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Submission + - Canada facing carbon tariff threat from European Union (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The EU is imposing carbon border charges on Canadian steel, iron, and aluminum starting 2027.

-$2.8 billion in exports exposed — no exemption for Canada despite its own carbon price.
-Internal docs call it “effectively a carbon tariff.” Quebec and Newfoundland hardest hit as Ottawa pushes EU trade diversification.
-Canadian producers face new compliance costs and higher prices on metals already slammed by U.S. tariffs.
-The EU is weaponizing climate policy into a direct trade hit on Canada.

The EU is applying its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to Canadian steel, iron and aluminum to stop “carbon leakage”.

Canada's new best friends don't even want our stuff! How brutal is this?

Remember, Carney and the Liberals walked away from a tariff-free deal with Trump.

Submission + - Bank of America kindly asks that you don't share your password with your AI asst (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: In an email blast to customers titled “Protecting your finances in the Al World,” Bank of America urged customers to never share their username and password with another person or an outside service, “including an Al-enabled tool or agent that offers to act on your behalf.”

You can practically sense the frustration in the person sending the email. Still, customers are increasingly handing over their log-ins as personal AI assistants grow more popular. Sharing your banking username and password with an AI assistant runs the risk that it could do something with your finances without your knowledge, or that your bank thinks someone’s raiding your account and locks you out of it. Worse, a security flaw in the AI assistant could result in it leaking your banking credentials elsewhere, giving financially motivated hackers a way into your bank account.

Submission + - Apple News pushed 84 negative headlines about GOP, 0 positive (foxnews.com)

Submitted by RoccamOccam
RoccamOccam writes: Ahead of midterms, Apple News, which comes preinstalled on every iPhone in America, did not promote a single story that positively framed a Republican priority, according to the study. During that same period, Apple News promoted more than 80 stories that negatively framed the issues Republicans care about, according to the Media Research Center (MRC).

Submission + - Rubin Telescope discovers a new solar system planet (behindtheblack.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Using data from the Rubin Telescope in Chile, astronomers have discovered a new planet in the outer solar system beyond Neptune, joining Pluto, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake as the five known large Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNO) so far discovered.

On the evening of 13 October, [Matthew] Holman was running data collected by Rubin earlier in 2026 through a search code he developed with CfA colleague Kevin Napier. The code is built to look at billions of detections of moving objects, compare them, and find the detections that correspond to the same object. Using this method, Holman uncovered ED138, and he immediately noticed that its brightness and distance indicated that it is unusually large. “My first reaction was one of excited disbelief,” says Holman. “Objects like this are very rare, so I immediately started checking whether I or the code had done something wrong.”

To remove any doubt, a detailed search through the data began in the hopes of uncovering more observations of ED138. Juri searched Rubin’s catalogs and images and found 20 more observations, going back to 4 March 2026. In all, Rubin observed ED138 30 times on 20 nights between 4 March and 11 July. Additional archival images from the DOE-fabricated Dark Energy Camera (DECam), and uncovered by the Asteroid Institute’s ADAM Precovery service, provided data going all the way back to 2016. These data allowed the team to trace more than 10 years of ED138's orbit. DECam is mounted on the NSF Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of NSF NOIRLab.

ED138 is currently at a distance of about 46 astronomical units (au), where 1 au is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun. For reference, dwarf planet Pluto has an average distance of 40 au. This classifies ED138 as a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) — objects that orbit the Sun at a distance greater than Neptune’s.

The data suggests this new planet is the largest TNO object so far discovered, though at present the size estimate is very uncertain, from 350 to 1400 miles in diameter.

Submission + - A UK teen made fun of a local politician. Then police showed up at his door. (nypost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The case is a stark reminder to all Americans of just how important our rights are — and how even nations in the supposedly “free” world can devolve into dystopian censorship regimes without those protections.

Then the ‘Streisand effect' came calling
https://nypost.com/2026/10/27/...

Submission + - Paper straws worse for the environment than plastic ones, says study (nypost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The research comes from South Korea's Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment, which analyzed four types of straws — paper, plastic, biodegradable plastic, and sugarcane-based — across 16 environmental categories.

Traditional plastic straws showed the lowest environmental footprint in 10 of the 16 categories, including human toxicity, particulate matter, and overall climate change impact.

Meanwhile, paper straws were found to generate over six times more carcinogens than standard plastic, along with double the impact on environmental acidification.

As for “Bio-PE” straws — the kind made from renewable sources like sugarcane — they produced 16 times the carcinogenic impact of standard plastic straws, along with six times the acidification damage (the metric scientists use to measure changes in ocean and soil pH levels).

But aren’t paper straws better anyway because they can be recycled?

Not exactly. The study found that because paper straws are so small, they routinely slip through sorting equipment at recycling facilities, meaning almost none actually get recycled.

Furthermore, their water-resistant coatings and industrial glues prevent them from breaking down easily, demanding more energy during processing and leaving open the possibility that microplastics could end up in the recycled pulp anyway.

Submission + - Walter Koenig, actor who played Chekov on original Star Trek series, dies at 90 (cbsnews.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Koenig died Sunday night at his home in the North Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, talent rep Zachery McGinnis said in a statement. He died surrounded by his daughter and niece, McGinnis said.

