Marvel Entertainment and DC Comics have announced their first crossover event since 2003's JLA/Avengers, featuring Deadpool and Batman in dual one-shot publications launching later this year. Deadpool/Batman one-shot launches September 17 and follows Wade Wilson hired for a Gotham City job that puts him against Batman. DC's Batman/Deadpool counterpart launches in November. Both publications will include additional "backup adventures" featuring other character matchups, though creative teams for those remain unannounced. The crossover required extensive coordination between the companies' editorial schedules, which typically plan two to three years in advance.

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Bloomberg's editorial board warned Tuesday that AI has created an "untenable situation" in higher education where students routinely outsource homework to chatbots while professors struggle to distinguish computer-generated work from human writing. The editorial described a cycle where assignments that once required days of research can now be completed in minutes through AI prompts, leaving students who still do their own work looking inferior to peers who rely on technology. The board said that professors have begun using AI tools themselves to evaluate student assignments, creating what it called a scenario of "computers grading papers written by computers, students and professors idly observing, and parents paying tens of thousands of dollars a year for the privilege." The editorial argued that widespread AI use in coursework undermines the broader educational mission of developing critical thinking skills and character formation, particularly in humanities subjects. Bloomberg's board recommended that colleges establish clearer policies on acceptable AI use, increase in-class assessments including oral exams, and implement stronger honor codes with defined consequences for violations.

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Multiple readers shared the following report about the executive departures at CISA: Virtually all of the top officials at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have departed the agency or will do so this month, according to an email obtained by Cybersecurity Dive, further widening a growing void in expertise and leadership at the government's lead cyber defense force at a time when tensions with foreign adversaries are escalating. Five of CISA's six operational divisions and six of its 10 regional offices will have lost top leaders by the end of the month, the agency's new deputy director, Madhu Gottumukkala, informed employees in an email on Thursday. [...] The exits of these leaders could undermine the efficiency and strategic clarity of CISA's partnerships with critical infrastructure operators, private security firms, foreign allies, state governments and local emergency managers, experts say.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: More than 2% of Americans are taking the blockbuster class of GLP-1 drugs for overweight or obesity, up nearly 600% over six years, according to a report from FAIR Health given to Axios first. The data from FAIR Health's repository of over 51 billion commercial healthcare claim records shows the explosion in use of the drugs specifically for weight loss -- roughly half of all users. In all, roughly 4% of Americans were taking GLP-1 drugs in 2024 for either overweight, obesity or Type 2 diabetes (their original approved use). The data shows Novo Nordisk's Ozempic is still by far the most commonly taken GLP-1, followed by Eli Lilly's Mounjaro. The percentage of adults who were prescribed a GLP-1 drug but did not have bariatric surgery increased from 2.5% in 2019 to 11.2% in 2024 while the the percentage of adult patients who had bariatric surgery decreased 41.8%.

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Researchers are developing techniques to genetically modify cancer-fighting immune cells directly inside patients rather than in expensive laboratory facilities, potentially making CAR-T therapy accessible to far more people. Current CAR-T treatments require removing a patient's T cells, shipping them to specialized facilities for genetic engineering, then returning them weeks later at costs around $500,000 per dose. The new "in vivo" approaches use viral vectors or RNA-loaded nanoparticles to deliver genetic instructions directly to T cells circulating in the bloodstream, which could reduce costs by an order of magnitude. Companies including Capstan Therapeutics, co-founded by Nobel laureates, and AstraZeneca-backed EsoBiotec have launched early human trials. While only about 200 US centers currently offer traditional CAR-T therapy, the approach could make the powerful treatment available on demand like conventional drugs.

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German sportswear giant Adidas disclosed a data breach after attackers hacked a customer service provider and stole some customers' data. From a report: "adidas recently became aware that an unauthorized external party obtained certain consumer data through a third-party customer service provider," the company said. "We immediately took steps to contain the incident and launched a comprehensive investigation, collaborating with leading information security experts." Adidas added that the stolen information did not include the affected customers' payment-related information or passwords, as the threat actors behind the breach only gained access to contact. The company has also notified the relevant authorities regarding this security incident and will alert those affected by the data breach.

