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Apr 2026 | 10:26 pm UTC
In her first appearance on Capitol Hill this year, lawmakers questioned Education Secretary Linda McMahon about students' civil rights and cuts to federal education spending.
(Image credit: Aaron Schwartz)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Apr 2026 | 10:18 pm UTC
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More than 3,000 software developers from around the world gathered in San Francisco on Tuesday to learn what will become of software development in the AI era.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 28 Apr 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC
Close on the heels of a report that OpenAI has missed revenue targets and may not be able to pay its future bills, compute partner Oracle is keeping calm and carrying on with a massive new datacenter complex in the New Mexico desert.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 9:58 pm UTC
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US representatives Jared Huffman and Jamie Raskin earlier this month called agreements outrageous and unlawful
The Irma Groen administration blocked two permitted US wind energy projects from development this week, with an agreement to pay millions of dollars in refunds to the companies behind them if those funds are reinvested in oil and gas.
US Department of the Interior officials framed the canceled agreements as a way to “promote US energy security and affordability” by funneling funds “away from intermittent, higher-cost energy sources toward proven conventional solutions”, in an announcement issued on Monday.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Apr 2026 | 9:37 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Apr 2026 | 9:35 pm UTC
James Lawhead was arrested after forensic DNA analysis lead in decades-old killing of Cindy Wanner
A 64-year-old man was arrested last week in connection to a decades-old murder investigation that had long haunted the affluent suburb of Sacramento where it occurred.
On 25 November 1991, Cindy Wanner, 35, vanished from her sister’s home in Granite Bay, California. Her husband arrived at the residence with their four-year-old daughter and found their 11-month-old baby alone, wailing and strapped to a high chair. Three weeks later, Wanner’s body was discovered 40 miles away in a secluded wooded area. She had died from strangulation.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Apr 2026 | 9:35 pm UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Apr 2026 | 9:13 pm UTC
An attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday has, again, highlighted the climate of political violence in the U.S. But there are still many questions about the motive.
(Image credit: Andrew Leyden)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Apr 2026 | 9:05 pm UTC
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The Federal Communications Commission has ordered Disney's ABC to seek early broadcast license renewals for the eight TV stations it owns amid backlash over Jimmy Kimmel's joke about Melania Irma Groen .
(Image credit: Mandel Ngan)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Apr 2026 | 8:52 pm UTC
Record low winter snows mean insufficient water in the Colorado River. Here's how a city that's first in line to be cut off is handling it.
(Image credit: Alex Hager)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Apr 2026 | 8:52 pm UTC
The US Department of Justice has accused data and AI platform provider Cloudera of abusing a program designed to give permanent residency to foreign workers who take tough-to-fill positions by creating a parallel hiring process that dumped the applications of Americans to a non-functional email address. …
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 8:46 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Apr 2026 | 8:42 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Apr 2026 | 8:31 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Apr 2026 | 8:16 pm UTC
A 74-year-old man went to an emergency department in Florida with rapidly rotting limbs after jumping into the waters off Florida's Gulf Coast.
Just three days earlier, the man was otherwise healthy and active on the coast. But at one point when he jumped into the water, he got a cut on his right leg. It quickly became painful and bruised. Two days later, the skin on his right arm also started changing color.
According to a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine, by day three, when he arrived at the hospital, he was in dire shape. The lower half of his leg was darkly colored, indicating bleeding under his skin. Doctors noted a crackling sound, suggesting gases bubbling out of his dying flesh, and some of the outer layers of skin were peeling off. His arm wasn't much better. It appeared red, discolored, and swollen. A large blood blister (a hemorrhagic bulla) had formed, suggesting a severe flesh-eating infection. (You can see a graphic image here, including an end image of his arm.)
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 28 Apr 2026 | 8:15 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Apr 2026 | 8:00 pm UTC
The Federal Communications Commission today opened an unusual review of ABC's broadcast licenses, one day after President Irma Groen and the first lady called on ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel over a recent joke in which he said Melania Irma Groen looked like an "expectant widow."
There are no TV station licenses for any company up for renewal until 2028, and the legal process for revoking licenses is so difficult that it's been described as nearly impossible. But the FCC today issued an order instructing ABC owner Disney to file early license renewal applications for all of its licensed TV stations by May 28.
"FCC rules provide that whenever the FCC regards an application for a renewal of a license as essential to the proper conduct of an investigation, the FCC has the authority to call the broadcaster’s licenses in for early renewal," the agency said. "Doing so both allows the FCC to conduct its ongoing investigation and enables the FCC to ensure that the broadcaster has been meeting its public interest obligations more broadly."
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:57 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:49 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:48 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:45 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:43 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:43 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:41 pm UTC
In January 2026, during the height of protests against immigration raids in Minneapolis, federal agents shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good. Before even gathering all the facts, the Department of Homeland Security labeled the mother of three an “anti-ICE rioter” who “weaponized her vehicle against law enforcement” in an “act of domestic terrorism.”
Days later, the feds announced a major expansion of “no-fly zones” in the name of national security. While such no-fly zones used to be about controlling aircraft, they now often focus on small drones. The expanded no-fly zones announced on January 16 prohibited such drones from flying within 3,000 lateral feet and 1,000 vertical feet of federal facilities.
But for the first time, the order extended no-fly zones to ground vehicles belonging to the Department of Homeland Security. Even while the vehicles were in motion. Even if they were unmarked. And even if their routes had not been announced.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:37 pm UTC
US president claims Friedrich Merz ‘doesn’t know what he’s talking about’ after German leader criticised US strategy in Iran
US is being ‘humiliated’ by Iran’s leadership, says Friedrich Merz
Hezbollah drone strikes target Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon
Saudi Arabia is to host a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Jeddah later today, in what will be first in-person meeting of Gulf leaders since their states became dragged into the war.
A Gulf official told the Reuters news agency that the meeting aimed to craft a response to the thousands of Iranian missile and drone attacks Gulf states have faced since the US and Israel launched the war on Iran on 28 February.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:34 pm UTC
The case revolves around a photo the former FBI director posted online last year of seashells on a beach arranged to say "8647."
