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Coding Error Blamed After Parts of Constitution Disappear From US Website

Slashdot - Thu, 2025-08-07 00:00
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Library of Congress today said a coding error resulted in the deletion of parts of the US Constitution from Congress' website and promised a fix after many Internet users pointed out the missing sections this morning. The missing portions of the Constitution were restored to one part of the website a few hours after the Library of Congress statement and reappeared on a different part of the website another hour or so later. The Constitution Annotated website carried a notice saying it "is currently experiencing data issues. We are working to resolve this issue and regret the inconvenience." "Upkeep of Constitution Annotated and other digital resources is a critical part of the Library's mission, and we appreciate the feedback that alerted us to the error and allowed us to fix it," the Library of Congress said. We asked the Library of Congress for specific details on the coding error, but we received only a statement that did not include specifics. "Due to a technical error, some sections of Article 1 were temporarily missing on the Constitution Annotated website. This problem has been corrected, and the missing sections have been restored," the statement said. The deletion happened sometime in the past few weeks, as an Internet Archive capture shows that the text was still on the site until at least July 21. The deletions were being discussed this morning on Reddit and in news articles, with people expressing suspicions based on which parts of the Constitution were missing.

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Chemical Pollution a Threat Comparable To Climate Change, Scientists Warn

Slashdot - Wed, 2025-08-06 23:21
Chemical pollution is "a threat to the thriving of humans and nature of a similar order as climate change" but decades behind global heating in terms of public awareness and action, a report has warned. The Guardian: The industrial economy has created more than 100 million "novel entities," or chemicals not found in nature, with somewhere between 40,000 and 350,000 in commercial use and production, the report says. But the environmental and human health effects of this widespread contamination of the biosphere are not widely appreciated, in spite of a growing body of evidence linking chemical toxicity with effects ranging from ADHD to infertility to cancer. "I suppose that's the biggest surprise for some people," Harry Macpherson, senior climate associate at Deep Science Ventures (DSV), which carried out the research, told the Guardian. "Maybe people think that when you walk down the street breathing the air; you drink your water, you eat your food; you use your personal care products, your shampoo, cleaning products for your house, the furniture in your house; a lot of people assume that there's really great knowledge and huge due diligence on the chemical safety of these things. But it really isn't the case."

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Great Barrier Reef Suffers Worst Coral Decline on Record

Slashdot - Wed, 2025-08-06 22:50
Parts of the Great Barrier Reef have suffered the largest annual decline in coral cover since records began nearly 40 years ago, according to a new report. BBC: Northern and southern branches of the sprawling Australian reef both suffered their most widespread coral bleaching, the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) found. Reefs have been battered in recent months by tropical cyclones and outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish that feast on coral, but heat stress driven by climate change is the predominant reason, AIMS said. AIMS warns the habitat may reach a tipping point where coral cannot recover fast enough between catastrophic events and faces a "volatile" future. AIMS surveyed the health of 124 coral reefs between August 2024 and May 2025. It has been performing surveys since 1986. Often dubbed the world's largest living structure, the Great Barrier Reef is a 2,300km (1,429-mile) expanse of tropical corals that houses a stunning array of biodiversity. Repeated bleaching events are turning vast swaths of once-vibrant coral white. Australia's second largest reef, Ningaloo -- on Australia's western coast -- has also experienced repeated bleaching, and this year both major reefs simultaneously turned white for the first time ever. Coral is vital to the planet. Nicknamed the sea's architect, it builds vast structures that house an estimated 25% of all marine species.

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Astronomers Cannot Agree On How Fast the Universe is Expanding

Slashdot - Wed, 2025-08-06 22:10
Two fundamentally different methods for measuring the universe's expansion rate continue to produce incompatible results -- with direct observations of receding galaxies yielding approximately 73 kilometers per second per megaparsec and cosmic microwave background radiation analysis producing closer to 67 km/s/mpc. The discrepancy, known as the Hubble tension, has strengthened annually for the past decadem, according to Duke University astronomer Dan Scolnic. The persistent disagreement prevents calculation of the universe's precise age or size. The Lambda-CDM model, which holds that dark energy and dark matter comprise 95% of the universe while visible matter constitutes just 5%, assumes dark energy's nature has remained constant since the Big Bang. Some theorists propose dark energy's potency changes over time, while others suggest the Milky Way sits within a comparatively empty region of space. A June study using gravitational lensing of quasar light, bypassing traditional distance measurements, matched the higher value. New telescopes including the Vera Rubin Observatory and Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope may provide additional data. Past improvements in measurement precision have only reinforced rather than resolved the tension.