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More than 50 years after its debut, Uno has achieved unprecedented popularity among adults, but its resurgence is creating problems and confusions as players disagree on fundamental rules. WSJ, in a fun story [non-paywalled source]: Think politics divides? Try mixing competitors with different views on stacking "action" cards, or getting everyone to agree on the true power of the Wild card. And nobody can seem to decide whether staples of the game of their youth -- like mandating players yell "Uno!" when they have one card left -- are socially acceptable at a bar with strangers. Mattel has responded by actively settling rule debates on social media, definitively stating that stacking Draw 2 cards is prohibited, while simultaneously embracing the game's divisive nature through marketing campaigns. The company's "Show 'Em No Mercy" variant, featuring more aggressive rules, became the second-best-selling card game in the United States last year according to research firm Circana, trailing only classic Uno itself.

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The Browser Company has ceased the active development of its Arc browser to focus on Dia, a new AI-powered browser currently in alpha testing, the company said Tuesday. In a lengthy letter to users, CEO Josh Miller said the startup should have stopped working on Arc "a year earlier," noting data showing the browser suffered from a "novelty tax" problem where users found it too different to adopt widely. Arc struggled with low feature adoption -- only 5.52% of daily active users regularly used multiple Spaces, while 4.17% used Live Folders. The company will continue maintenance updates for Arc but won't add new features. Arc also won't open-source the browser because it relies on proprietary infrastructure called ADK (Arc Development Kit) that remains core to the company's value.

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President Trump's threat of a 25% tariff on smartphone imports including iPhones would not provide enough economic incentive for Apple to relocate US-bound iPhone production to domestic facilities, according to a new Morgan Stanley note viewed by Slashdot. The tariff threat, announced Friday via social media, appeared to target Apple's recent shift of iPhone production from China to India through its contract manufacturing partners. Morgan Stanley analysts estimate that establishing US iPhone production would require a minimum of two years and several billion dollars to build multiple greenfield assembly facilities, with a trained workforce exceeding 100,000 workers during peak seasons. More significantly, the firm calculates that a US-produced iPhone would cost 35% more than current China or India production, primarily due to higher labor costs and the need to import 25% of iPhone components from China under existing 30% tariffs. By contrast, Apple could offset a 25% import tariff by raising global iPhone prices just 4-6%, making domestic production economically unviable.

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Abstract of a paper on NBER: We elicited over a million stated preference choices over 126 dimensions or "aspects" of well-being from a sample of 3,358 respondents on Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Our surveys also collected self-reported well-being (SWB) questions about respondents' current levels of the aspects of well-being. From the stated preference data, we estimate relative log marginal utilities per point on our 0-100 response scale for each aspect. We validate these estimates by comparing them to alternative methods for estimating preferences. Our findings provide empirical evidence that both complements and challenges philosophical perspectives on human desires and values. Our results support Aristotelian notions of eudaimonia through family relationships and Maslow's emphasis on basic security needs, yet also suggest that contemporary theories of well-being may overemphasize abstract concepts such as happiness and life satisfaction, while undervaluing concrete aspects such as family well-being, financial security, and health, that respondents place the highest marginal utilities on. We document substantial heterogeneity in preferences across respondents within (but not between) demographic groups, with current SWB levels explaining a significant portion of the variation.

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The European Commission warned Chinese e-tailer SHEIN on Monday that it must address multiple consumer law violations or face fines across EU member states. Regulators found SHEIN's website displayed fake discounts not based on actual prior prices, used pressure-selling tactics with false purchase deadlines, provided misleading information about consumer return rights, made deceptive sustainability claims, and hid contact details from customers. SHEIN has one month to respond to the findings and propose corrective measures, adding regulatory pressure to a company already facing US tariff challenges despite generating an estimated $38 billion in revenue last year.