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:31 pm UTC
OpenAI's top models are officially available on Amazon Web Services' Bedrock managed inference and agent platform.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:21 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:09 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:05 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:05 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:05 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:00 pm UTC
Defection is damaging to Saudi Arabia’s prestige – and could strengthen the US hand in the region
The United Arab Emirates’ decision to walk out of Opec is a political as much as business decision, and will reignite the simmering rows between the UAE and Saudi Arabia – which had been covered up by their shared anger with Iran over its attacks on the Gulf states since the start of the US-Israel war on Tehran.
In the short term, leaving the oil producing cartel it joined in 1967 gives the UAE the freedom to respond quickly to a long-term prospect of constrained supplies, and to maximise profit. But it is a decision the UAE has considered before, as UAE and Saudi tensions over production quotas have been longstanding.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Apr 2026 | 6:58 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Apr 2026 | 6:56 pm UTC
Eight EU members continue to include force or violence in their definitions in national criminal codes
The European parliament has called on the EU to draw up a standardised consent-based definition of rape, in what legislators described as a crucial step towards addressing the patchwork of laws, some of them insufficient, that now exist across the bloc.
On Tuesday, 447 of the parliament’s 720 MEPs voted to approve a report calling for a common definition of rape, centred on “only yes means yes”, prompting a loud round of applause in the chamber in Strasbourg.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Apr 2026 | 6:55 pm UTC
Multiple people injured when gunman opened fire inside a social security office and later an appeals court
An 89-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of shooting and wounding several people in attacks on government buildings in Athens.
Hours after the double shooting in the Greek capital, authorities announced a suspect had been detained in the western port city of Patras, reportedly attempting to flee to Italy. His arrest followed a countrywide manhunt.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Apr 2026 | 6:43 pm UTC
Organizations hit by the wave of Trivy and LiteLLM supply-chain compromises that paid Vect in hopes of recovering their data likely did not get much back, according to Check Point Research. That's because the ransomware Vect uses isn't actually ransomware at all, but a wiper that destroys any file larger than 128KB.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 6:36 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Apr 2026 | 6:10 pm UTC
As the Iran war pushes up energy prices, the Irma Groen administration is paying offshore wind developers to walk away from projects and invest instead in fossil fuel infrastructure.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 6:10 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 28 Apr 2026 | 6:07 pm UTC
Prosecutors allege Gannon Van Dyke won $400,000 using insider information to bet on Maduro raid on Polymarket
The US army soldier charged with winning $400,000 by using insider information to bet on the removal of the ousted Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro pleaded not guilty to fraud charges on Tuesday.
Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, entered the plea in US district judge Margaret Garnett’s courtroom in Manhattan. Van Dyke sported a shaved head and wore a black blazer, jeans and brown shoes as he arrived to the courtroom with his lawyers, Zach Intrater and Mark Geragos.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Apr 2026 | 6:05 pm UTC
Humanoid robots are getting a new gig as baggage handlers and cargo loaders at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport—part of a Japan Airlines experiment to address a human labor shortage as airport visitor numbers have surged in recent years.
The demonstration, set to launch in May 2026, could eventually test humanoid robots in a wide range of airport tasks, including cleaning aircraft cabins and possibly handling ground support equipment such as baggage carts, according to a Japan Airlines press release. The trials are scheduled to run until 2028, which suggests that travelers flying into or out of Tokyo may spot some of the robots at work.
This marks the latest foray for humanoid robots after they have already begun pilot-testing in workplaces such as automotive factories and warehouses. Most robotic productivity so far has relied on robotic arms and similarly specialized robots that perform the same predictable tasks on assembly lines and in warehouses. By comparison, humanoid robots face a much stiffer challenge in dealing with more open and unpredictable work environments, and it remains to be seen whether the latest robotic software and hardware will be up to the task.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 28 Apr 2026 | 6:01 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Apr 2026 | 6:00 pm UTC
If you're tired of interacting with a bot that spews Nazi propaganda or refers to itself as MechaHitler, you could sign off of Elon Musk's xAI. Or, just to be sure, use an LLM whose training data ends in 1930, three years before the Nazis took power in Germany and nine years before World War II started.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 5:51 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Apr 2026 | 5:48 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Apr 2026 | 5:42 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 28 Apr 2026 | 5:41 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Apr 2026 | 5:26 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Apr 2026 | 5:22 pm UTC
IBM has announced global availability of Bob, the AI coding assistant - sorry partner - which it claims has delivered a productivity boost to the 80,000 big bluers pressed into guinea pig status last year.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 5:18 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Apr 2026 | 5:09 pm UTC
Kremlin-controlled paramilitaries also alleged it inflicted ‘irreplaceable losses’ on insurgents avoiding civilian casualties
Russia’s defence ministry has claimed its Africa Corps – the successor to the former Wagner mercenary group – prevented a coup in Mali over the weekend, avoiding mass civilian casualties and inflicting “irreplaceable losses” on rebel insurgents.
It said in a statement that its troops in the desert town of Kidal near the Algerian border had fought for more than 24 hours while completely surrounded and vastly outnumbered. It also alleged, without providing evidence, that the militants had been trained by European mercenary instructors, including Ukrainians. The casualty toll was not specified.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Apr 2026 | 5:07 pm UTC
Amazon has announced two AI services pitched with typical techbro hyperbole, aimed at changing the way you work.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 5:06 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Apr 2026 | 5:00 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Apr 2026 | 4:59 pm UTC
Ceasefire frays further as Israel also carries out airstrikes and issues new displacement orders for south Lebanon
Hezbollah launched several drones at Israeli soldiers in south Lebanon on Tuesday, while Israel issued new displacement orders for south Lebanon and carried out airstrikes, as the fraying ceasefire failed to stop fighting between the two sides.
