Futurology Today

Summary

The EU and UK fined major carmakers nearly €600 million for operating a recycling cartel exposed by Mercedes-Benz, which avoided penalties for whistleblowing.

The European Commission fined 15 manufacturers and their association €458 million for fixing costs and limiting advertising of car recycling from 2002 to 2017.

Volkswagen received the largest fine at €127 million. The UK imposed an additional £77.7 million in fines.

Authorities say the cartel suppressed eco-friendly competition and misled consumers. All companies admitted guilt in exchange for reduced fines.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20187958

A prominent computer scientist who has spent 20 years publishing academic papers on cryptography, privacy, and cybersecurity has gone incommunicado, had his professor profile, email account, and phone number removed by his employer Indiana University, and had his homes raided by the FBI. No one knows why.

Xiaofeng Wang has a long list of prestigious titles. He was the associate dean for research at Indiana University's Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, a fellow at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a tenured professor at Indiana University at Bloomington. According to his employer, he has served as principal investigator on research projects totaling nearly $23 million over his 21 years there.

He has also co-authored scores of academic papers on a diverse range of research fields, including cryptography, systems security, and data privacy, including the protection of human genomic data. I have personally spoken to him on three occasions for articles here, here, and here.

"None of this is in any way normal"

In recent weeks, Wang's email account, phone number, and profile page at the Luddy School were quietly erased by his employer. Over the same time, Indiana University also removed a profile for his wife, Nianli Ma, who was listed as a Lead Systems Analyst and Programmer at the university's Library Technologies division.

According to the Herald-Times in Bloomington, a small fleet of unmarked cars driven by government agents descended on the Bloomington home of Wang and Ma on Friday. They spent most of the day going in and out of the house and occasionally transferred boxes from their vehicles. TV station WTHR, meanwhile, reported that a second home owned by Wang and Ma and located in Carmel, Indiana, was also searched. The station said that both a resident and an attorney for the resident were on scene during at least part of the search.

Attempts to locate Wang and Ma have so far been unsuccessful. An Indiana University spokesman didn't answer emailed questions asking if the couple was still employed by the university and why their profile pages, email addresses and phone numbers had been removed. The spokesman provided the contact information for a spokeswoman at the FBI's field office in Indianapolis. In an email, the spokeswoman wrote: "The FBI conducted court authorized law enforcement activity at homes in Bloomington and Carmel Friday. We have no further comment at this time."

Searches of federal court dockets turned up no documents related to Wang, Ma, or any searches of their residences. The FBI spokeswoman didn't answer questions seeking which US district court issued the warrant and when, and whether either Wang or Ma is being detained by authorities. Justice Department representatives didn't return an email seeking the same information. An email sent to a personal email address belonging to Wang went unanswered at the time this post went live. Their resident status (e.g. US citizens or green card holders) is currently unknown.

Fellow researchers took to social media over the weekend to register their concern over the series of events.

"None of this is in any way normal," Matthew Green, a professor specializing in cryptography at Johns Hopkins University, wrote on Mastodon. He continued: "Has anyone been in contact? I hear he’s been missing for two weeks and his students can’t reach him. How does this not get noticed for two weeks???"

In the same thread, Matt Blaze, a McDevitt Professor of Computer Science and Law at Georgetown University said: "It's hard to imagine what reason there could be for the university to scrub its website as if he never worked there. And while there's a process for removing tenured faculty, it takes more than an afternoon to do it."

Local news outlets reported the agents spent several hours moving boxes in an out of the residences. WTHR provided the following details about the raid on the Carmel home:

Neighbors say the agents announced "FBI, come out!" over a megaphone.

A woman came out of the house holding a phone. A video from a neighbor shows an agent taking that phone from her. She was then questioned in the driveway before agents began searching the home, collecting evidence and taking photos.

A car was pulled out of the garage slightly to allow investigators to access the attic.

The woman left the house before 13News arrived. She returned just after noon accompanied by a lawyer. The group of ten or so investigators left a few minutes later.

The FBI would not say what they were looking for or who is under investigation. A bureau spokesperson issued a statement: “I can confirm we conducted court-authorized activity at the address in Carmel today. We have no further comment at this time.”

Investigators were at the house for about four hours before leaving with several boxes of evidence. 13News rang the doorbell when the agents were gone. A lawyer representing the family who answered the door told us they're not sure yet what the investigation is about.

This post will be updated if new details become available. Anyone with first-hand knowledge of events involving Wang, Ma, or the investigation into either is encouraged to contact me, preferably over Signal at DanArs.82. The email address is: dan.goodin@arstechnica.com.

Israeli forces have been accused of executing handcuffed Palestinian medics before burying them in a mass grave underneath their crushed ambulances in southern Gaza's Rafah.

Fifteen humanitarian workers went missing last week after responding to a distress call from civilians being attacked by Israeli forces.

The workers include eight paramedics from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), six members of the Palestinian Civil Defence search-and-rescue teams, and one UN staff member.

They were found over the weekend in a mass grave with at least around 20 multiple gunshots in each one of them, according to Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza.

