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Amanda Smith, a 35-year-old nurse from London with Type 1 diabetes, "is at the forefront of a medical experiment that seeks to treat the root cause of diabetes by replacing the cells the disease destroys," reports Carolyn Y. Johnson for the Washington Post. "On Valentine's Day 2023, doctors transplanted replacement islet cells, grown in a lab from embryonic stem cells, into a blood vessel that feeds Smith's liver. By August, she no longer needed insulin. Her new cells were churning it out." From the report: Smith is one of a dozen patients who have received a full dose of islet cells generated in a laboratory from stem cells. Eleven of the patients in the clinical trial drastically reduced taking insulin or stopped altogether, according to data presented at an American Diabetes Association meeting in June. Despite the promise, the therapy developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals remains in early stages, and many experts consider it a major step forward, not the finish line. No one knows how long these cells will keep churning out insulin or whether the therapy is safe long-term until it is tested and followed up in more patients, who must take immune-suppressing drugs to prevent their body from rejecting the foreign cells. One patient died of an infection caused by a complication of sinus surgery, highlighting the risk of immunosuppressive medications, which were among the factors contributing to the patient's death. [...] Smith credits her insulin pump with keeping her alive but was elated to banish it to the back of a kitchen cabinet. She no longer has to plan her life around her illness. "I pray this gets to everyone," Smith said. "My life has changed."

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Long-time Slashdot reader UnderAttack explains: A blog post at the SANS Internet Storm Center suggests that OpenAI actions are being abused to scan for WordPress vulnerabilities. Honeypot sensors at the Storm Center detected scans for URLs targeting WordPress that originated exclusively from OpenAI systems. The URLs requested all pages including the pattern '%%target%%', which may indicate that the scan is meant to include additional path components but the expansion of the template failed. The scans were not only identified by the unique user agent but also by the origin IP addresses matching addresses OpenAI published as being used for OpenAI actions. OpenAI actions allow OpenAI to connect to external APIs. Johannes B. Ullrich, Ph.D. , Dean of Research, SANS.edu, wrote that OpenAI seems to be scanning random IP addresses — including honeypots.

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China's world-leading clean energy boom has passed another benchmark, with its wind and solar capacity surpassing a target set by President Xi Jinping almost six years earlier than planned. From a report: The nation added 25 gigawatts of turbines and panels in July, expanding total capacity to 1,206 gigawatts, according to a statement from the National Energy Administration on Friday. Xi set a goal in December 2020 for at least 1,200 gigawatts from the clean energy sources by 2030. China by far outspends the rest of the world when it comes to clean energy, and has repeatedly broken wind and solar installation records in recent years. The rapid growth has helped lead to declines in coal power generation this summer and may mean the world's biggest polluter has already reached peak emissions well before its 2030 target.

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Peloton on Thursday said it will start charging new subscribers a one-time $95 activation fee if they bought their hardware on the secondary market as more consumers snag lightly used equipment for a fraction of the typical retail price. From a report: The used equipment activation fee for subscribers in the U.S. and Canada comes as Peloton starts to see a meaningful increase in new members who bought used Bikes or Treads from peer-to-peer markets such as Facebook Marketplace. During its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended June 30, Peloton said it saw a "steady stream of paid connected fitness subscribers" who bought hardware on the secondary market. The company said the segment grew 16% year over year. "We believe a meaningful share of these subscribers are incremental, and they exhibit lower net churn rates than rental subscribers," the company said in a letter to shareholders. "It's also worth highlighting that this activation fee will be a source of incremental revenue and gross profit for us, helping to support our investments in improving the fitness experience for our members," interim co-CEO Christopher Bruzzo later added on a call with analysts.