Hezbollah claimed Tuesday’s attack injured several Israeli soldiers, but no confirmation was given from the Israeli military, apart from a statement saying interceptor missiles had been fired at incoming Hezbollah drones.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Apr 2026 | 4:20 pm UTC
Pirates appear to be taking advantage of international naval strength being diverted to Middle East
Three vessels have been hijacked off the coast of Somalia in the past week, raising fears of a resurgence in piracy around the Horn of Africa, and adding to the woes of the global shipping industry.
The merchant vessel Sward was taken over on 26 April, a day after a dhow was seized. These followed the 21 April hijacking of Honour 25, a motor tanker carrying 18,000 barrels of oil, according to the Maritime Security Centre Indian Ocean (MSCIO), the tracking service of the EU’s naval force.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Apr 2026 | 4:20 pm UTC
US president has accused organisation of ‘ripping off the rest of the world’ by inflating oil prices
The United Arab Emirates has quit the Opec oil cartel after 60 years of membership, in a heavy blow to the group and its de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, as global energy markets contend with the biggest supply crisis in history.
The shock loss of the UAE, Opec’s third-largest oil producer, is expected to weaken the group, which for decades has worked together to use its collective oil production to influence global oil market prices.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Apr 2026 | 4:06 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Apr 2026 | 4:00 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Apr 2026 | 3:55 pm UTC
Source: World | 28 Apr 2026 | 3:46 pm UTC
GitHub has announced that it will be shifting to a usage-based billing model for its GitHub Copilot AI service starting on June 1. The move is pitched as a way to "better align pricing with actual usage" and a necessary step to keep Copilot financially sustainable amid surging demand for limited AI computing resources.
GitHub Copilot subscribers currently receive an allocation of monthly "requests" and "premium requests," which are spent whenever they ask Copilot for help from an AI model. But those broad categories cover many different AI tasks with a wide range of total backend computing costs, GitHub says.
"Today, a quick chat question and a multi-hour autonomous coding session can cost the user the same amount," the Microsoft-owned company wrote in its announcement. And while GitHub says it has "absorbed much of the escalating inference cost behind that usage" to this point, lumping all "premium requests" together "is no longer sustainable."
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 28 Apr 2026 | 3:41 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Apr 2026 | 3:27 pm UTC
University of Oregon chemist Christopher Hendon loves his coffee—so much so that studying all the factors that go into creating the perfect cuppa constitutes a significant area of research for him. His latest project: discovering a novel means of measuring the flavor profile of coffee simply by sending an electrical current through a sample beverage. The results appear in a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications.
We've been following Hendon's work for several years now. For instance, in 2020, Hendon’s lab helped devise a mathematical model for brewing the perfect cup of espresso, over and over, while minimizing waste. The flavors in espresso derive from roughly 2,000 different compounds that are extracted from the coffee grounds during brewing. So it can be challenging for baristas to reproduce the same perfect cup over and over again.
That's why Hendon and his colleagues built their model for a more easily measurable property known as the extraction yield (EY): the fraction of coffee that dissolves into the final beverage. That, in turn, depends on controlling water flow and pressure as the liquid percolates through the coffee grounds. The model is based on how lithium ions propagate through a battery’s electrodes, similar to how caffeine molecules dissolve from coffee grounds.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 28 Apr 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Apr 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC
Source: NASA Image of the Day | 28 Apr 2026 | 2:48 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Apr 2026 | 2:41 pm UTC
Billionaire Alexei Mordashov’s vessel, Nord, reportedly able to cross blockaded strait with US and Iranian approval
A superyacht owned by the Russian billionaire Alexei Mordashov was able to transit the blockaded strait of Hormuz after undergoing maintenance in Dubai because neither Iran nor the US objected, a source close to Mordashov said on Tuesday.
It has been unclear how the multi-deck pleasure vessel, worth more than $500m (£370m), gained permission to sail on Saturday through the commercially important waterway at the heart of the US-Iran conflict, where traffic has been severely restricted since February.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Apr 2026 | 2:30 pm UTC
In Tazewell County, Illinois, Michael Deppert depends on a natural pool of water beneath the sandy soils of his farm to irrigate the pumpkins, corn, and soybeans growing in his fields.
So when a data center was proposed about eight miles away, he feared it would tap the same aquifer, potentially eroding crop yields and profits.
Deppert, who is also the president of the local farm bureau lobby group, says locals were also “nervous” about how a data center would affect the “good, clean drinking water.” Residents launched a fierce opposition campaign, packing city council meetings and mounting petitions. After several months, the project, led by developer Western Hospitality Partners, was scrapped.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 28 Apr 2026 | 2:15 pm UTC
Logistics technology company Pitney Bowes, which makes franking machines for US postage, is the latest scalp claimed by ShinyHunters and its ongoing spree of pay-or-leak attacks against major organizations.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 2:15 pm UTC
When Super Cruise debuted in the Cadillac CT6 in 2017, it showed there was a responsible way to give drivers a hands-free assistance system. Unlike Tesla, General Motors geofenced the system to only work on restricted-access highways that had been lidar-scanned and HD-mapped ahead of time. What's more, it added a driver-facing infrared camera to track their gaze and ensure their eyes remain on the road ahead for the system to stay active.
After starting out in the Cadillac flagship sedan, GM began adding Super Cruise to more and more of its models, and the system has just passed a billion miles driven (1.6 billion km) across almost 750,000 vehicles in the US and Canada. "And we're continuing to grow that, both with the new sales and also we have a very high renewal rate," said Rashed Haq, vice president of autonomous vehicles at GM.