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Our anonymous submitter, whom we'll call Craig, worked for GlobalCon. GlobalCon relied on an offshore team on the other side of the world for adding/removing users from the system, support calls, ticket tracking, and other client services. One day at work, an urgent escalated ticket from Martin, the offshore support team lead, fell into Craig's queue. Seated before his cubicle workstation, Craig opened the ticket right away:

The new GlobalCon support website is not working. Appears to have been taken over by ChatGPT. The entire support team is blocked by this.

Instead of feeling any sense of urgency, Craig snorted out loud from perverse amusement.

"What was that now?" The voice of Nellie, his coworker, wafted over the cubicle wall that separated them.

"Urgent ticket from the offshore team," Craig replied.

"What is it this time?" Nellie couldn't suppress her glee.

"They're dead in the water because the new support page was, quote, taken over by ChatGPT."

Nellie laughed out loud.

"Hey! I know humor is important to surviving this job." A level, more mature voice piped up behind Craig from the cube across from his. It belonged to Dana, his manager. "But it really is urgent if they're all blocked. Do your best to help, escalate to me if you get stuck."

"OK, thanks. I got this," Craig assured her.

He was already 99.999% certain that no part of their web domain had gone down or been conquered by a belligerent AI, or else he would've heard of it by now. To make sure, Craig opened support.globalcon.com in a browser tab: sure enough, it worked. Martin had supplied no further detail, no logs or screenshots or videos, and no steps to reproduce, which was sadly typical of most of these escalations. At a loss, Craig took a screenshot of the webpage, opened the ticket, and posted the following: Everything's fine on this end. If it's still not working for you, let's do a screenshare.

Granted, a screensharing session was less than ideal given the 12-hour time difference. Craig hoped that whatever nefarious shenanigans ChatGPT had allegedly committed were resolved by now.

The next day, Craig received an update. Still not working. The entire team is still blocked. We're too busy to do a screenshare, please resolve ASAP.

Craig checked the website again with both laptop and phone. He had other people visit the website for him, trying different operating systems and web browsers. Every combination worked. Two things mystified him: how was the entire offshore team having this issue, and how were they "too busy" for anything if they were all dead in the water? At a loss, Craig attached an updated screenshot to the ticket and typed out the best CYA response he could muster. The new support website is up and has never experienced any issues. With no further proof or steps to reproduce this, I don't know what to tell you. I think a screensharing session would be the best thing at this point.

The next day, Martin parroted his last message almost word for word, except this time he assented to a screensharing session, suggesting the next morning for himself.

It was deep into the evening when Craig set up his work laptop on his kitchen counter and started a call and session for Martin to join. "OK. Can you show me what you guys are trying to do?"

To his surprise, he watched Martin open up Microsoft Teams first thing. From there, Martin accessed a chat to the entire offshore support team from the CPO of GlobalCon. The message proudly introduced the new support website and outlined the steps for accessing it. One of those steps was to visit support.globalcon.com.

The web address was rendered as blue outlined text, a hyperlink. Craig observed Martin clicking the link. A web browser opened up. Lo and behold, the page that finally appeared was www.chatgpt.com.

Craig blinked with surprise. "Hang on! I'm gonna take over for a second."

Upon taking control of the session, Craig switched back to Teams and accessed the link's details. The link text was correct, but the link destination was ChatGPT. It seemed like a copy/paste error that the CPO had tried to fix, not realizing that they'd needed to do more than simply update the link text.

"This looks like a bad link," Craig said. "It got sent to your entire team. And all of you have been trying to access the support site with this link?"

"Correct," Martin replied.

Craig was glad he couldn't be seen frowning and shaking his head. "Lemme show you what I've been doing. Then you can show everyone else, OK?"

After surrendering control of the session, Craig patiently walked Martin through the steps of opening a web browser, typing support.globalcon.com into the header, and hitting Return. The site opened without any issue. From there, Craig taught Martin how to create a bookmark for it.

"Just click on that from now on, and it'll always take you to the right place," Craig said. "In the future, before you click on any hyperlink, make sure you hover your mouse over it to see where it actually goes. Links can be labeled one thing when they actually take you somewhere else. That's how phishing works."

"Oh," Martin said. "Thanks!"

The call ended on a positive note, but left Craig marveling at the irony of lecturing the tech support lead on Internet 101 in the dead of night.

