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Submission + - Legal torpedoes headed for Meta (reuters.com)

Submitted by Sparkatron
Sparkatron writes: A coalition of US states is suing Meta for damages of $1.4 TRILLION dollars. Yeah, you read that right, TRILLION. It is just a coincidence that this is very close to Meta's entire market capitalization of $1.5T. The suit alleges that Facebook and Instagram were deliberately designed to be addictive to under-age children, and that Meta deliberately concealed evidence of harm to children. A lawsuit with a price-tag this big would seem to be aimed more at creating headlines than seriously obtaining compensation. So far the Stock Market has initially ignored the lawsuit. But in this day and age of seemingly irrational verdicts, like the ~$1Billion defamation award against Joe Rogan, maybe that isn't so wise. Who knows? For those of us that quit face-bvtt years ago because Mark Zuckerberg is a reptilian alien attempting to destroy the human race, this lawsuit seems virtuous. For others this might seem like an abuse of the courts. Worth keeping an eye on, its success could encourage more ludicrous lawsuits to punish other technology companies.

Submission + - This factory was severely short on workers. Then it offered flexible work. (npr.org) 1

Submitted by Tony Isaac
Tony Isaac writes: Flexible, appbased scheduling at GE Appliances’ Roper plant lets a large pool of parttime workers choose fourhour shifts and even select the type of work they prefer, a system born during the pandemic when the factory faced severe labor shortages. The MyWorkChoice model now supplies hundreds of trained workers each week, stabilizing production and enabling major expansion, while giving people—from retirees to sidejob hustlers to longtime employees—control over their hours even though pay and benefits are lower than traditional fulltime roles.

Submission + - Europe's New Entry/Exit System Is a Mess, and It's Not Going Away (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: European bureaucrats are standing firm on a security program that has led to long lines, confusion and missed flights at airports this summer, despite an urgent plea from the aviation industry to suspend it.

The Entry/Exit System, or E.E.S., requires members of the 29-country Schengen open-border area to collect biometrics like face photos and fingerprints from travelers upon arrival and to confirm their identities upon exit. Since the system took full effect in April, airports and airlines have reported widespread chaos — including hourslong security checkpoint lines and confusion over procedures — and have feared the headaches could worsen as peak travel season begins.

The problems led senior officials from the European aviation industry last week to ask the European Union to suspend the E.E.S. requirement this summer. The system is "undermining Europe’s reputation, European tourism and connectivity," said the open letter to the president of the European Commission.

But on Tuesday, European Commission bureaucrats officially rejected the request in a meeting with industry stakeholders, saying that the new system’s security advantages outweighed its inconveniences.

E.E.S. is used in the 29-country Schengen area, which includes 25 European Union members as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. The system applies to most visitors to those countries who are traveling for a short stay (up to 90 days in a 180-day period), regardless of whether they have a visa.

Since the system began to roll out across Europe in October, travelers have encountered an inconsistent set of procedures, taking anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. Some airports have self-service kiosks where travelers can register their biometrics. At others, border control officers manually register travelers. Only two countries, Sweden and Portugal, currently allow travelers to use a dedicated app. E.E.S. is intended to be an automated system, eventually.

"At present, the system is failing to deliver one of its core objectives: facilitating efficient border crossings while maintaining the smooth functioning of Europe’s transport network," the aviation officials wrote in the open letter urging the European Union to act.

Summer travelers are being forced to “endure needless passport control chaos,” Neal McMahon, Ryanair’s chief operations officer, said in a statement.

“Passengers and families should not be used as guinea pigs for a half-baked passport control system that risks creating long queues, missed flights and unnecessary stress at airports this summer,” he added.

In Rome, the airports have already been suspending biometrics collection on a near-daily basis this summer, said a spokesman for Aeroporti di Roma, which operates the city’s airports. Rome Fiumicino, Italy’s busiest airport, expects around 11 million passengers in June and July, which could be up to 180,000 passengers on peak days, the spokesman said.

Submission + - Apple to spend another $30 billion on US chip manufacturing with Broadcom (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Apple announced a new multiyear agreement with Broadcom expected to exceed $30 billion. The deal will result in more than 15 billion chips being manufactured in the United States while funding a $1.5 billion expansion of Broadcoms facility in Fort Collins, Colorado.

The components produced there include advanced radio frequency technologies and wireless connectivity hardware used across Apples product lineup. Apple says the agreement is its largest commitment yet under the companys American Manufacturing Program and will support hundreds of US jobs.

Despite the investment, this does not mean iPhones or Macs will suddenly be assembled in America. Instead, the announcement focuses on increasing domestic production of key components that go inside Apple devices.

Submission + - Scientists Built Cancer Kill Switch That Turns On With Flash of Light (studyfinds.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: Cancer has a dirty trick: it can put itself to sleep. When tumor cells slip into a kind of biological hibernation, they become hard to kill, shrugging off treatment and lying low until conditions improve, then waking up and bringing the disease back. For decades, researchers have struggled to shut down this hiding strategy without causing serious harm elsewhere in the body. A team in Switzerland has now built a molecule that flips on and off with flashes of light, giving scientists a precise new way to probe, and possibly disrupt, the way sleeping cancer cells hide.

Behind this cellular sleep state, at least in certain cancers, sits a protein called the glucocorticoid receptor, a sensor inside cells that reacts to stress hormones. When it switches on, it can push cancer cells, especially in some solid tumors such as lung cancer, into a drug-resistant, dormant state. The obvious fix would be to destroy the receptor outright, but there is a catch: the same receptor does important jobs all over the body, including calming inflammation. Removing it everywhere would cause real damage. What was needed was a way to hit the receptor inside a tumor and leave the rest of the body alone.