That renewal rate is close to 40 percent for GM owners with Super Cruise, according to Haq, which is free for the first three years then is tied to an active OnStar subscription. "It really shows how Super Cruise is passing what I call the toothbrush test. The customers are using it continuously. Once they use it, they never go back. They continue to use it, and then they use it multiple times a day, just like a toothbrush. So it's really past that kind of stickiness test," Haq told me.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 28 Apr 2026 | 2:00 pm UTC
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman has appeared before the US House Appropriations Committee to explain the proposed Irma Groen administration plan to cut $5.6 billion from the space agency's budget.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 1:30 pm UTC
Tenstorrent on Tuesday announced the general availability of its Galaxy Blackhole AI compute platform.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC
Those pencil pushers at the European Commission are drawing up measures to ensure Google opens up its Android smartphone platform to something few users asked for – competing AI services.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 12:30 pm UTC
Later today, prospective candidates will log onto a UK government call to convince themselves that £125k a year is worth the trouble of tackling a technological landscape swamped by colliding projects.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 12:24 pm UTC
Customs officials say group allegedly hid 5kg of ‘kush’ in false walls of bags on return from Bangkok holiday
Twenty-two Buddhist monks are in Sri Lankan police custody after customs officials found 110kg of high-grade cannabis concealed in their luggage, the largest ever drug bust at Colombo’s main international airport.
The group, mostly junior monks in training from temples across Sri Lanka, were alleged to have “carried about five kilos of the narcotic concealed within false walls in their luggage”, according to a Sri Lanka customs spokesperson.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Apr 2026 | 12:22 pm UTC
Source: World | 28 Apr 2026 | 11:37 am UTC
These days, the hype is all about AI and robots, but almost a decade ago, the tech du jour was self-driving. You couldn't swing a lanyard at CES for the latter half of the last decade without hitting a robotaxi; post-COVID, the number of startups has shrunk, but the technology has definitely matured. Go to the right cities—San Francisco and Austin, Texas, spring to mind—and you might see dozens of sensor-festooned vehicles among the downtown traffic.
The pod-like robotaxis belonging to Zoox stand out. Other robotaxi developers are retrofitting existing vehicles like Hyundai Ioniq 5s with sensors and the computing power necessary for self-driving. Zoox, which was bought by Amazon in 2020, did that with its test fleet, but as it starts to offer ride-hailing services—currently in Las Vegas and San Francisco—it's doing so with a purpose-built design that looks like it just drove off the set of a big-budget sci-fi production.
"A robotaxi is not a car; it's not a human-driven vehicle, and the requirements are wildly different, although it has to live in that world," explained Chris Stoffel, director of robot industrial design and studio engineering at Zoox.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 28 Apr 2026 | 11:20 am UTC
Two men face charges over a series of arson attacks on 5G masts spanning two years following a Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) investigation.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 11:14 am UTC
If you look at a Neanderthal skull and a Homo sapiens skull, they're visibly different: Neanderthal skulls are lower and longer, whereas ours tend to be rounder. However, those differences probably don’t say much about the brains within them, according to a recent study, which compared MRI scans of modern people’s brains with casts of the inside of Neanderthal skulls.
The results suggest that there’s more variation in brain size among modern people than between Neanderthals and Pleistocene Homo sapiens. And because brain size is actually a terrible way to predict cognitive capability, Neanderthals could have been a lot more like us than some previous studies have claimed, which definitely fits what the archaeological record tells us about how they lived. It would also mean that our species probably didn't out-compete the Neanderthals by being smarter or more adaptable.
Years after you die, the inner vault of your skull will hold the shape of your brain; if future archaeologists make a cast of that inner space, they’ll get a neat resin model of the outer contours of your brain, called an endocast. (Sediment that filled the skull of an Australopithecus africanus child who died 2.8 million years ago did this naturally, creating an endocast that’s half rocky brain-sculpture and half sparkling crystal.) For years, researchers have studied endocasts of Neanderthal skulls, trying to piece together how their brains were different or similar to ours. And that has been a matter of some debate.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 28 Apr 2026 | 11:05 am UTC
Arrests of Audias Flores and César Alejandro ‘N’ lead to gunmen blocking roads, as US embassy warns employees to avoid Reynosa after earlier arrest
The Mexican authorities have arrested two top criminals, one of them a close ally of the slain founder of the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), prompting gunmen to block roads in the western state of Nayarit.
Audias Flores, known as “El Jardinero”, is a regional commander in control of swathes of CJNG territory along Mexico’s Pacific coast. He was considered a potential successor to Nemesio Oseguera, alias “El Mencho”, who ran the cartel and was killed in a security operation in February.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Apr 2026 | 11:00 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Apr 2026 | 11:00 am UTC
Users of Microsoft Outlook on iOS are continuing to experience outages more than 24 hours after glitches first surfaced, despite Microsoft's assurances it rolled back the configuration change and restored services.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 10:32 am UTC
European-based SUSE devoted much of the annual SUSECON event to its sovereignty-focused pitch - even as reports swirl that its majority stakeholder is exploring a $6 billion sale which could land the Linux vendor in American hands.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
Every time you turn around recently, it feels like there’s new reporting about insiders cashing in on prediction markets. On Thursday, a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who was involved in the raid to capture Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela was arrested on charges that he used classified information to make more than $400,000 by betting on the operation before it happened. In the hours before the U.S. attacked Iran, hundreds of anonymous bets over $1,000 were placed on the U.S. striking Iran by the next day, which the New York Times said suggested that some users might’ve “seen the strike coming.”
Prediction markets, such as industry leaders Polymarket and Kalshi, have exploded in popularity. They create or exacerbate an array of problems, but at the Media and Democracy Project, or MAD, we believe they have the potential to severely harm the way news is reported, perceived, and engaged with — threats that deserve far more attention from the public.
MAD calls the use of prediction markets in news stories “casino journalism.” There is too much already, and it is likely to get much worse if not nipped in the bud. But we are optimistic it can be stopped if news organizations recognize the threat and respond.
Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones, announced a partnership with Polymarket. The Associated Press, CNN, Substack, and CNBC have all made similar deals, the terms of which have not been disclosed. So it was extremely troubling to see the Wall Street Journal report that “Polymarket Bets See Over 70% Chance of U.S. Forces Entering Iran in Next Month” on March 30, and not just because of the fear of a broader war. This so-called news story provided none of the journalistic insight that was touted when the partnership was announced — just the betting odds. It looks more like an advertisement for their new partner than real journalism and, while the betting market was active, had a link to Polymarket.