At least one of them had their legs bound, another was decapitated and a third topless, he added.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/steamdeals by /u/Old-Instruction-5506 on 2025-04-02 18:51:58+00:00.

Acromis spinifex is a type of tortoise beetle from South America. One of the interesting things about A. spinifex is this species exhibits parental care for its offspring, pictured here with recently laid eggs. This amazing photo is by @djmossoro on IG.

At least one tornado was observed Tuesday night around Salina, Kansas, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) north of Wichita, according to the National Weather Service.

The potent storm system was expected to bring the threat of “significant, life-threatening flash flooding” starting Wednesday, according to the Weather Prediction Center, a part of the National Weather Service.

The new flood threat came as residents in parts of Michigan continued to dig out from a weekend ice storm.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27589038

Summary

Norway is reactivating Cold War-era military bunkers in response to rising tensions with Russia.

Two iconic underground structures—Bardufoss Air Station and Olavsvern naval base—are being upgraded to protect expensive F-35 fighters from drone attacks and to monitor Russian naval movements in the Arctic.

Norway’s actions reflect growing concern over Russia’s military buildup and Arctic ambitions, which escalated after Russia increased military activity in the region around 2006-2008.

Other nations are following suit: Russia has reactivated about 50 Arctic bases, Sweden returned to its underground Muskö naval base, while China and Iran are building new underground military facilities.

I made this video a few days ago and uploaded on Youtube. I need feedback from you. Tell me what do you think about this video so I can make better content in future! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=902vugDneDM&t=12s

Today, Attorney General Pamela Bondi released the following statement:

“Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America. After careful consideration, I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.”

Pinging those that were here before.

Discussion questions:

What video games have you played recently?

and

What are your favorite video game genres?

Question of the week:

What games of 2025 are you enjoying right now, if any?

and

What do you think of the recent Nintendo Direct? And the upcoming one on April 2nd? And, once the Direct airs, what did you think of it? (Last question is for when it airs in the future.)

For those of you that torrent video files this question is geared toward you. I'm looking for a sweet spot between quality, size & speed for HEVC encoding. I'm using FastFlix and seem to be getting really wide and varying speeds.

I'm not really literate on all this video lingo but I can, at least, get it going. Most files take anywhere from 5-17 mins for a 30-40 mins clip. I have a AMD Radeon RX 470 graphics card but when I try and use the VCEEnc it won't let me use CRF which I've heard it the best way.

Anyway, if you're willing to share knowledge or what settings you use when you convert video to HEVC that might help me speed up my processing, I would be eternally grateful.

cross-posted from: https://jlai.lu/post/17384631

Hey everyone, thank you again for participating, and for your submissions!

I'm glad to announce that the voting form is completed, and you can now cast your votes and select your favourite songs. Everyone is welcome to vote, even if your instance or community did not participate! This is a great opportunity to discover new music, cultures, and bridge the lemmyverse together.

The voting form is available here: https://tally.so/r/wvzg8d

I created a playlist so that you can easily listen to the submitted songs, it's available at the following links:

• Piped: https://watch.leptons.xyz/playlist?list=PLznyfib6djoSvfy23noSOy7axFMuMJD7U
• Invidious: https://inv.nadeko.net/playlist?list=PLznyfib6djoSvfy23noSOy7axFMuMJD7U
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLznyfib6djoSvfy23noSOy7axFMuMJD7U

The form will be available until around the 8th of April, I will then collect the results and publish them shortly after. I hope you'll have a lot of fun listening to the 11 songs submitted for this edition. Don't hesitate if you have any question!

Cheers!

"This has been a long time coming," says Managing Director Ryan Sipes

It’s no secret that electrifying B.C.’s economy, from homes to heavy industry, will require significantly boosting the amount of power the province produces. Now, documents obtained by The Narwhal under freedom of information legislation reveal just how much electricity emissions-heavy industries like liquefied natural gas (LNG) and mines estimate they need to meet B.C.’s carbon emissions targets.

The documents outline the potential for an unprecedented increase in industrial electricity demand, raising questions about where the power will come from, who will pay for it and how it will impact both taxpayers and electricity rates for consumers.

Ten mining, oil and gas and hydrogen projects were seeking almost 33,000 gigawatt hours of electricity from BC Hydro, according to a briefing note prepared for Premier David Eby in March 2024. That’s more than twice the amount of power BC Hydro sold to all large industrial customers in 2024.

In an interview, Energy Minister Adrian Dix acknowledged B.C. is facing a “massive increase” in demand for electricity from non-industrial sources as well. He framed electrification as both a challenge and an opportunity B.C. is well-poised to seize due to its baseload of hydro power.

“This is a huge opportunity for us, we can’t miss it,” Dix said. “This is one of our economic advantages over other jurisdictions and we have to drive.”

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The original was posted on /r/linustechtips by /u/Roflxd88 on 2025-04-02 19:44:13+00:00.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/linustechtips by /u/linusbottips on 2025-04-02 17:45:36+00:00.