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Phoronix's Michael Larabel reports: As part of Intel's Scalable Video Technology (SVT) initiative they had been developing SVT-HEVC as a BSD-licensed high performance H.265/HEVC video encoder optimized for Xeon Scalable and Xeon D processors. But recently they've changed course and the project has been officially discontinued. [...] The SVT-AV1 project a while ago was already punted to the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) project and one of its lead maintainers having joined Meta from Intel two years ago. SVT-AV1 continues excelling great outside the borders of Intel but SVT-HEVC (and SVT-VP9) have remained Intel open-source projects but at least officially SVT-HEVC has ended. SVT-HEVC hadn't seen a new release since 2021 and there are already several great open-source H.265 encoders out there like x265 and Kvazaar. But as of a few weeks ago, SVT-HEVC upstream is now discontinued. The GitHub repository was put into a read-only state [with a discontinuation notice]. Meanwhile SVT-VP9 doesn't have any discontinuation notice at this time. The SVT-VP9 GitHub repository remains under Intel's Open Visual Cloud account although it hasn't seen any new commits in four months and the last tagged release was back in 2020.

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Slack AI, an add-on assistive service available to users of Salesforce's team messaging service, is vulnerable to prompt injection, according to security firm PromptArmor. From a report: The AI service provides generative tools within Slack for tasks like summarizing long conversations, finding answers to questions, and summarizing rarely visited channels. "Slack AI uses the conversation data already in Slack to create an intuitive and secure AI experience tailored to you and your organization," the messaging app provider explains in its documentation. Except it's not that secure, as PromptArmor tells it. A prompt injection vulnerability in Slack AI makes it possible to fetch data from private Slack channels.

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Ars Technica's Dan Goodwin writes: Last Tuesday, loads of Linux usersâ"many running packages released as early as this year -- started reporting their devices were failing to boot. Instead, they received a cryptic error message that included the phrase: "Something has gone seriously wrong." The cause: an update Microsoft issued as part of its monthly patch release. It was intended to close a 2-year-old vulnerability in GRUB, an open source boot loader used to start up many Linux devices. The vulnerability, with a severity rating of 8.6 out of 10, made it possible for hackers to bypass secure boot, the industry standard for ensuring that devices running Windows or other operating systems don't load malicious firmware or software during the bootup process. CVE-2022-2601 was discovered in 2022, but for unclear reasons, Microsoft patched it only last Tuesday. [...] With Microsoft maintaining radio silence, those affected by the glitch have been forced to find their own remedies. One option is to access their EFI panel and turn off secure boot. Depending on the security needs of the user, that option may not be acceptable. A better short-term option is to delete the SBAT Microsoft pushed out last Tuesday. This means users will still receive some of the benefits of Secure Boot even if they remain vulnerable to attacks that exploit CVE-2022-2601. The steps for this remedy are outlined here (thanks to manutheeng for the reference).

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Interesting Engineering: A student has successfully developed a small nuclear fusion reactor as part of his A-Levels. The 17-year-old built the reactor to generate neutrons as part of his Extended Project Qualification (EPQ). Notably, Cesare Mencarini's work is claimed to be the only nuclear reactor built in a school environment. Showcased at the Cambridge Science Festival recently, the nuclear reactor achieved plasma a few months ago. It also gave Mencarini an A* in his A-Level results, according to reports. [...] Mencarini maintained that the goal of the reactor is to create conditions that are required for fusion. However, the project couldn't get same pressure that's generated by the Sun due to its own gravity. Therefore, to make atoms hot enough, the teen used high voltage. The reactor achieved plasma in June. "Two days ago I achieved plasma, which was brilliant and I'm massively happy about this," wrote Mencarini in a LinkedIn post. "The system is running thanks to a Leybold Trivac E2 roughing pump, which allows me to achieve a minimum pressure of 8E-3 Torr." At that time, he mentioned that Pfeiffer TPH062 would be used later to achieve fusion. "This turbomolecular pump is currently isolated by a VAT Throttling Valve." "The grid is then attached to a 30kV rated High Voltage Feedthrough connected to a 5kV Unilab power supply, which allows me to use the fusor in my school (It is limited to a 2mA output). While running the fusor I experimented with 2 grids which you can see in the images," added Mencarini in the post.

