2026-05-02

Worthy

• Notes on a non-profit indicted for bank fraud

  The SPLC is a storied civil rights organization. Like many non-profits, it runs a portfolio of what are sometimes called “programs” under a single roof. One of those programs is producing a data product listing individuals and entities that it considers to be involved in hate and anti-government activities. It is unlikely that any magistrate in the United States would approve a warrant to search the bluest-of-blue-chip civil rights organization's papers on the suspicion that they have created a fictitious CIA to launder money to the wife of an Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan. Are you not aware, officer, that the reason this organization is in high school history texts is they developed a novel civil litigation strategy to bankrupt the Ku Klux Klan? You will not get your warrant. You would be lucky to escape court without a citation for contempt or an order for psychiatric commitment. Well, good thing nobody ever had to ask for that warrant. Banks don’t need warrants to become quite alarmed when they discover that they have created an account for the Center Investigative Agency and several other sole proprietorships for the same person… and those businesses don’t receive revenue, run payroll, buy office supplies on their debit card, or rent office space. No, the only thing they do is take large deposits then transfer out hundreds of thousands of dollars directly to, Great Scott, the worst people imaginable.

  Oh dear, SPLC! It would be extremely bad for you if you had in fact opened accounts for businesses which do not actually exist, then used them to move funds! Perhaps you can just pray that the feds never find out? … The bank is quite likely going to find out, though. Some bank accounts have red flags. These red flags have bank accounts.

  There are multiple different ways to charge it, as we have seen. The indictment went with §1014. And if the SPLC admitted to bank fraud, then the transfers are wire fraud. And if the transfers were wire fraud, then the… you’ve seen this movie before and it ends predictably. I do not expect this conclusion to be a happy one to all readers. I believe it to be correct.

  • Well worth reading the whole thing: The SPLC has not been acting in good faith and it has not been hiding the nature of its goals or means. Racketeering is ugly no matter the good cause it hides behind.

Horseshit

• Oscar goes missing after Academy Award winner is blocked from taking on flight

• Inside the stealthy startup that pitched brainless human clones

• Defend the rich: Enhanced Games founder turns to AI to challenge the media

• Making America's Houses Bigger May Have Been a Mistake

• The Secret to Success Is 'Monotasking'

• The Analog Charms of New York's Intercoms

• How did Banksy erect a statue in Central London?

• Indigenous Language Survived Russian Occupation. Can It Survive YouTube?

• Physicists have measured 'negative time' in the lab

• Bombshell sex harassment suit against Lorna Hajdini, JPMorgan branded ‘complete fabrication’ as John Doe unmasked

• New research suggests people can communicate and practice skills while dreaming

• Man dies covered in necrotic lesions after amoebas eat him alive

• Sam Altman falls out of love with universal basic income

• Australia wants to be first nation in the world to eliminate a cancer

Epstein

• Inside Michael Jackson's Ties to Jeffrey Epstein: Photos and Testimony

  Thus far, Jackson has not been accused of any wrongdoing related to Epstein. And the Jackson estate has yet to respond to Variety’s request for comment.

celebrity gossip

• Queen guitarist Brian May barred from planting daffodils in his village

  Legendary rocker Brian May became a local hero in the quiet English village where he lives when he donated thousands of daffodil bulbs to brighten up the green outside the church last year. But plans to extend his floral donations for next year have bitten the dust after local authorities intervened and blocked the move. The Queen guitarist and founding member donated 3,000 daffodil bulbs to the local community and has been regularly posting online about the progress of their growth on the church green in Elstead, Surrey, where he lives.

Musk

• Elon Musk gets an apology from California regulators as a SpaceX lawsuit is settled.

• SpaceX rocket set for unintentional Moon landing – well, a piece of it anyway

  • A Falcon 9 rocket will hit the Moon this summer at 7x the speed of sound

• SpaceX spending on Starship tops $15B in rush for airline-like rocketry

• First Tesla Semi Rolls Off High-Volume Production Line

• Shivon Zilis Operated as Elon Musk's OpenAI Insider

  • Elon Musk Seemingly Admits xAI Has Used OpenAI's Models to Train Its Own

  • Elon Musk's A.I. Claims of Danger Face Limits in OpenAI Trial

  • Musk Warns of Killer AI, While He and Silicon Valley Cash in on AI That Kills

Electric / Self Driving cars

• California Police Can Start Ticketing Driverless Cars

  • Waymos, robotaxis can now be ticketed by California police. But how exactly?

• The Rise of the High-Range, Less Expensive E.V

• The California Government Is Coming for Your E-Bikes

Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers

• Japan Airlines begins humanoid robot trials at Tokyo's Haneda airport

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Prep school teacher filmed sex with student she was tutoring: ‘Not my best thinking.’