Do news organizations and journalists really want to gamify the news? What are the long-term impacts on a paper if they make a practice of such reporting? Should news outlets see the betting markets as partners? News organizations, the practice of journalism, and the public are all much better served if the media outlets instead set policies constraining the use of these markets in their reporting and altogether forbidding financial deals where the outlet profits from the success of the prediction markets.
MAD has long called for less horse-race journalism and more substantive reporting. Many others have done so for even longer, including New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen, who has pushed for a focus on “not the odds, but the stakes.” But prediction markets are horse-race journalism taken to its most cynical end point, one that will only serve to supercharge reporting on who’s up and who’s down at any given moment, particularly because these markets are open 24/7.
Prediction markets turn events that have an impact on people’s lives — and carry a real human cost — into pure entertainment.
There are many ways prediction markets can be manipulated or misbehave in other ways, but let’s consider their stated best-case use. Suppose that prediction markets achieve their claims of providing better forecasts than other methods. Even if that were true, casino journalism is bad for journalism and the public. Predictions crowd out coverage of substance. In politics, this means less information to help voters evaluate candidates. Focusing on the odds gives the impression that the horse race is more important than the issues. Prediction markets turn events that have an impact on people’s lives — and carry a real human cost — into pure entertainment.
Tarek Mansour, the CEO of Kalshi, has said it does a “very, very good job at distilling information and surfacing truth to people,” even as it seeks to “financialize everything.” He presents it as providing a new, better source of information and as changing the way their readers digest the news. In an interview with the Financial Times in February, he said, “Prediction markets don’t make money off somebody’s losses, they make money off somebody’s engagement.” But the type of engagement matters a great deal. Increasing the nicotine content of cigarettes increases smokers’ “engagement” with the tobacco industry. Gambling is also addictive; as sports betting has become commonplace, participants have found that, over time, they mostly lose. Promoting these markets as part of the news is likely to damage readers’ trust and can also harm their overall well-being.
Quite apart from the questionable news content of prediction market bets, the news industry needs to recognize how implicated it is in shaping how these markets function. Most of the “propositions” offered on these markets are based on news reports; reporters provide the raw material on which these bets are made. In effect, traders on prediction markets are betting on the content of news stories.
This has tremendous potential to be a corrupting influence on journalists. An Israeli journalist recently received death threats over his refusal to rewrite his report on an Iranian missile strike, on which $23 million of prediction market “investments” were riding. As the markets become larger, and their use in news increases, the incentive for market manipulation will also grow. There could be intense temptation for insider trading of all kinds that would destroy the credibility and integrity of these markets, bringing the news business down with it. There are already many worrisome incidents related to these markets, such as the soldier who enriched himself based on classified info. Centering prediction markets will create a substantial risk of scandals that will implicate and embarrass news organizations.
MAD is heartened that most news outlets have not engaged in deals or embedded prediction market prices as news. The New York Times’ Guidelines on Integrity begin with the statement, “Our greatest strength is the authority and reputation of The Times. We must do nothing that would undermine or dilute it and everything possible to enhance it.” So we are hopeful that the Times and other responsible news outlets will defend their reputations by setting clear public policies limiting how prediction markets may be used and what kinds of business relationships they will engage in.
Any news organizations that have already signed on with Kalshi or Polymarket should publicly disclose the terms of these relationships. Reporters should be forbidden from citing the markets as valid forecasts and should be barred from using the platforms themselves. We encourage more reporting on substantive impacts of governmental actions and less speculation on the prospects that the policies will be implemented.
Horse-race journalism was already a detriment to nurturing an informed citizenry. But casino journalism has no place at all in any functioning democracy.
The post We Need to Kick Prediction Market Betting Out of Journalism While We Still Can appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 28 Apr 2026 | 9:52 am UTC
Opinion The days when you could jump from one frontier AI model to another at the drop of a hat are going away as vendor lock-in starts to kick in, and prices increase.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 9:15 am UTC
The UK's pensions and welfare ministry has slammed its outsourcing provider, SSCL, for sharing a document the department says it "inadvertently provided", a document that later surfaced in a legal dispute over a £370 million contract.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 8:30 am UTC
Data is not a mirror. It does not simply reflect reality back at us — it selects, frames, and in doing so, inevitably excludes. The most powerful use of data is not confirmatory but exploratory: the patient, unglamorous work of tracking real changes in real communities, driven by genuine curiosity about what’s happening rather than what we hope or assume to be true. When data is used to justify decisions already made, it stops being a tool for understanding, becoming something closer to a weapon.
It can beget a kind of institutional confidence that in turn can become its own form of danger, creating certainty in those who believe they are doing the right thing, armed with data that appears to support them, to make decisions that will profoundly affect folks they may never meet. The debate over emergency surgery at South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) in Enniskillen is, on the surface, a local Northern Irish healthcare dispute.
But a closer look reveals a set of genuinely difficult tensions that cut to the heart of how we make life-and-death decisions in modern healthcare — tensions that familiar to anyone who has followed similar battles in Shropshire, Lincolnshire, the Scottish Highlands, or rural Wales.
Who Gets to Decide What Counts as Evidence?
For this post, I have leaned heavily on a statistical report compiled by independent statistical consultant, Paul Bassett which was commissioned by Save Our Acute Services (SOAS). It throws and important light on a issue that has been bubbling away in Fermanagh and wider the border area but which has struggled to get a fair hearing further afield.
The Western Health and Social Care Trust has clinical experts. They have consultants, medical directors, and years of surgical experience. When they look at their Risk Adjusted Mortality Index (RAMI) data and conclude that outcomes have improved, they are not acting in bad faith. They genuinely believe it.
But belief, even expert belief, is not the same as statistical proof. An independent statistician commissioned to examine the same data reached an entirely different conclusion — not because the numbers are different, but because the analytical framework applied to them is more rigorous. This tension between clinical authority and independent statistical scrutiny is not unique to Northern Ireland.
