Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Submission + - Russian Ship Carrying Nuclear Reactors Was Heading To North Korea When It Sank (artvoice.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A Russian cargo ship carrying what its own captain later admitted were components for two submarine nuclear reactors sank off the coast of Spain in December 2024, and a CNN investigation published Monday May 12, 2026 reveals the full picture of where those reactors were likely headed, what they were for and what may have caused the ship to go down.

The vessel, the Ursa Major, also known as Sparta 3, sank approximately 100 kilometers off the Spanish coast on December 23-24, 2024, after a series of explosions killed two crew members.

The Russian state-linked owner called it a terrorist attack. But a Spanish investigation obtained by CNN suggests the hull may have been pierced by a Barracuda supercavitating torpedo, a high-speed weapon possessed by only a handful of the world’s most elite militaries, including the United States.

The suspected destination was not Vladivostok, as the public shipping manifest claimed.

Russian captain Igor Anisimov, per sources familiar with the Spanish investigation, believed he was taking the reactors to the port of Rason in North Korea.

Submission + - NNSA Removes Highly Enriched Uranium from Venezuela (foxnews.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The U.S. and partners completed the removal of all remaining enriched uranium from a legacy research reactor in Venezuela, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration announced on Friday.

"For decades, the RV-1 reactor supported physics and nuclear research. Once that work finished in 1991, its uranium, enriched above the crucial 20 percent threshold, became surplus material," the NNSA said.

The NNSA's Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (DNN) team and technical experts from the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research "safely removed 13.5 kilograms (about 30 pounds) of uranium from the RV-1 reactor," the administration said. "Working in close cooperation with the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] throughout, the team securely packaged the uranium into a spent fuel cask."

The material was then transported to the U.S., where it will be processed and reused, the NNSA noted.

"The group then escorted the material 100 miles overland to a Venezuelan port. There, they transferred the cargo to a specialized carrier supplied by the U.K.’s Nuclear Transport Solutions," the announcement said. "The vessel carried the material to the United States arriving on U.S. shores in early May. Upon arrival, U.S. teams unloaded the casks and transported them to the Savannah River Site (SRS) for processing and reuse."

Submission + - Is it a 4th Amendment violation when Dropbox shares your data with governments?

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Is it a Fourth Amendment violation when Dropbox shared information about a user's child porn with a quasi-governmental entity? This breezy Seventh Circuit opinion entrenches a circuit split by holding that the fine print in all the online terms of service you never read means you've consented to gov't searches of your electronic files. Some folks (and not just your humble summarist) are skeptical.

Decided May 5.

Submission + - The Long Goodbye to the Most Successful Rocket of All Time (pjmedia.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Elon Musk's SpaceX began making moves on the ground that could eventually lead to the retirement of the company's venerable Falcon 9 reusable launch vehicle, which changed the world. Pause before we even get started to ponder that roughly 145 launches this year could mark the beginning of a long goodbye.

As of this month, Falcon 9 has flown 624 orbital missions with about 621 full mission successes since 2015, for an industry-leading success rate and a launch cadence that entire nation-states can only dream of matching. And SpaceX did it while providing massively reduced costs to its customers — that includes you, American taxpayer — and pioneering operational reusability at scale.

Nevertheless, for the first time, Falcon 9 will fly fewer missions this year than the previous year, as the company retools its Cape Canaveral launch facilities for the massive Starship. “With 39A becoming a primarily Falcon Heavy and Starship pad, we don’t actually need two operational droneships on the East Coast to maintain our Falcon manifest,” SpaceX vice president of launch recently posted. And SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said earlier this year, "This year we’ll still launch a lot, but not as much... And then we’ll tail off our launches as Starship is coming online."

Getting Starship's cost-to-orbit down to where Musk wants it means flying in volume. Once Starship is in full production, every Falcon 9 launch takes away from that volume. It might seem absurd that a rocket capable of carrying five or six times more cargo to orbit could eventually cost one-third the price (or someday even less) to launch, but that's the goal. The sooner SpaceX transitions to Starship at scale, the sooner it reaches those economics.

And if there's not enough commercial demand to fill a particular Starship flight? SpaceX already does ride-sharing, and could fill the excess cargo capacity with Starlink or xAI satellites.

Submission + - AAA Finds EV Range Drops 39% in Cold Weather and Costs Jump (autoblog.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: AAA study finds EVs lose 39 percent range and 35.6 percent efficiency at 20F.

Winter EV operating costs rise by up to $76.93 per 1,000 miles using public charging.

35 percent of buyers now favor hybrids, which perform better than EVs in cold weather.

Submission + - J&J vaccine not safe and effective

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: J&J Lead Regulatory Scientist Joshua Rys Admits: “None of That Stuff [J&J Vaccines] Was Safe and Effective”

In never before seen footage, James O’Keefe confronts Joshua Rys, Johnson & Johnson’s lead regulatory scientist, after he was caught on hidden camera admitting damning truths about the company’s COVID-19 vaccine.

Rys told our undercover journalist: “Do you have any idea the lack of research that was done on those products [J&J Vaccines]?” and “None of that stuff [J&J Vaccines] was safe and effective”

He added that people “wanted it,” so “we gave it to them,” and that lawsuits were coming to those people [Johnson & Johnson] eventually.

Submission + - Danger of AI isn't destruction but seduction. Fiduciary duty may be the solution (wsj.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok are all seductive to a degree. They’re unfailingly friendly and encouraging, and are designed to promote engagement by making users feel heard and understood.

Numerous companies already produce AI “girlfriends” and “boyfriends” that feature highly realistic video avatars and that interact romantically and even sexually. (The dangers of this are illustrated in a famous bit from “Futurama” called “Don’t date robots.”) There’s already a “MyBoyfriendIsAI” subreddit, where lucky women show off photos of their AI-based engagement and wedding rings they bought themselves.

My concern is that the platforms’ owners will use them to manipulate their users in self-interested ways, encouraging purchases, investments and other behaviors for their own purposes, or inflict political spin even as users think they’re having authentic interaction with programs that, at bottom, are no more “real” than Tim the Pencil.

There have been some suggestions for regulation already, but here’s mine: AI personalities and their owners should be subjected to fiduciary duty when they interact with users.

Fiduciary duty is a legal concept applying to an actor who is in a relationship of trust with another and whose position involves superior knowledge or skill. Classic examples include lawyers acting for clients, administrators of a legal trust acting for beneficiaries, executors for heirs, corporate directors for shareholders, and members of a partnership for one another.

A fiduciary relationship creates a duty to act in the beneficiary’s interest, to act in good faith, and to use reasonable skill and diligence. It includes—important in this context—a duty of confidentiality, with all information relating to the relationship kept confidential and private.

AIs that purport to form a human relationship should be held under a fiduciary duty, with the companies behind them liable for heavy damages if it’s violated. Then we wouldn’t need government regulation as such because plaintiffs’ lawyers will vigorously patrol the boundaries of good conduct.

Slashdot Top Deals

Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill.

Close