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Smonster writes: The maker of the Snoo, a popular high-tech bassinet, touched off a firestorm of outrage after requiring a paid subscription to use several key features. Most new parents are looking for a way to reclaim even a hint of the sleep they used to get pre-infant. So a smart bassinet that uses sensors to detect when a crying baby needs pacifying, simulating the sounds and rhythms of the womb, offers an irresistible promise to sleep-strapped parents: another hour or two of shut-eye. The dream doesn't come cheap: One of the more popular models, the Snoo retails for $1,700, though enterprising parents can score one secondhand from friends, neighbors or relatives whose own children have outgrown it. But last month, that hand-me-down network was dealt a blow when Happiest Baby, the company that makes Snoo, began charging for access to some of the bassinet's premium features -- features that used to be available to Snoo users indefinitely, at no extra cost. Now, access to the app needed to lock in the bassinet's rocking level, to track the baby's sleep and to use the so-called weaning mode, among other features, will cost parents $20 a month. The change has angered secondhand users and original buyers alike. On Reddit, the new subscription model has prompted review bombs, group brainstorms for collective action and detailed instructions for outraged parents seeking recourse. Some have taken to filing complaints with the Federal Trade Commission, Better Business Bureau and state-run consumer protection offices.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: The tech review world has been full of murky deals between companies and influencers for years, but it appears Google finally crossed a line with the Pixel 9. The company's invite-only Team Pixel program -- which seeds Pixel products to influencers before public availability -- stipulated that participating influencers were not allowed to feature Pixel products alongside competitors, and those who showed a preference for competing phones risked being kicked out of the program. For those hoping to break into the world of tech reviews, the new terms meant having to choose between keeping access or keeping their integrity. The Verge has independently confirmed screenshots of the clause in this year's Team Pixel agreement for the new Pixel phones, which various influencers began posting on X and Threads last night. The agreement tells participants they're "expected to feature the Google Pixel device in place of any competitor mobile devices." It also notes that "if it appears other brands are being preferred over the Pixel, we will need to cease the relationship between the brand and the creator." The link to the form appears to have since been shut down.

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Living in city centers with little space to spend time outside and a lot of space for cars is not ideal. However, the elimination of roads for cars to drive on is also usually not ideal. Superblocks, as Amanda Shendruk for the Washington Post illustrates, is an urban planning compromise that gives way to pedestrians in the center and cars around the perimeter.

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The Beltway press is angry that Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t sat down with them to talk about things like policy. In their warped, archaic minds, they are important to the political process as a way to inform readers about the candidates. 

That was a thing before social media and the internet, for sure. But today? The Beltway media is broken beyond repair, and we’re all doing fine learning about Harris on our own, thank you very much. 

Margaret Sullivan, a columnist for The Guardian, echoed much of the press with her haughtily titled column “Kamala Harris must speak to the press,” published Tuesday. As Sullivan admits up front, Harris is riding high bypassing the traditional press, rising in the polls, and dominating media coverage. 

“From a tactical or strategic point of view, there’s little reason” for Harris to give a sit-down interview or hold a press conference, Sullivan wrote. 

She also admits the core reality of today’s Beltway media: “What’s more, when the vice-president has interacted with reporters in recent weeks, as in a brief ‘gaggle’ during a campaign stop, the questions were silly. Seeking campaign drama rather than substance, they centered on Donald Trump’s attacks or when she was planning to do a press conference.” 

That should’ve been the end of the column. Harris doesn’t need the press, and when she does talk to them, they squander their opportunity on inanities. The end! 

But no, Sullivan argues that Harris “owes it to every U.S. citizen to be frank and forthcoming about what kind of president she intends to be. To tell us—in an unscripted, open way—what she stands for. We don’t know much about that, other than vague campaign platitudes about ‘freedom’ and ‘not going back.’”

Sullivan is clearly confused, but I doubt that many of her readers are. 

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, don’t randomly throw out the word “freedom” and call it a day. They always explain it in the context of bodily autonomy, whether it’s about abortion rights, LGTBQ+ rights, or the ability to read a book without censors pitching it into a bonfire. 

This recent speech by Walz might help Sullivan out: 

Similarly, Harris and Walz use their unofficial slogan “We’re not going back” in context of Donald Trump’s disastrous four years as president. Has Sullivan forgotten those years already? Does she really not realize that “We’re not going back” is a counter to the explicitly regressive, backward-looking worldview contained in Trump’s “Make America Great Again”?

Either way, voters are very much liking what the Harris-Walz ticket is saying. 