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Apple's lobbying effort saves it from new App Store rules

• Samsung warns memory shortage will be worse next year

• A new US phone network for Christians aims to block porn and gender-related content

• Microsoft rolls out Xbox Mode, bringing a console-like experience to any PC

• Publishers Demand Accountability from Common Crawl over Unauthorized Use

• Pro-Iran crew turns DDoS into shakedown as Ubuntu.com stays down

  • Ubuntu servers taken offline by "sustained, cross-border attack"

• Apple may take "several months" to catch up to Mac mini and Studio demand

• Spotify adds 'Verified' badges to distinguish human artists from AI

• AWS stops billing Middle East cloud customers as repairs to war damage drag on

• As Tim Cook steps down, Apple hit record sales – but a chip shortage looms

• City Learns Flock Accessed Cameras in Children's Gymnastics Room as a Sales Demo

• My $5K smart bed needs to shut the hell up

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• The members of the kernel security team are not allowed to tell their employers anything that happens on the security list.

  They are there as individual members, not as employees. And try to define "major distros" in a way that actually means anything viable. If you just want to count users, then that would only be Android (everything else is a rounding error.) After Android, that would be Yocto, and then Debian. All distros after that are mere fractions of overall users compared to those 3 by number of running systems alone. If you want to count it as "$ spent on Linux" then that cuts out Android and Yocto and Debian as those distros are free, and would focus purely on the tiny installed base of paid Linux systems, and cut everyone else out. So what is a fair way to do this other than "we notify no one, and tell everyone to always update their systems to the latest stable releases that we support." Especially as there is no way for us to determine your use case (i.e. if a specific bug is a vulnerability for you or not.)

  • Fun discussion, lots of "they owe us" and "we deserve" coming from people who cannot be bothered to take responsibility for things they have been given for free.

• Microsoft open-sources "the earliest DOS source code discovered to date"

• HN Jobs:

  • Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2026)

  • Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (May 2026)

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• One solar storm could trigger a catastrophic collision in orbit

• NASA chief says he's in the camp of 'make Pluto a planet again'

  • see my sign on Pluto

• Public consultation should begins on plans to transform the moon and Mars

• Area 51 just had 17 earthquakes in a single day

  Something strange is happening underneath Area 51. According to United States Geological Survey data earlier this week, over 100 people have reported at least 17 earthquakes within the span of only 24 hours not far from the infamous, highly classified military base. The comparatively shallow events about 2.5 miles below the ground ranged between 2.5 and 4.4 in magnitude, with the strongest reportedly recorded in “an unusual place to get an earthquake,” according to geophysicist Stefan Burns. Conspiracy theories are already spreading online about aliens, UFOs, and other spooky phenomena, but one hypothesis at least initially sounds more plausible and unnerving. Based on the region’s past along with recent domestic policy reversals, there is technically a not-zero chance that the U.S. re-started underground nuclear tests.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Employers are blindsiding candidates with AI interviews–and scaring them off

• 'Completely horrible': UK job hunters share frustration with AI interviews

• AI and the Future of News 2026

• Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft are planning a combined capital expenditure of $725 billion this year.

• After dissing Anthropic for limiting Mythos, OpenAI restricts access to Cyber

• So, About That AI Bubble

• Pentagon Makes Deals with A.I. Companies to Expand Classified Work

  • Pentagon strikes deals with 7 Big Tech companies after shunning Anthropic

  • Pentagon inks deals with AI giants, but not Anthropic

  • Top AI companies agree to work with Pentagon on secret data

• Washington has a new Anthropic problem

• CA Billionaire Spends $3.5M to oppose OpenAI in NY house race

• 'Rogue' Cursor AI agent loses control and wipes company's database

• Georgia's battleground races give a first look at a brewing political storm

• AI chatbots need 'deception mode'

• To buy this Bay Area home, you'll need Anthropic equity

• Meta abandons open-source Llama for proprietary Muse Spark

• AI model did better than ER doctors at diagnosing patients

• Women sue the men who used their Instagram feeds to create AI porn influencers

• Minnesota passes ban on fake AI nudes; app makers risk $500K fines

• A Dark-Money Campaign Is Paying Influencers to Frame Chinese AI as a Threat

• AI actors and writers will be ineligible for Oscars

• 'They Said A.I. Saved Me': How South Korea Is Checking on Its Seniors

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• Meta Launches USDC Creator Payouts on Solana and Polygon via Stripe

• US freezes $344M in cryptocurrency said to be linked to Iran

• U.S. senators ban themselves from prediction markets trading

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Intel has best month ever, after years of losing to TSMC and Nvidia

• Berkshire Has a Website from the '90s and Buffett Fans Say Don't Mess with It

• What SaaSpocalypse? Atlassian, Twilio, and Five9 Stocks Soar

• Spirit Airlines prepares to shut down as bailout talks stall

• Passenger railroads see a sharp jump in ridership as gas prices climb

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• The House passed a measure to fund most of DHS.

