A destructive storm in 2020 prematurely shut down Iowa’s only nuclear plant. With Google’s plans to reopen it to power nearby data centers, will extreme weather threaten the reactor’s safety?
Plus: Travelers to the US may have to hand over five years of social media history, South Korean CEOs are resigning due to cyberattacks, and more.
Officials say raccoon that broke into Virginia liquor store on 29 November had previously hit DMV and karate studio
The raccoon that barged into a Virginia liquor store, smashed bottles of booze and passed out drunk in a bathroom this past Black Friday has at least two other break-ins under his belt, a local government official has revealed.
Before burgling the Ashland ABC store on 29 November, the raccoon had separately broken into a karate studio and a department of motor vehicles office, all on the same block of businesses, Hanover county animal protection officer Samantha Martin said on an episode of the local government’s official podcast published Thursday.
Continue reading...By using music from SZA, Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo in ICE videos, the government is playing a game of rage-bait
Last week, as the Trump administration was engulfed in controversy over its illegal military strikes near Venezuela (among numerous other crises), a Department of Homeland Security employee – I picture the worst sniveling, self-satisfied, hateful loser – got to work on the official X account. The state-employed memelord posted a video depicting Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) officials arresting people in what appeared to be Chicago, celebrating the humiliation and incarceration of undocumented immigrants as some sort of patriotic achievement. The vile video borrowed, as they often do, from mainstream pop culture; in this case, a viral lyric from Sabrina Carpenter’s song Juno – “Have you ever tried this one?,” referring to sex positions – overlaid clips of agents chasing, tackling and handcuffing people, cheekily nodding to all the methods in ICE’s terror toolbox.
Carpenter, as a pre-eminent pop star, was caught in an impossible position. Say nothing, as her friend and collaborator Taylor Swift did weeks earlier when the White House used her music in a Trump hype video, and risk appearing as if you condone the administration’s use of your art for a domestic terror campaign (the administration hasn’t yet used Swift for an ICE video, but I’m sure it’s coming); engage, even if to honestly express your utter disgust, and risk bringing more attention to objectionable propaganda designed to provoke a response.
Continue reading...By using music from SZA, Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo in ICE videos, the government is playing a game of rage-bait
Last week, as the Trump administration was engulfed in controversy over its illegal military strikes near Venezuela (among numerous other crises), a Department of Homeland Security employee – I picture the worst sniveling, self-satisfied, hateful loser – got to work on the official X account. The state-employed memelord posted a video depicting Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) officials arresting people in what appeared to be Chicago, celebrating the humiliation and incarceration of undocumented immigrants as some sort of patriotic achievement. The vile video borrowed, as they often do, from mainstream pop culture; in this case, a viral lyric from Sabrina Carpenter’s song Juno – “Have you ever tried this one?,” referring to sex positions – overlaid clips of agents chasing, tackling and handcuffing people, cheekily nodding to all the methods in ICE’s terror toolbox.
Carpenter, as a pre-eminent pop star, was caught in an impossible position. Say nothing, as her friend and collaborator Taylor Swift did weeks earlier when the White House used her music in a Trump hype video, and risk appearing as if you condone the administration’s use of your art for a domestic terror campaign (the administration hasn’t yet used Swift for an ICE video, but I’m sure it’s coming); engage, even if to honestly express your utter disgust, and risk bringing more attention to objectionable propaganda designed to provoke a response.
Continue reading...Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Clean Energy Wire: Renewable energy sources covered nearly 56 percent of Germany's gross electricity consumption in 2025, according to preliminary figures by energy industry group BDEW and research institute ZSW. Despite a 'historically weak' first quarter of the year for wind power production and a significant drop in hydropower output, the share of renewables grew by 0.7 percentage points compared to the previous year thanks to an increase in installed solar power capacity. Solar power output increased by 18.7 percent over the whole year, while the strong growth in installed capacity from previous years could be sustained, with more than 17 gigawatts (GW) added to the system. With March being the least windy month in Germany since records began in 1950, wind power output, on the other hand, faced a drop of 5.2 percent compared to 2024. However, stronger winds in the second and third quarter compensated for much of the early-year decrease. Onshore turbines with a capacity of 5.2 GW were added to the grid, a marked increase from the 3.3 GW in the previous year. Due to significantly less precipitation this year compared to 2024, hydropower output dropped by nearly one quarter (24.1%), while remaining only a fraction (3.2%) of total renewable power output.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
With Trump championing Pete Rose and pressuring MLB’s commissioner, the Hall of Fame vote became a referendum on power, memory and whether integrity still matters
Since mid-May, when Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced Pete Rose would be eligible for Hall of Fame consideration and explained his specious reasonings behind it, last week’s Hall of Fame vote by the 16-member Classic Era committee carried with it a certain air of inevitability for Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, the two greatest players currently not enshrined in Cooperstown.
Rose was championed by Donald Trump, who used his populism to demand the Hit King finally be allowed into the Hall, an honor denied Rose since 1989 when baseball placed him on the permanently ineligible list for betting on games when he managed the Cincinnati Reds. After Rose died in September 2024, Trump then won the presidency five weeks later and immediately increased the pressure on Manfred to end Rose’s 36-year banishment – despite the absence of any evidence suggesting Rose was any less guilty in death of gambling on the sport than he had been alive. Nevertheless, Manfred acquiesced to Trump, and in 2027, for the first time, Pete Rose will be eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame.
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