Regardless, Sullivan pushes forward in her column:

As journalist Jay Caspian Kang recently put it—under the New Yorker headline How Generic Can Kamala Harris Be?—the candidate hasn’t explained “why she has changed her mind on fracking, which she once said should be banned, and has wobbled on Medicare for all, which she once supported, or what she plans to do with Lina Khan, the head of the Federal Trade Commission, who is said to be unpopular among some of Harris’s wealthy donors; or much about how a Harris administration would handle the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.”

Do these questions matter? Sure. Do we need to know them to make a decision for president? Not now. Will they need to be addressed at some point? Sure, but it’s not like she needs a sit-down interview to do it. Will voters cast their ballot based on who the head of the Federal Trade Commission is? Doubtful.

Jeff Jarvis, a journalist and professor at the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism, reacted to that column with scorn, tweeting, “What ‘press’? The broken and vindictive [New York] Times? The newly Murdochian [New York] Post? Hedge-fund newspaper husks? Rudderless CNN or NPR? Murdoch's fascist media? No. [Harris] can choose many ways to communicate her stands with others outside the old press and with the public directly. The old press can and should be bypassed.” 

This missive set off many a journalist, such as NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik, who replied, “Jeff, this just can't be the stance for any journalist who cares about the profession or the nation to take.” 

How breathtakingly arrogant! As if you can’t care about the nation if you don’t think Harris should bow to the whims of the press. 

Norm Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, joined the debate, responding to Folkenflik:

I understand why journalists want to take this stance. But the fact is we have had no reflection, no willingness to think through how irresponsible and reckless so much of our mainstream press and so many of our journalists have [been] and continue to be[.] Watch how often the White House press briefings end up as embarrassing zoos. Consider for example at O’Keefe’s shouting at and hectoring the press secretary. Far too many questions have little to do with what Americans care about, and more reflect the egos of the reporters. Watching the farce of a faux press conference with Trump, with not a single question about what should’ve been the big story of the day, an alleged $10 million bribe from Egypt, and few questions about what is most important, the stakes of the [election and] Trump’s approach to governance.

And Jarvis hasn’t backed down. “When given a chance to ask questions, [the press sounds] like they're in a locker room, seeking quotes, not policy,” he added in another tweet. “This does nothing to inform the electorate. I know the argument about testing a candidate: but the press as currently configured aims for game & gotcha.”

What emerges from this debate shouldn’t be sympathy for a marginalized Beltway press. Instead, it should be anger at the imbalance in how that press has covered Democrats and Trump. Their coverage of Trump’s rallies normalizes his seconds of coherence, ignoring the hours of mad ramblings. They spent years fixated on President Joe Biden’s age, then wrote headlines like “The economy is strong but voters aren't feeling it. That's a problem for Biden.” They create the zeitgeist based on the narrative they want to push, and highlighting the success of Biden’s presidency was never in the cards.

But hey, they rush to their computers to file story after story about how this time, for real, Trump will finally be a changed man. We saw it after the July 13 assassination attempt, and we saw it when they credulously wrote headlines about Trump’s convention speech based on prepared remarks that he quickly abandoned. And they gloss over Trump’s rampant racism and sexism while eagerly awaiting his next childish schoolyard taunt against Harris. (“‘Krazy Kamala’ didn’t stick, so what will he try next? Details at 10!”) 

Yes, Biden’s debate performance was a disaster, but so was Trump’s convention speech and his bizarrely slurred Monday conversation with billionaire Elon Musk. And that’s before we even get to the press’ inability to handle Trump’s pathological lies and fully grasp his promises of outright fascism. 

Imagine if it wasn’t Trump but Harris who’d confidently declared that her opponent had “A.I.’d” the size of his crowds in photos. The press would engage in a multiweek feeding frenzy about her mental state. But with Trump? There’s the obligatory fact-check, but that’s about it.

Imagine if someone leaked Trump campaign emails and documents—would the press report on that with the same gusto as they did with the Hillary Clinton leaks in 2016? This time, we don’t have to imagine. It happened, and the Beltway media did exactly what we knew they would: refused to publish them. The same outlets that literally had live blogs of the Clinton leaks suddenly decided that their ethics forbade them from publishing whatever it was that they received. 