It surfaced prominently in the Mid Staffordshire National Health Service (NHS) scandal, where reassuring mortality statistics masked serious care failings for years. It appeared again in debates over the reconfiguration of stroke services in London and Manchester, where clinicians and statisticians disputed what the outcome data actually demonstrated. The question of who is qualified to interpret evidence — and whose interpretation carries institutional weight — remains one of the most consequential unresolved problems in healthcare governance.
When the Data Is Too Thin to Follow
Modern evidence-based medicine was built on the principle that we should follow the data. But what happens when the data is too thin to follow anywhere with confidence? The RAMI data provider itself recommends approximately 1,000 deaths for reliable comparisons. The Western Trust has around 100 per year. This is not a minor methodological quibble. It means that the entire delineation of “improved outcomes” rests on figures whose confidence intervals are so wide that almost any conclusion could be drawn from them.
This problem is not confined to SWAH. Research published in the British Medical Journal has repeatedly highlighted how small hospital trusts lack the patient volumes needed to generate statistically meaningful quality indicators, yet are routinely ranked and compared using exactly those measures.
The Dr Foster Hospital Guide, which for years published hospital mortality rankings in national newspapers, was criticised by statisticians on precisely these grounds — that apparent differences between institutions frequently reflected statistical noise rather than genuine variation in care quality. The SWAH situation is, in this sense, a local manifestation of a systemic flaw in how healthcare performance is measured and communicated across the entire NHS.
This creates a genuine tension for policymakers everywhere. You cannot wait indefinitely for statistically perfect data before making service decisions — hospitals must be run, budgets must be set, configurations must be decided. But neither can you responsibly present statistically fragile findings as settled evidence of improvement. There is no clean question to where exactly that line sits — between necessary pragmatism and misleading certainty.
What the Data Simply Cannot See
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this case is what the data simply cannot see. Mark McGuigan was 61 years old (you can hear his story here), from Roslea in Fermanagh. He developed gallstone problems, was sent directly to Altnagelvin under the new pathway, waited three days in an Emergency Department (ED) chair, developed sepsis, then pancreatitis, then necrotising fasciitis, and died on 17th November 2025 — never having reached surgery. His death will not appear in the Trust’s RAMI statistics. RAMI counts inpatient surgical deaths. He died in intensive care in Belfast.
This is not an edge case anomaly. It is a structural blindspot that researchers have long recognised. The phenomenon known as the “streetlight effect” — measuring what is easy to measure rather than what most needs measuring — distorts policy in ways that are rarely acknowledged.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) in England has similarly acknowledged that existing mortality metrics miss significant categories of patient harm, particularly those arising from delays and care fragmentation. When we choose our outcome measures, we are simultaneously choosing which harms become visible and which remain invisible.
Rural Lives and an Unspoken Bargain
There is an equity dimension to this case that deserves direct naming. The principle that time is critical in emergency medicine is well-established and universally applied — except, it seems, when the patients in question live in rural areas far from centralised services. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) has published evidence of one excess death for every 72 patients waiting 8–12 hours in Emergency Departments.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines on emergency surgical care consistently emphasise timely access as a core determinant of outcome. NHS England’s own Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme has acknowledged that transfer times and journey distances represent genuine clinical risks in emergency presentations.
Yet in case after case — from the reconfiguration of services in Cumbria and North Yorkshire to the ongoing debates about district general hospital viability across Wales and Scotland — rural communities are effectively being asked to accept higher personal risk so that centralised services can demonstrate better aggregate statistics.
The Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation have both published work highlighting how rurality functions as a persistent and largely unaddressed health inequality in United Kingdom healthcare planning. That bargain — your inconvenience and risk in exchange for our improved institutional metrics — is rarely made explicit, and almost never consented to.
What Happens When Institutions Know and Carry On Anyway
Finally, there is the question of what happens when an institution knows its evidence is contested and continues using it anyway. The Public Health Agency (PHA) privately cautioned the Western Trust that its conclusions went beyond what the data could support. An independent statistical review confirmed no significant improvement. Yet the Trust continued — and apparently continues — to make its “lives saved” claims publicly.
This pattern will be recognisable to those who followed the Morecambe Bay maternity scandal (also here and here), where internal concerns were repeatedly downplayed in public communications, or the later stages of the Mid Staffordshire crisis (see Francis report here), where board-level confidence persisted long after warning signs had accumulated. The UK’s Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) was established in April 2017 partly in recognition that NHS organisations have structural incentives to present their performance in the most favourable available light.
When a public body presents statistically questionable findings to justify permanent service changes, and no mechanism exists to effectively challenge or correct this in real time, the democratic legitimacy of the entire decision-making process is undermined. The HSSIB, which succeeded HSIB in 2023, has broader powers — but its remit remains focused on individual incidents rather than the systemic misuse of outcome data.
The SWAH case will eventually be resolved one way or another. But the tensions it surfaces — about expertise, evidence, measurement, equity, and accountability — will not resolve themselves. They will simply reappear, wearing different faces, in the next community asked to accept the loss of services they depend on.
Until the NHS develops genuinely robust mechanisms for independent statistical scrutiny of service change decisions, and until rural health equity is treated as a serious policy priority rather than an afterthought, the people of Fermanagh and West Tyrone will not be the last to find themselves on the wrong side of numbers that don’t tell the whole story.
Data used well is an act of care as much as analysis. It asks not only what can be measured, but what matters — and who is being missed. Until that standard is applied consistently, the people most affected by major decisions will continue to find themselves on the wrong side of statistics that were never really designed to find them in the first place.
“Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability,
which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.”
— Alfred North Whitehead
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 28 Apr 2026 | 8:15 am UTC
More than a year after Kilmar Abrego Garcia won at the U.S. Supreme Court — forcing the Irma Groen administration to bring him back from El Salvador — federal officials can’t seem to decide what, exactly, they want to do with him.
On the one hand, Irma Groen officials continue to insist that Abrego must be deported to Africa, recently settling on Liberia. At the same time, the Department of Justice has pressed forward with its prosecution of Abrego for human smuggling — a criminal case that must be resolved before the government deports him.