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California's population grew 0.6% in 2024, adding nearly 250,000 residents to reach 39.43 million, according to Census Bureau estimates. The growth came entirely from a rebound in international immigration, which surged to over 300,000 people after plunging to 44,000 during the pandemic's worst year. Without immigration, the state would have shrunk significantly as domestic migration remained negative. The H-1B visa program alone brought nearly 79,000 skilled workers to California in 2024. Since 2010, California has added 2.7 million immigrants, with half coming from Asia and slightly more than a third from Latin America. The immigration-dependent growth model puts California at particular risk from potential federal policy changes, as more than a quarter of its population is foreign-born -- the highest share nationwide.

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Nikon will raise prices on its cameras and imaging products in the United States starting June 23, citing President Donald Trump's tariffs on Chinese-made goods as the reason for what the company calls a "necessary price adjustment." The Japanese camera maker joins a growing list of photography equipment manufacturers implementing price increases, including Canon, Sony, Leica, and lens maker Sigma. Nikon told investors the tariffs could slash its profits by 10 billion yen ($70 million) in the upcoming fiscal year, though the company has not disclosed which specific products will see increases or by how much prices will rise.

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New submitter zuki shares an obit published at The Register: John Young, the co-founder of the legendary internet archive Cryptome, died at the age of 89 on March 28. The Register talked to friends and peers who gave tribute to a bright, pugnacious man who was devoted to the public's right to know. Before WikiLeaks, OpenLeaks, BayFiles, or Transparency Toolkit, there was Cryptome - an open internet archive that inspired them all, helped ignite the first digital crypto war, and even gave Julian Assange his start before falling out with him on principle.

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alternative_right writes: The site looks like an ordinary Star Wars fan website from around 2010. But starwarsweb.net was actually a tool built by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to covertly communicate with its informants in other countries.

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As policy makers in the UK weigh how to regulate the AI industry, Nick Clegg, former UK deputy prime minister and former Meta executive, claimed a push for artist consent would "basically kill" the AI industry. From a report: Speaking at an event promoting his new book, Clegg said the creative community should have the right to opt out of having their work used to train AI models. But he claimed it wasn't feasible to ask for consent before ingesting their work first. "I think the creative community wants to go a step further," Clegg said according to The Times. "Quite a lot of voices say, 'You can only train on my content, [if you] first ask.' And I have to say that strikes me as somewhat implausible because these systems train on vast amounts of data." "I just don't know how you go around, asking everyone first. I just don't see how that would work," Clegg said. "And by the way if you did it in Britain and no one else did it, you would basically kill the AI industry in this country overnight."

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Newark Liberty International Airport has suffered six radar and radio outages in nine months, with the most recent occurring May 9th when controllers told pilots "our scopes just went black again" before handing off flights to other facilities. The outages have forced flight cancellations, diversions, and delays lasting over a week as airlines repositioned aircraft and crews. The Federal Aviation Administration created the problem by relocating Newark's air traffic control operations from the understaffed N90 facility on Long Island to Philadelphia in 2024. Only 17 of 33 controllers accepted the move despite $100,000 relocation bonuses, leaving operations short-staffed. Rather than build new STARS servers in Philadelphia, the FAA opted to send radar data over 130 miles of commercial copper telephone lines. The remote feeds have experienced approximately 10 minutes of downtime over 10 months -- exceeding the agency's reliability standards and occurring 200 times more frequently than the FAA's internal analysis predicted. The agency simultaneously laid off over 100 maintenance technicians and telecommunications specialists in February, further straining an air traffic control system that suffers around 700 outages weekly nationwide while managing 16.8 million annual flights with 1990s-era technology.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that foreign service providers like Microsoft and Zoom that act against Russian interests should be "throttled." Putin said it was important for Russia to develop domestic software solutions.

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Pakistan will allocate 2,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity in the first phase of a national initiative to power bitcoin mining and AI data centres, its finance ministry said on Sunday. The allocation is part of Islamabad's plans to use its surplus electricity to bitcoin mining and AI data centres.

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