And none have adequately explained why they’re handling the Trump emails differently, much less have apologized for the double standard. 

Once more, this time with Harris, the Beltway media has decided to insert itself into the process, rather than report on it. How else do you explain The New York Times’ hissy fit over Biden’s refusal to sit for an interview with the outlet earlier this year, calling it a “dangerous precedent,” as if they were owed face time with the president? Biden didn’t owe them or any other media outlet shit, and neither does Harris. 

And let’s take it one step further.

A presidential candidate’s job is to win. That’s it! So pray tell, how does talking to The New York Times or any other national media outlet help that cause? Either journalists will ask ridiculous, shallow questions and waste everyone’s time, or they’ll fish for a gotcha quote they can use to generate “controversy” and clicks. Or they might actually ask a policy question, which … no one cares. Literally, no one. For decades, Democrats issued reams of policy white papers, and no one cared. At best, those policy proclamations are ignored; at worst, they become attack fodder for the other party. 

There are two candidates this election, and no one is basing their decision on the finer points of a policy platform. They are basing it on values. Republicans have known this and wielded it to great electoral success, and now Democrats are finally there. Watch that Walz clip above, and tell me how that doesn’t speak 1,000 times better to the heart of a Harris-Walz administration than some ridiculous question about what Harris would do with Lina Khan, head of the Federal Trade Commission.

All of this being said, Harris should talk to local newspapers and TV reporters in battleground markets. There is research that suggests that local coverage can very much stimulate voter results. 

But the national Beltway press? They need to reckon with their failures. Until then? Harris can speak to them if it tactically suits her campaign, but otherwise, she doesn’t owe them anything.

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(panel 1 - Title in the style of the Trump/Vance logo.) Leaked Emails from the Trump Campaign (panel 2 - An email from Roger Stone.) Subject: HACKED! From: Roger Stone Hey man, I clicked a link for Nixon nudes (for research purposes only), but it turned out to be a phishing attack. Just a heads up. Whoops, Rog (panel 3 - An email from Kevin Sorbo.) Subject: RNC SPEAKING SLOT? From: Kevin Sorbo Mr. President, Why didn't I get a spot at the convention? I was more famous than Hulk Hogan for a few minutes in the '90s. No worries though! If you want, I can post a really racist tweet about your new opponent. Let me know. Kevin (panel 4 - An email from Stephen Cheung.) Subject: EPSTEIN'S PLANE From: Steven Cheung Boss, We've leased Epstein's plane while yours is in for repairs. I don't anticipate any bad press from this. Steven P.S. Because you've stiffed so many contractors, none will agree to get the Dershowitz stains out. (panel 5 - An email from J.D. Vance.) Subject: WRONG RALLY LOCATION? From: JD Vance Dear Sir, No one's here and there wasn't any advance work done. Please send me the correct location and I'll hop on a bus A.S.A.P. JD (panel 6 - An email from A.G. Sulzberger.) Subject: ALL GOOD From: A.G. Sulzberger President Trump, Don't worry. We're not going to make a whole thing about your emails because we want you to win. Maggie says hi. Dash

Investigative journalists at the nonprofit Centre for Climate Reporting are blowing the lid off Project 2025, the motives and methods of key architect Russell Vought, and how the blueprint for an extremist government would shape a second Donald Trump administration. Hidden-camera video of Vought dispels the myth that Trump is ignorant of the plan, and suggests that shadowy conservative groups have already had a heavy influence on the Republican agenda. 

Video made public by CCR and transcripts provided to Daily Kos paint a picture of a hard core Christian nationalist who has Trump’s ear. The unedited video was also shared with CNN. 

Vought, who co-authored Project 2025, describes the right-wing scheme to take over the Republican Party—and, ultimately, the country—as a “battle plan.”

Vought spoke with an undercover reporter and an actor who were posing as relatives of a wealthy potential donor to his conservative think tank, The Center for Renewing America. The former director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Trump administration talked at length about his work on the secretive next phase of the project. 

“This year has been predominantly now getting ready for a year five of a Trump administration,” Vought said. “80% of my time is working on the plans of what's necessary to take control of these bureaucracies.” 