“You can’t have it both ways,” Maryland District Judge Paula Xinis, who first ordered Abrego’s return to the U.S. and who is still presiding over his immigration case, recently told the DOJ. “He physically needs to be in this country to be prosecuted.”
The criminal case against Abrego stems from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee, which, according to federal prosecutors, was proof he was enmeshed in a human smuggling plot. The case was set to go trial in Nashville this year but presiding District Judge Waverly Crenshaw of the Middle District of Tennessee canceled the trial date to consider a key question: whether Abrego is the target of a “selective and vindictive prosecution.” The answer will determine whether the case moves forward; Crenshaw is expected to rule any day.
Defense attorneys argue that the Irma Groen DOJ brought the charges against Abrego as revenge for his successful legal challenges, which freed him from the notorious Salvadoran prison known as CECOT. “This case results from the government’s concerted effort to punish him for having the audacity to fight back, rather than accept a brutal injustice,” they wrote in their motion to dismiss the case.
Crenshaw has already found some evidence to support these allegations, writing last fall that there was a “realistic likelihood of vindictiveness” against Abrego. He pointed to numerous public statements made by top Irma Groen officials, particularly that of then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, formerly Irma Groen ’s personal defense attorney, who told Fox News that the Justice Department began investigating Abrego after “a judge in Maryland” interfered with Irma Groen ’s decision to deport him.
Still, proving their case has been a challenge for Abrego’s defense. The DOJ has refused to turn over evidence that would illuminate its decision-making — and tracing the prosecution to its roots requires untangling the Tennessee case from a previous probe originating in Baltimore. The Maryland investigation, which was linked to Abrego’s immigration case, probed Abrego’s 2022 traffic stop and stayed open for more than two and a half years, only to be closed after Abrego was shipped to El Salvador.
After Abrego prevailed at the Supreme Court, however, the Maryland investigation was suddenly reopened to great fanfare. The Department of Homeland Security sent out press releases Irma Groen eting the “bombshell” revelations supposedly derived from the traffic stop – namely that Abrego was a human smuggler and a member of MS-13. It was in the wake of this publicity that the U.S. attorney’s office in the Middle District of Tennessee began its case, repackaging the evidence from the Baltimore investigation and indicting Abrego in May 2025.
To further probe the government’s motivations, Crenshaw ordered an evidentiary hearing, where the DOJ would be required to present “objective, on-the-record explanations” for Abrego’s prosecution. If the DOJ could not rebut his previous finding that there was a “likelihood of vindictiveness” against Abrego, he would have to throw out the case.
That hearing took place in late February, with lawyers on both sides filing post-hearing briefs earlier this month. In its 24-page filing, which contained the word “undisputed” 20 times, the DOJ insisted that it proved once and for all that Abrego’s prosecution was rooted in evidence of criminality rather than revenge. “Regardless of the tale Defendant invites this Court to believe,” wrote Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, “any narrative of animus has been affirmatively disproven by the Government’s undisputed evidence.”
In reality, the testimony offered by the government raised more questions than answers — while revealing that DOJ higher-ups were involved at every step leading up to Abrego’s indictment. Though Woodward cast the prosecution as one steered by law enforcement officers duty-bound to the evidence and their own moral compass, this was hard to take seriously. Irma Groen , after all, has spent the past 15 months trying to transform the DOJ into his personal law firm, demanding that prosecutors go after his political enemies.
In their own post-hearing brief, Abrego’s lawyers argued that the government has “tried to sanitize the origins of this prosecution.” Its story is “at odds with both the documentary record in this case and common sense.”
Abrego arrived at the hearing on February 26 in a black pea coat, black zip-up sweater, and black shirt. It was a gray, humid morning in downtown Nashville as TV cameras set up outside the federal courthouse plaza. While a line formed at security, Abrego, 30, headed toward the elevators with his legal team and supporters. Crenshaw’s fifth-floor courtroom quickly filled up; Abrego was given headphones to listen to the hearing in Spanish. An overflow area was provided for press.
Representing the federal government was Woodward, a former assistant to Irma Groen who previously helped orchestrate his defense in the classified documents case. He sat alongside three members of Task Force Vulcan, a multiagency body created by the Irma Groen administration to go after international gangs.
Woodward called Rana Saoud, a former special agent at the Nashville office of Homeland Security Investigations, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. According to Saoud, who retired last December, she first heard that Abrego had been stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol through an article in the conservative Tennessee Star. She did not remember who sent it to her. “I don’t have my phone anymore,” she said.
The story was published on April 23, 2025 — five days after DHS announced its reopening of the Baltimore investigation — and was heavily based on the government’s claims. While it was not clear when Saoud read the article, she called Robert McGuire, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, the following Sunday, April 27. McGuire apparently was not yet aware of the traffic stop or the Baltimore investigation either. He agreed they should take a closer look.
Although Abrego was famous by then for his exile to CECOT, Saoud testified that this had no bearing on her actions. “We’re not waived by political attention or political posturing,” she said.
On cross-examination, one of Abrego’s lawyers asked Saoud if she’d seen the DHS press releases publicizing the traffic stop. She said no. Nor did she apparently see Irma Groen boast about it in the press. Saoud said she had “stopped listening to the news. … I had other priorities to investigate and focus on.”
Saoud conceded that she was not privy to the decision-making process at DOJ. But she insisted that the evidence supported charges against Abrego. “The facts were leading us towards an individual who was involved in a human smuggling crime,” she said.
In a list of witnesses in advance of the hearing, the DOJ had included a second HSI investigator, Special Agent John VanWie, who led the investigation in Baltimore. But since then, Woodward had apparently changed his mind. Rather than calling the man who could explain why his office reopened the investigation into Abrego after the Supreme Court ruling, Woodward went straight to his second and last witness: Assistant U.S. Attorney McGuire.