• 20+% of the voting age population: Judicial Watch Lawsuit Settlement Causes Review and Removal of 800,000 Ineligible Voters from Oregon Voter Rolls

• California billionaire tax proposal attracts 1.5M signatures

• Google founder Sergey Brin confronted Gavin Newsom then launched a political war

• Revolving doors weaken SEC oversight: study

• Cigna's exit adds to Obamacare marketplace upheaval

Democrats

• LA-SF rail will cost about $126B, with service beginning around 2040

• Sanders splits with Washington on AI arms race with China

Left Angst

• US falls below Ukraine in press freedom as global autocracy takes hold

• US lawmakers vote to reduce NSF funding by 20%

• Advocacy groups issue US travel advisory ahead of World Cup

• James Broadnax Executed After Being Sentenced to Death Based on Rap Lyrics

  Despite massive support from rappers, scholars, and lawyers — plus a new confession from his cousin in the double-murder case that saw them both convicted — 37-year-old James Broadnax was executed by lethal injection Thursday evening at Texas State Penitentiary. He was given the death penalty in part due to rap lyrics he wrote as a teen. In 2008, Broadnax and his cousin, Demarius Cummings, both under the influence of PCP-laced weed, traveled to Garland, Texas, to steal a car. They targeted Christian-music producers Stephen Swan, 26, and Matthew Butler, 28, who were shot and killed in the melee. The cousins stole Swan’s Crown Victoria and were arrested 170 miles away. At the time, Broadnax confessed to the murders, and, still high, gave two expletive-laden interviews to local news reporters bragging about the killings. He was found guilty of the double murder. Then, during the sentencing phase, lawyers used rap lyrics found in Broadnax’s car to convince jurors that he had a violent nature and would kill again if given the chance. Broadnax was sentenced to death.

  • He was given the death penalty for plotting and executing a cold blooded, pre-meditated murder. Just imagine he was a Trump supporter if that makes it easier.

• U.S. Aims to Penalize Disabled Adults Who Live with Their Families

• 'We Know You Live Right Here': No Secrets in America's New Surveillance Dragnet

• RNC Seemingly Suggests Barack Obama Was First Gay President

  TMZ DC is making waves on Capitol Hill ... after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told one of our producers it's entirely possible America's already had a gay president, Republicans seem to be offering up their best guess ... Barack Obama!!!

  • (2023) "I make love to men daily, but in the imagination."

  • (2012) Cover of Newsweek: The First Gay President

• Avoid being badly written

  As the hits (there was more) accummulated, I realized he is REALLY badly written. That’s why he went in Leeroy Jenkinsing it, in classical video game manner where you run past the low level NPCs to get at the important players, which apparently (WHO MADE THAT DECISION?) are more easily disposed of with knives than with guns. And this guy, despite being trained in engineering which involves a certain amount of PHYSICS, despite having lived in the real world for thirty one years, despite EVERYTHING thought he was a game character and things would work as they do in games. I keep thinking that people are surrounded by story, drunk with it, to the point they can’t see reality, and even I am shocked at this level of insanity. It would be hilarious if not for what he was intending to do when he posed.

• What Strings Will Trump Attach to Dollar Lifelines?

• Colorado lost more public lands jobs than any other state in 2025

• Since Congress Let Obamacare Subsidies Expire, Millions Are Dropping Coverage

• (Video) Action starts at 4m25s: showing Cole Allen shoot a U.S. Secret Service officer during his attempt to assassinate the President

  There is no evidence the shooting was the result of friendly fire.

• Trump tears up part of EU tariff deal to raise import duties on cars and lorries

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Police Have Reportedly Used License Plate Readers to Stalk Romantic Interests at Least 14 Times in Recent Years

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• US telecom agency votes to expand tech crackdown on China

• Majority of US Military sites in Middle East damaged by Iran

• U.S. to Withdraw 5k Troops from Germany, Pentagon Says

• FBI cyber boss: China's hacker-for-hire ecosystem 'out of control'

World

• NHS Goes to War Against Open Source

  The NHS is preparing to close nearly all of its Open Source repositories. The majority of code repos published by the NHS are not meaningfully affected by any advance in security scanning. They're mostly data sets, internal tools, guidance, research tools, front-end design and the like. There is nothing in them which could realistically lead to a security incident.

• Australia's Richest Person Gifts Jet to Far-Right Party Head

• Russian forces defeated in Saharan stronghold after wave of attacks

• No woman in England or Wales can be prosecuted for an abortion any more

Iran / Houthi

• Powerful Iranian family founded its largest crypto exchange, used by the IRGC

Israel

• Israeli forces raid Global Sumud Flotilla boats in international waters

• Telegraph and Politico owner says journalists must support Israel or resign

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russia cloaks launch schedule after spaceport falls in Ukraine's sights

China

• China Planted 78B New Trees Affecting Its Water Cycle

• All the Sad Young Chinese Professionals

• Shut out from the US, the world’s largest EV maker thinks it can stay on top

Health / Medicine

• One of the world’s most common knee surgeries doesn’t work and may make things worse.

• Medicare portal database exposed health providers' Social Security numbers

• Brain scans reveal 3 ADHD subtypes

• A 29-year-old man was told his constipation was nothing to worry about. He was diagnosed with colon cancer.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Our Wilderness Areas Are in Danger

• Greek mountain snow cover halved in past four decades due to regional warming

• This Summer, the American Water Crisis Becomes Real

• Nearly Half of Wolves in Italy Are Now Part Dog

• Earth is splitting open beneath the Pacific Northwest, scientists say