What does that specifically mean? Having the documents and game plan ready to go on Day 1 of the next Trump administration. 

“Not just, ‘Hey, we want to cut spending.’ … These are the directives on how we would go about doing it,” Vought explained. “And then you may say, ‘OK, all right, DHS, we want to have the largest deportation. What are your actual memos that a secretary sends out to do it?’” he continued. “Like, there's an executive order, regulations, secretarial memos. Those are the types of things that need to be thought through so you're not, you’re having to scramble to do that later on.”

He boasted that he is close enough to Trump to personally hand him these detailed plans for a second term. 

“There are people like me that have his trust that will be able to get it to him in whatever position we’re at,” Vought said. “The relationships will be there. The trust level will be there.”

Micah Meadowcroft, who is one of Vought’s close aides, spoke to the undercover reporter when he approached him at a conservative conference and asked for help arranging the meeting with Vought. Meadowcroft explained that this “second phase, after the [Project 2025] book came out, was to break down actual policy packets and executive orders and agenda items and things like that. And that's been supervised largely by Russ.” 

Those plans are secret and won’t be published, Meadowcroft said. Nor will they be distributed through official government channels.

“It's a big, fat stack of papers that will be distributed during the transition period, but not as part of the transition. Because obviously, you want as little of it to be FOIA-able … as possible,” Meadowcroft said, referring to the Freedom of Information Act, which allows anyone to request copies of official government documents. “So yeah, the goal is to familiarize all the transition team people with these plans. But you don't actually send them to their work emails. Because then, you know … they're FOIA-able.”

Vought also told the undercover reporters that he had closely coordinated with the Trump campaign in recent months, including on major “earned media” stories—meaning media coverage that isn’t paid for. He bragged about how he’s shaped and owned the conservative narrative for the past three years, telling elected Republicans what to say and getting the traditional media to gobble it up.

“So really, that's what we do, is we pick big national fights, throw a punch, win that debate, and then let the momentum flow to federal, state, and local levels,” he said, then went on to give examples.

“[W]e were the first group out there opposed to Ukraine aid,” Vought boasted.

At the national level, we will intricately manage that momentum. You know, “What is the specific bill that we want? What's the regulation?” At the state level, we will zoom in where strategic. And at the local level, it's primarily just a resource. So we may put out a school board manual, but we’re not gonna—we're going to win the debate so everyone's talking about critical race theory, and then it flows….

Our first year, our biggest priority was critical race theory. And there was others in the space that we were close to. But we were the ones that got politicians comfortable with talking about it from a race standpoint. And the president had said—this was an assignment I was given from President Trump—I had to figure out how to do it, “I'm the budget guy. If I can talk about race, you can talk about race.” So that was first year. Then the invasion was our strategy for second year. And then third year, really was—which was last year—was all taking every budget fight and reframing them around what I think is the bureaucracy—it's woke and it's weaponized.

Vought and his cronies have already set the narrative for this election cycle, and he has the puppets in Congress and in Trump to carry it out. He casts himself as a martyr for the conservative cause: He’s not expecting an appointment in Trump’s Cabinet, he says, because he’s made himself a target of the left. Vought brags that he’s “a major threat to the other side. And that's why they're coming after me in our Center as much as they have. Joe Biden went after, is going after me personally a number of times.” 

But he doesn’t need someone on the inside, he told CCR’s undercover reporter, because with enough money from deep-pocketed donors his organization will create “a shadow Office of Management and Budget, a shadow National Security Council and a shadow Office of Legal Counsel.”

 In other words: He and his accomplices will control the government from the outside, with Trump’s full support.

This is a “battle” for Vought and his team; he says it repeatedly. He’s not worried about Trump’s disavowals, and he knows the GOP presidential nominee is only saying he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025 because of politics and optics. 

That Vought and his team have set the agenda for the past three years of opposition to President Joe Biden shows his deep influence within the Republican Party. This newly unearthed evidence makes the project Democrats have taken on, to warn the public about Project 2025 as much as they can between now and Nov. 5, even more vital.

The Harris-Walz campaign is on it:

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