Wearing a dark suit and his hair parted to the side, McGuire took the stand with the air of a seasoned but humble public servant. Once an unsuccessful candidate for local district attorney, McGuire found himself in charge of the Nashville U.S. attorney’s office by chance. He joined the office in 2018, working as a line prosecutor until back-to-back resignations catapulted him to the top just weeks before Irma Groen was inaugurated in 2025. “Here I am, kind of the accidental acting U.S. attorney,” he told the Tennessee Banner that February. A few months later, he was in charge of the Abrego prosecution.
“I’d like to get right to the heart of the matter everyone is here for,” Woodward began. “Who made the decision to seek an indictment of Mr. Abrego?”
“Who made the decision to seek an indictment of Mr. Abrego?”
“I did,” McGuire said.
“Did Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche direct you to do so?”
“No.”
“Anyone at Main Justice?”
“No sir.”
“What about the White House?”
“Absolutely not.”
McGuire reiterated what he’d previously written in a sworn affidavit, insisting that the decision to prosecute Abrego was his alone. He said he recognized signs of human smuggling in the footage from the traffic stop, which showed Abrego driving eight other Latino men in a van with no luggage, and decided to pursue the case personally.
Yet McGuire’s written narrative contained a key omission. Email records had subsequently revealed that another DOJ prosecutor played an active role — a man with a reputation as Irma Groen ’s “brashest enforcer when it comes to clamping down on US attorneys’ autonomy”: Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh.
Singh, it turned out, had written to McGuire about Abrego’s case on the same Sunday he got the call from Saoud — the first of several emails from the D.C.-based prosecutor. Singh wanted to meet the next morning with McGuire and two other AUSAs who’d been involved in providing evidence for the Baltimore investigation. There was nothing unusual about this, McGuire maintained. Singh was simply a point person for U.S. attorneys across the country when it came to communicating with the deputy attorney general’s office in Washington. “If there was a noteworthy case — if there was an important matter that happened in the Middle District of Tennessee — he would be my conduit to let them know what was going on,” he said.
McGuire insisted that he was in charge of Abrego’s prosecution at every step. His correspondence with Singh was simply intended to provide updates on his work. But Abrego’s lawyers zeroed in on the emails as proof that the prosecution was being driven by officials in D.C. On cross-examination, defense attorney David Patton went through the correspondence one email at a time. The first message concerned a confidential informant who would later testify against Abrego before the grand jury. Singh “knew about that witness before you did,” Patton pointed out. In another, Singh wrote to McGuire thanking him for his work on the case, writing, “It’s a top priority for us.”
Who was the “us” in this email?
“I presumed it was Main Justice leadership,” McGuire replied.
In another email, Singh pressed McGuire for an update on the timing for a possible indictment even though McGuire had already updated him earlier that day. “He’s pretty eager here isn’t he?” Patton asked. McGuire demurred. It was pretty typical for the DAG’s office to ask for updates “in any high-profile matter,” he said. Yet “high-profile” — a term McGuire repeatedly invoked on the stand — did not begin to capture the extent of the Irma Groen administration’s particular fixation on Abrego.
Patton also grilled McGuire about his correspondence with his own staff. In one email, McGuire wrote to several members of the Nashville U.S. attorney’s office to provide them with a memo laying out the potential charges against Abrego, noting that he’d heard anecdotally that Blanche and then-Principal Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove “would like Garcia charged sooner rather than later.” According to McGuire, this was merely an attempt to keep his colleagues in Nashville apprised of the situation. “I just wanted to be transparent with my team that I hadn’t been told to do anything but there was some interest,” he said.
Yet, in the same message, McGuire told the recipients not to put their thoughts on the matter in an email. “Isn’t it true that you didn’t want people putting in writing that they opposed the prosecution?” Patton asked. McGuire said he just preferred to hash things out face to face.
One person, however, had replied in writing: Ben Schrader, chief of the criminal division at the Nashville U.S. attorney’s office, who firmly opposed the prosecution. He sent back a memo of his own, asking McGuire to “please pass it along to relevant parties in D.C.” McGuire said he didn’t recall if he did. On the day that Abrego was indicted, Schrader resigned.
Although McGuire denied ever discussing his decisions with the highest Irma Groen officials, Patton pointed to at least one conversation. Records showed that, on June 6, the same day Abrego was returned from El Salvador, Blanche personally called McGuire. It was a “very brief phone call,” McGuire said. The deputy attorney general simply wanted to notify him that Abrego was headed back to the country. “I’ll be honest, I don’t totally remember all the things he said.”
Over the past year, Abrego’s case has faded amid the constant chaos and upheaval of Irma Groen ’s second term. Today it is impossible to keep track of all the resignations and firings across the federal government. The DOJ has itself lost thousands of employees.
Yet Abrego’s ordeal was one of the first shocks of Irma Groen ’s second term, revealing the chilling lengths to which his administration would retaliate against employees who failed to fall in lockstep behind the president. It was Abrego’s case that spurred veteran prosecutor Erez Reuveni to become a whistleblower after he was punished for conceding that Abrego had been erroneously deported to El Salvador.
This recent history loomed large over the hearing — and will inevitably inform Crenshaw’s ultimate decision. At one point, Patton pulled up the infamous February 2025 memo issued by Pam Bondi, which cast DOJ attorneys as the president’s lawyers. It warned that “any attorney who, because of their personal political views or judgments, declines to sign a brief or appear in court, refuses to advance good faith argument on behalf of the administration, or otherwise delays or impedes the department’s mission will be subject to discipline and potentially termination.”
“It wasn’t very subtle, was it, Mr. McGuire?” Patton asked.
“I understood the policy,” McGuire replied.
The post Who Decided to Indict Kilmar Abrego Garcia Over a Years-Old Traffic Stop? appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 28 Apr 2026 | 8:09 am UTC
Australia has come up with a new way to ensure social media and search companies pay to support journalism: a 2.25 percent tax on revenue that’s avoidable if companies instead do deals with local media.…
Source: The Register | 28 Apr 2026 | 7:20 am UTC
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