Submission + - USAF Engineer Charged With Sawing Down Flock Surveillance Cameras (wavy.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Hundreds of freedom lovers are rallying behind a US Air Force engineer accused of chopping down over a dozen AI-integrated surveillance cameras last year.

Virginia-based Air Force engineer and mechanic Jeffrey Sovern is facing 13 counts of destruction of property, as well as six counts of both petit larceny and possession of burglary tools related to the destruction of Flock license plate cameras.

These automatic license plate readers, or ALPRs, are starting to blanket the United States, spreading across small towns and bustling cities alike by the thousands. While ostensibly framed as crime fighting tools, the AI-powered spy devices have raised significant privacy and social policy concerns, especially as innocent citizens get caught up in the dragnet. Like AI data centers, they've become a hot political issue at the local level, fueling public outrage and organized campaigns from coast to coast.

There's also no shortage of citizens who prefer a more direct-action approach. Armed with garbage bags, spray paint, and even chainsaws, a not insignificant number of privacy vigilantes have taken the fight to Flock, using any means to free their neighborhoods of the ominous surveillance poles.

On a GoFundMe page to raise money for his legal defense, the 41-year-old Sovern explained that this kind of privacy-minded vandalism has far more support than would outwardly appear.

Comment How will its images compare to Hubble? (Score 5, Informative) 65

by schwit1 (#66218242) Attached to: The Vera Rubin Telescope Begins Surveying Our Cosmos

Wider field of view, vastly more data (time-lapse survey of entire sky every few nights), but lower angular resolution than Hubble's sharp, targeted deep-space images.

How does it compare to other ground based telescopes?
Largest wide-field survey telescope (8.4m mirror, 3.2 gigapixel camera). Faster and broader than most ground-based (e.g., Subaru, VISTA), but lower resolution than adaptive-optics giants like Keck or ELT.

Submission + - DOT announces "Return of Supersonic Flight" for commercial airlines (faa.gov)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Gemini summarized ...

The FAA’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), released on June 30, 2026, marks the first formal regulatory step toward lifting the 53-year-old ban on civil supersonic flight over the continental United States.

Core Objectives of the Proposal
  • Replacing Speed Limits with Noise Standards: The proposal would replace the current, blanket speed-based ban (dating to 1973) with a performance-based noise standard. Aircraft would be permitted to fly at speeds exceeding Mach 1 over land, provided they do not generate surface-level noise (sonic boom overpressure) exceeding a specific threshold of 0.11 pounds per square foot (psf).
  • En-Route Focus: This specific proposal addresses en-route cruise noise. It does not set standards for takeoff and landing, which the FAA plans to address in a separate proposal later this year.
  • Implementation of Executive Order 14304: This action fulfills part of the June 2025 Executive Order signed by President Trump, which directed the FAA to modernize aviation standards to ensure the U.S. remains a leader in aerospace innovation.

Why Now?
The FAA is citing significant technological advancements as the justification for this shift, specifically:

  • Aerodynamic Innovation: New airframe designs and propulsion systems—exemplified by testing of NASA’s X-59 "quiet" demonstrator—can now break the sound barrier while reducing the sonic boom to a low-intensity "thump" that is manageable for ground-level communities.
  • Operational Techniques: The use of "Mach cutoff" flight techniques, where speed, altitude, and atmospheric conditions are synchronized to ensure sonic booms refract back into the atmosphere rather than reaching the ground.

Next Steps

  • Public Comment: The proposal (Docket FAA-2026-6935) is now open for a 45-day public comment period.
  • Future Regulations: The FAA intends to finalize both the en-route noise standards and the upcoming takeoff/landing noise standards by mid-2027.
  • International Alignment: The FAA is working alongside the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and foreign aviation authorities to ensure that these domestic standards eventually align with global frameworks for international supersonic operations.

By establishing these metrics, the FAA aims to provide manufacturers—such as those developing next-generation supersonic transports—with the clear regulatory guidance needed to finalize aircraft designs and move toward commercial certification.

Submission + - New Florida Law Bans Local Net-Zero Emissions Policies (insideclimatenews.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A new state law limits Florida communities’ aims to offset greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the global climate and intensifying disasters such as hurricanes. Specifically, HB 1217 prohibits local governments from pursuing net-zero emissions goals. At least 10 cities and counties have implemented such policies, including Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Orlando and Leon County, where Tallahassee, the state capital, is located. But the new law will not necessarily upend these policies, said Bradley Marshall, senior attorney at Earthjustice, an advocacy group. “It’s certainly meant to scare municipalities and local governments from trying to do things to further net-zero policies,” he said. “Now, its exact impact and what it exactly prohibits is probably up for some debate. Things that are adjacent to it—emissions reductions and even climate change reduction policies—on their face will not run afoul at all of a ban on adopting a net zero policy.”

The measure requires local governments to submit an affidavit annually to the state Department of Revenue verifying compliance. Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed the measure on April 22, Earth Day, and the law will take effect July 1. It states that “net zero policies, carbon taxes and assessments, and emission trading programs are detrimental to this state’s energy security and economic interests and inconsistent with the energy policy and the environmental policy of this state.” [...] HB 1217 also prevents local governments from purchasing items such as vehicles or appliances based on the fuels they use or production of the items. Local governments may not participate in carbon-trading programs or use public funds to support other organizations with net-zero policies. Cities and counties also may not charge a tax or fee tied with carbon emissions.

Submission + - California Requires Proof That You're Gay to Get These Taxpayer-Funded Contracts (townhall.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A questionnaire to certify the applicant’s status as a legitimate member of the gay or trans community included probing questions regarding marriage licenses, “completed or attempted parenting efforts,” evidence of a transition surgery, or a letter of approval from a “recognized LGBT organization.”

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