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Sci-Fi Adaptation War of the Worlds Scores 0% on Rotten Tomatoes

Slashdot - Wed, 2025-08-06 21:34
A new War of the Worlds adaptation starring Ice Cube has achieved a 0% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes after arriving on Prime Video in late July. The science fiction film, produced by Universal Pictures during the 2020 pandemic using actors filming separately through video calls, features alien tripods emerging from meteors to attack Earth. The movie sat unreleased for approximately five years before streaming debut. Critics cite poor visual effects that "wouldn't pass muster on a whimsical Snickers ad" and performances where actors appear to be "performing in a Zoom-style vacuum." The film was shot using screenlife format with most action unfolding on computer screens.

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Google Says AI Search Features Haven't Hurt Web Traffic Despite Industry Reports

Slashdot - Wed, 2025-08-06 20:50
Google says total organic click volume from its search engine to websites has remained ""relatively stable year-over-year" despite the introduction of AI Overviews, contradicting third-party reports of dramatic traffic declines. The company reports average click quality has increased, with users less likely to immediately return to search results after clicking through to websites. Google attributes stable traffic patterns to users conducting more searches and asking longer, more complex questions since AI features launched, while AI Overviews display more links per page than traditional results.

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Call of Duty's Anti-Cheat Will Require TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot for PC Players

Slashdot - Wed, 2025-08-06 20:10
Activision will require PC players of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 to enable Trusted Platform Module 2.0 and Windows Secure Boot when the game launches later this year. The company begins testing these anti-cheat measures with Black Ops 6's Season 5 on Thursday without enforcement. TPM 2.0 verifies untampered boot processes while Secure Boot ensures Windows loads only trusted software at startup. Both features perform checks during system and game startup but remain inactive during gameplay. Activision has also pursued legal action against 22 individuals who developed and sold cheats.

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Tornado Cash Co-Founder Storm Guilty in Crypto Mixing Case

Slashdot - Wed, 2025-08-06 19:29
A Manhattan jury convicted Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm on Wednesday of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transfer business, though jurors deadlocked on charges of money laundering conspiracy and sanctions violations after three days of deliberation. Federal prosecutors alleged Storm helped cybercriminals launder more than $1 billion through the cryptocurrency mixing platform, which launched in 2019 as a decentralized protocol designed to obscure transaction origins by pooling and redistributing funds through smart contracts.

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Universal Pictures To Big Tech: We'll Sue If You Steal Our Movies For AI

Slashdot - Wed, 2025-08-06 18:47
Universal Pictures is taking a new approach to combat mass theft of its movies to teach AI systems. From a report: Starting in June with How to Train Your Dragon, the studio has attached a legal warning at the end credits of its films stating that their titles "may not be used to train AI." It's also appeared on Jurassic World Rebirth and Bad Guys 2. "This motion picture is protected under the laws of the United States and other countries," the warning reads. "Unauthorized duplication, distribution or exhibition may result in civil liability and criminal prosecution."

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Google Suffers Data Breach in Ongoing Salesforce Data Theft Attacks

Slashdot - Wed, 2025-08-06 18:05
Google is the latest company to suffer a data breach in an ongoing wave of Salesforce CRM data theft attacks conducted by the ShinyHunters extortion group. BleepingComputer: In June, Google warned that a threat actor they classify as 'UNC6040' is targeting companies' employees in voice phishing (vishing) social engineering attacks to breach Salesforce instances and download customer data. This data is then used to extort companies into paying a ransom to prevent the data from being leaked. In a brief update to the article last night, Google said that it too fell victim to the same attack in June after one of its Salesforce CRM instances was breached and customer data was stolen. "In June, one of Google's corporate Salesforce instances was impacted by similar UNC6040 activity described in this post. Google responded to the activity, performed an impact analysis and began mitigations," reads Google's update.

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OpenAI Offers ChatGPT To US Federal Agencies for $1 a Year

Slashdot - Wed, 2025-08-06 17:25
OpenAI will provide ChatGPT access to US federal agencies for $1 annually through the General Services Administration's new AI marketplace that also includes Google and Anthropic as approved vendors. The nominal pricing represents the deepest discount GSA has negotiated with software providers, surpassing previous deals with Adobe and Salesforce. OpenAI said it will not use federal worker data to train its models and agencies face no renewal requirements. The $1 rate applies only to the ChatGPT chatbot interface, not OpenAI's API for custom software development.

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Trump, Apple To Announce New $100 Billion Commitment To Manufacturing in US

Slashdot - Wed, 2025-08-06 16:48
President Trump and Apple are expected to announce a new $100 billion commitment by Apple to boost manufacturing in the U.S. CBS News: The new investment would increase Apple's commitment to U.S. manufacturing to $600 billion over the next four years, according to a White House official. And it's expected to include a new "American Manufacturing Program" focused on bringing more of Apple's supply chain and advanced manufacturing to the U.S. [...] In May, the president threatened to impose a 25% tariff on iPhones made outside the U.S., writing on Truth Social that he told Cook that he expects that iPhones that will be sold in the U.S. "will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else."

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