In "Star Trek," Ensign Chekov was the sole member of the spaceship Enterprise bridge staff from what was the Communist bloc. His friendly, supportive presence showed how the rival nations (in the far-off future in which the show was set) were capable of working together.

Submission + - BETA Technologies ALIA VTOL Earns Landmark FAA Airworthiness Certification (generalaviationnews.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The FAA has awarded BETA Technologies a Special Airworthiness Certificate that authorizes the ALIA 250 to conduct flight operations with prospective customers — the first such authorization granted to an electric vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft.

BETA’s A250 is an all-electric VTOL aircraft designed to operate from locations with or without runway access. The aircraft has dual pilot controls and is designed to carry up to five passengers and more than 1,200 pounds of cargo, supporting missions across cargo and logistics, medical transportation, defense, and passenger operations, company officials said.

https://x.com/SecDuffy/status/...

Comment Fake news (Score 0) 2

Ukraine's issues with Starlink were caused by Ukraine.

Starlink terminals disconnected at speeds above 160 KPH, as determined by the Starlink terminals internal GPS.

To get around this, Ukraine hacked the Starlink terminals to think they were stationary regardless of speed.

SpaceX figured this out, and updated the system software to detect excessive speed by seeing how rapidly the terminal switched from on satellite to another. This broke Ukraine's hack, and Starlink would no longer work at high speeds.

Ukraine was using Starlink in a way that violated the terms of service.

Starlink figured it out and stopped it.

Submission + - The Lucrative World of Literary Scams (www.thedial.world)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: “Hello Professor Snigdha Poonam,” the email began. I read that again. Nobody has ever called me “professor” for the obvious reason that I am not a professor. Bracing myself, I read on.

The email was from Timothy Firth, organizer of a Seattle-based life-drawing community with 1,943 members that regularly has “thoughtful discussions inspired by creative works.” A recent inspiration was my first book, Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing Their World. The group wanted to discuss it, the email said, at one of its upcoming meetups. Attendees would be encouraged to post reviews on Goodreads and Amazon after.

I looked up CAM Life Drawing and found an events page and an Instagram account. The latter had some photos of Timothy Firth — white, male — as well as testimonials from members who said he worked “day and night to create more community space.” Something told me this wasn’t the man who had reached out to me.

Why would a hyperlocal life-drawing community in Seattle be interested in a nonfiction book about the shifting aspirations of young people in India’s small towns? The book was published seven years ago. What did they want from me?

I accepted the invitation. The next email had a slick poster promoting the Zoom event, with the book cover as the backdrop and blurbs from the Economist and other publications. My attention was drawn to something more intriguing: a request for a “contribution fee,” with no amount specified. It would cover promotion, coordination and administration. But, oddly, this email didn’t come from Timothy. Signing off this time was Stephen — “Organizer, Community Improv LA,” another group in another city. According to the improv community’s Facebook group, Stephen is indeed the name of the organizer. However, Stephen had written to me using Timothy’s email address. To add to the chaos, Stephen/Timothy had also left what I suspect was an AI prompt in the email, which included the line: “MAKE IT MORE PROFESSIONAL.”

This was undoubtedly a scam. Genuine book clubs don’t ask for money from authors. But who was behind it?

Submission + - Ukraine's issues with Starlink were caused by Ukraine (x.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Starlink terminals disconnected at speeds above 160 KPH, as determined by the Starlink terminals internal GPS.

To get around this, Ukraine hacked the Starlink terminals to think they were stationary regardless of speed.

SpaceX figured this out, and updated the system software to detect excessive speed by seeing how rapidly the terminal switched from on satellite to another. This broke Ukraine's hack, and Starlink would no longer work at high speeds.

Ukraine was using Starlink in a way that violated the terms of service.

Starlink figured it out and stopped it.

Submission + - SpaceX in talks for 80,000 cell sites to build nationwide wireless network (yahoo.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Space Exploration Technologies Corp is in discussions to secure access to at least 80,000 cell sites across the United States, according to Bloomberg, signaling a concrete step toward establishing a fourth nationwide wireless carrier. The satellite giant is negotiating with major tower operators, including Crown Castle International Corp, as it gathers the physical infrastructure required to complement its orbital network.

The potential leasing agreements are expected to reach into the billions of dollars, reflecting the vast scale of the physical network required. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has positioned the initiative as a direct challenge to incumbent carriers, supported by recent regulatory milestones and strategic spectrum acquisitions.

The Federal Communications Commission granted SpaceX approval to launch 15,000 specialized satellites engineered to stream mobile connectivity directly to standard smartphones. Integrating tens of thousands of ground sites will allow the company to manage signal density and deliver reliable broadband across dense suburban and urban corridors.

Submission + - Getty Images files for US bankruptcy, advances restructuring plan (reuters.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Last week, Getty announced plans to file for bankruptcy, marking a major reset after its planned merger with rival Shutterstock collapsed under the weight of heavy debt and growing competition from AI-generated imagery.

Getty said the affiliates of the Getty family and Koch Equity Development, which committed to provide up to $533 million in new equity, will own 100% of the company after the restructuring

It's hard to compete against things like the DALL-E image generator.

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